We can enhance athletic performance, lose weight with a pill and even take psychedelics to alter consciousness. At what point does all this self-optimization become self-obsession? When does it get in the way of our humanity itself? My guest this week is the German biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, who believes scientific breakthroughs to extend our lives — and even put us in touch with the divine — are close at hand.
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Ross Douthat: Christian Angermayer, welcome to Interesting Times.
Christian Angermayer: Thank you for having me.
Douthat: You’ve probably heard that recently, the pope put out an encyclical, a big document, on artificial intelligence. And one of the most striking passages in that document was a critique of what the pope called transhumanism. Basically, you could define it as the idea that a lot of the fundamental constraints that human beings face — aging, illness, mental suffering, maybe even mortality itself — are things that eventually technology, drugs, science can help us overcome.
I think that made me want to talk to you, because you’re an advocate of what you call the next human agenda, which includes enhancing human athletic performance, using psychedelics to alter human consciousness, and figuring out — just maybe — how to extend the human life span.
I’m interested in all this practically, and how it might change the world. I’m also personally interested in figuring out where I draw the line between breakthroughs that make us healthier and fitter, and breakthroughs where I might be on the pope’s more skeptical side. So that’s what we’re going to talk about.
Tell me first: What is the next human agenda, and how would you define your own philosophy?
Angermayer: I used to actually use the word “transhumanism.” Then I realized that people have a negative reaction, and I think because they also wrongly, not that they don’t understand it, but I think the association is — and again, I haven’t read the encyclical yet, I want to — but my gut feeling is that he falls into the same trap, where transhumanism makes people think: Oh, we’re humans now, and then we’re something else, because that’s obviously the Latin word, “trans.” And that creates a counterreaction, which I understand because that’s not what I want to say.
So I actually started using the word, which is now also very funny because it’s used in another funny context — “maxxing.”
Douthat: Maxxing. Oh, yeah. Humanmaxxing.
Angermayer: But it’s, like, human maximization. I don’t think we should become something different, because I think humans are awesome, but I think we can maximize the potential which is already in us.
So to your question, what we define as “next human agenda” is using technology, science and progress to really maximize both our physical appearance and our life, because it can also be something outside of us.
For example, A.I. and robotics will definitely minimize the need for human labor, in a positive way. A lot of people are frightened by that, but if you think it through, I think it can actually be a much more human society, because the question is, are we really meant to work 10 hours a day? Isn’t it more human being with friends and being a social animal?
In many ways, I think technology will both help us explore and sort of, yeah, improve — again, improve sounds like [unintelligible]. It’s just an add-on on our body and mind and on the world around us.
In short, I’m a very optimistic person where science and technology leads us.
Douthat: So give me just a couple of examples of the kinds of things that you’re invested in or involved in in this space, and then we’ll drill down into some of the subjects.
Angermayer: Well, the favorite one is always psychedelics. With a narrow view, they have the potential to really change how we treat mental health issues, which is already huge.
And it’s only growing, I think, because humans are very anti-change. And we will actually, in the next 10 years, go through the biggest change in the shortest period of time that humanity has ever had to do. This will create a lot of fear, and I think psychedelics can actually help really guide people or help them adjust humanity to a radically different future. So psychedelics is one thing.
I started two very successful longevity companies, where we work in slowing down and ultimately reversing what we colloquially call aging, which is not a single disease, but is more complex.
We’re doing a lot in A.I. and robotics. We’re also doing a lot in sports. Why sports? Because I believe — again, I deeply believe, I cannot see it differently — that A.I. and robotics will massively reduce the need for human labor. I can totally see a very positive society because I think that sort of attachment we have to “we must have a job” is a narrative that, yes, we gave it to ourselves as humanity over the last, I don’t know, 8,000 years because it was holding society together.
But if you go to an individual factory worker in China and say: “Hey, do you want to have the same quality of life and half of the work?” This person will say: “Yeah, like, tomorrow.”
Douthat: Then play becomes more important in that world?
Angermayer: Play, sport, entertainment, social stuff. I always say if I look at our spectrum, we have three tech and biotech areas. It’s biotech with a focus on longevity and mental health, then we do a lot in fintech and crypto, and then deep tech, which is space tech, A.I., robotics — that kind of stuff.
Then we have the two flip sides, or the two other sides — the physical ones — which is sports, entertainment and hospitality. We also do a bit in natural resources, mostly those which are used for A.I., from uranium — because I believe A.I. will only increase the need for power — to copper and stuff like that.
Douthat: All right. Let’s talk about what I think is the highest profile way that listeners might have encountered what you’re working on recently: The Enhanced Games, which is a mildly controversial, let’s say, sports competition billed as an alternative to the Olympics. And it encourages the use of legal performance-enhancing drugs, which obviously, the Olympics do not.
The inaugural games happened last month in Las Vegas, and we’re going to talk about what happened there. But first, just tell me the big vision and the pitch for the Enhanced Games.
Angermayer: You said it pretty well. The games itself are a sporting event which at the beginning has, and will always have, similar events like the Olympics.
We started with swimming, running and weight lifting. The big difference is that we allow — I want to phrase it even better — medically approved performance-enhancing drugs. My simple view is that neither should I be the arbiter of what is allowed and what is not, nor should WADA — the World Anti-Doping Agency — and the I.O.C. [International Olympic Committee] together.
We actually have an amazing agency which is very neutral, very scientific, and that’s the F.D.A. [the Food and Drug Administration]. So at the Enhanced Games, we say: Everything which is F.D.A.-approved is fair game. Everything which is not F.D.A.-approved is not allowed as well. So that’s our rule.
Douthat: Can you give an example, for people who know about this in the most general “steroids in baseball” kind of way, what’s something that falls on the approved side and what’s something that falls on the nonapproved side?
Angermayer: So what we allow is testosterone. Testosterone is medically approved. But you do it under medical supervision with our doctors together because we really prioritize health, not random rules like the I.O.C. does.
Angermayer: If you want to be an athlete in that Olympic world or a soccer player or whatever, you sign a personal contract and say: Look, I adhere to the WADA list.
Douthat: What, sorry, what is WADA?
Angermeyer: Oh, sorry. WADA is World Anti-Doping Agency.
So what we are saying is we have a different rule set, and we have a different arbiter, which in our case is the F.D.A. You also have to stick to their rules. Again, you cannot take crystal meth in the Enhanced Games, but you can take testosterone.
That’s why when a lot of people call us the “Doping Games,” it’s nonsensical because, in our case, they don’t break rules because we have a different rule set. They adhere to our rule set.
Douthat: But you paid them, to, right?
Angermayer: Exactly.
Douthat: That’s the other difference.
Angermayer: And that’s the real reason why the I.O.C. hates us. It’s not the doping.
Douthat: I’m sure that they hate you.
Angermayer: But it’s not the doping. They treat the athletes like props, like tools.
By the way, I’m all for the controversy, but I think the one thing people should agree with us about is that in these sports, the heart and soul are the athletes. Not me as the founder, not the viewers — they’re also very important, the fans — but the heart and soul of the sports are the athletes. And not paying them is perverse. It’s just not right — morally not right.
And the day after we made that point and said we’re paying them in a proper way, the I.O.C. president was literally asked if she believes that athletes should get paid, and she said in the most coldhearted way: I don’t think they deserve to be paid.
And I was like: Wow.
Douthat: Let’s talk about the day after and what actually happened at the games and the narrative around it, which I’m sure that you have some strong feelings on. Basically, one athlete on performance-enhancing drugs broke a world record. Nobody performed like Secretariat at the Belmont relative to other athletes. Three athletes who competed clean, I think, won their events.
Angermayer: Yeah.
Douthat: And that has led a lot of people to say: Well, this was a flop — because for it to succeed, you would have to show that you were actually radically enhancing human athletic performance, and it seems like you didn’t.
Angermayer: We did. By the way, again, I love to talk about controversy. The great thing is, with a sports event, every single controversy is good.
We measured the days of the event itself and the days around it, and we reached more than one billion original people, which is an insane number. About one-eighth of the world population have watched a clip — not the whole thing, but a clip — or something from the Enhanced Games, which I think, for a first-time sports event, is insane.
Actually, to answer your question from before — and it’s also the answer for this one, whether it was a flop or not — we had a very mixed group of athletes, and we wanted it like that, but maybe we didn’t perfectly communicate that.
We had three groups of athletes: We had natural ones, which I wanted, like Hunter Armstrong, a swimmer, to kind of poke at like: “Look, show us your cards. Do you really want to expel them?” So I wanted that group. The second group we had was a little bit older, athletes in their 30s. They were never out to break world records. They were actually racing against themselves.
Douthat: To show resilience?
Angermayer: Well, no — to show that we can reverse time. That isn’t what we want to discuss here, the big topic of enhancements. For you and me and everybody in this building, nobody here, with the best enhancements in the world, will ever break a world record.
Think about it. Breaking a world record is so elusive. If you break a world record, that means you’re better than eight billion people. But for you and me, it’s much more relatable to say: Wow, there is an athlete in their 30s.
Hopefully next year, we’ll have some athletes in their 40s and 50s, who are better than they had been in their prime.
Take Megan Romano: Mid-30s.
Douthat: What kind of athlete?
Angermayer: Swimming. And she was very famous in swimming in America — an American darling. And she was out there to break her own best time, which made her famous, like, 12 and a half years ago — and she did it.
Think about what that tells you. A 35-year-old with enhancements is a better version of themselves than they were at the peak of their career 12 and a half years ago.
Douthat: What was she taking?
Angermayer: Hormones. We can also talk about the details, that we’re thinking about it, but why we’re not doing a recipe for anybody.
Douthat: OK, so you’re not disclosing exactly.
Angermayer: We did the groups of drugs athletes are taking.
Douthat: OK. But not for each athlete.
Angermayer: Yeah. So the first group is natural athletes. Second group is ——
Douthat: Older athletes.
Angermayer: Again, older is, like, 35.
Douthat: Right. Younger than me. Yeah.
Angermayer: But for athletes out of their prime and retired. And then the third one is athletes like Kristian Gkolomeev, who is in his prime, one of the best swimmers in the world, and he got enhanced, and he broke the world record.
These are the three categories, and what we were not good at, in hindsight, was to really message that and say: Look, this is now a race where a world record can be broken because there is a prime athlete in his prime, and he’s enhanced.
Douthat: So in a sense then, for those of us who are not Olympic-level athletes or likely to become one, this becomes a larger advertisement for a world where you normalize testosterone replacement and other things across the life cycle as just what a normal person does. Is that the goal?
Angermayer: Yeah. So we want to first of all break the taboo and show that enhancements, if and when done medically, with medical substances, together with a doctor, can be very positive for you, and that they can be very positive for everybody.
Then I want to entice people to think about: What is the best version of yourself?
And that, by the way, can be a subjective answer. You might say you’re fine, this is the best version of you. Lucky you if you think that.
Douthat: Not everyone can be so fortunate, I understand.
Angermayer: Exactly. But maybe you would say: You know what? I’m 99 percent there, but the 1 percent I would like …
By the way, obviously everybody thinks now about performance and looks because of sports, but that’s only the start. Yes, weight loss, muscle — whatever. But you also have hair growth and sexual appetite ——
Douthat: Now you’re cutting me to the quick.
Angermayer: No, I don’t want to! Like, yeah, you have more sex, you want to feel more.
Do you want to be smarter, by the way? You’re a journalist. Maybe you want to read more, maybe read longer, maybe think more. So I think — and that is where we were at the very beginning — we should not just allow, but we should endorse, that’s what I’m doing with the Enhanced Games, humans to maximize their potential with the help of science, because we’ve been doing that for thousands of years! We’re just feeling a little bit weird at the moment because it’s medical drugs we’re putting in our body.
Douthat: Well, and it’s the scale and diversity of things. So if you’re offered, as an enhancement, caffeine and a few other substances, then you have some sense of: Well, I can go online and ask Claude to tell me about the risks and benefits of caffeine, how many cups a day, and so on.
But the world you’re in — and it’s a world of, yes, medications that are F.D.A.-approved, but sometimes they’re F.D.A.-approved for particular conditions ——
Angermayer: But still we don’t ——
Douthat: You can respond, but it’s also the world of the supplements that are sold without F.D.A. approval, that are legal, that don’t have, let’s say, an incredibly intense scientific grounding.
So you present people with this set of drugs, this set of supplements. There’s hundreds of them, there’s thousands of them. And people, on the one hand, might be sort of baffled by all the choices. On the other hand, they also might worry that you, Christian Angermayer, are not able to tell them with certainty what the long-term risks of this or that are.
How do you think about ——
Angermayer: It’s the opposite. I really ——
Douthat: OK. Good. Yes.
Angermayer: I want to actually get across the opposite.
Douthat: Yes.
Angermayer: Let’s go maybe one step back. What I fear — fear is a negative word, but if you look at the ——
Douthat: You can use negative words. It’s OK.
Angermayer: No, no, no. Wait. What I think is not right, like, the funny thing with the Enhanced Games is, we’re kind of getting attacked a little bit from both sides. We’re going to get attacked — I expected — from the I.O.C. But then there is the other side at the moment, which is, let’s call it, and I don’t want to call out single people, but, like, looksmaxxers.
There is so much [expletive] online, yeah? So I’m watching that, as a half scientist.
Douthat: Wait, are the looksmaxxers attacking you?
Angermayer: No, but these are the ones who were like: Why didn’t they allow anything? Why didn’t they put the people on crazy stuff, and then let’s see if they can literally fly?
Where I hope the world is going, and why I mentioned these looksmaxxers, is there is a clear demand positively. I would almost say it’s a cry for help from the consumer, that people want to improve their life with science.
And by the way, the positive cry for help, or the positive show of demand, are all these GLP-1s, all the weight loss drugs — Mounjaro, Ozempic.
Douthat: Yes.
Angermayer: By the way, last year they made more revenues than all the A.I. companies together. And more than 50 percent of the people who are using these weight loss drugs are not using them for what they are clinically intended for. They’re intended for diabetes and clinically obese people.
I’m on a GLP-1. Why? Because it’s outsourced discipline. I’m not clinically obese, hopefully.
Douthat: What is the cry for help? You just said there’s a cry for help. Is the cry for help ——
Angermayer: The positive thing is that now we have one category, which is the weight loss drugs. And look, it’s the biggest business out there.
Douthat: People want them. Yep.
Angermayer: And then you go online at all these looksmaxxing things, and they’re debating things. And it’s literally ——
Douthat: So it’s that people want the kind of optimization that you get from GLP-1s, and they want it in other areas?
Angermayer: Exactly. They want to have more muscles. They want to have more sex. They want to have more fun when they go out and party — whatever they want. And now we can decide as a society that we ridicule that, and then what happens is that we have more on fringes, let’s say neutrally ——
Douthat: People are breaking their jaws.
Angermayer: Who recommend very crazy stuff.
Douthat: You don’t recommend jaw breaking to attain what you have?
Angermayer: I do not recommend that. But what I’m saying is there is this demand, and I want to fill it scientifically.
And we have this amazing agency. The F.D.A. is a great institution. They really have a very high bar, I can tell you — doing drug development for 28 years. It’s a very high bar.
And my view is: Let’s use stuff which has already gone through that high bar — which, by the way, I want to say again because you insinuated that we don’t know the risk. We do know the risk. Because that is ——
Douthat: To be clear, we know risks of things that have passed the F.D.A. process, hopefully. I was also referencing, though, the world of supplements, herbal cocktails, these kind of things — which I should say, these include things that I myself have taken, not for looksmaxxing, but I had a period of my life when I had a severe chronic illness and just sort of wandered into the world of non-F.D.A. -approved stuff.
So I have an appreciation for what it can do. But we also don’t know a lot about what it does, right?
Angermayer: For some we do and don’t. And again, I want to also be the trusted source.
Douthat: Let’s get back to self-improvement. I mentioned that I’ve taken some weird supplements in the course of my life.
Angermayer: Happy to go through it. [Laughs.]
Douthat: What struck me with those — and these were essentially things that were supposed to treat infectious diseases — it was always my impression that they did things, but they did things on the margins.
It’s been my impression as an observer of enhancement that a lot of this stuff falls into those categories. It’s like, OK, you take these extra things while you work out, and they make your workouts 1 or 2 percent more efficient, and you bounce back 1 or 2 percent better, and so on.
And that’s meaningful. But it seems different from what Ozempic does. Ozempic is the first time where it’s not 1 percent better — it’s 10 percent better, and you don’t even have to do anything else. That, to me, seems like a big change in how people think about drugs, pharmaceuticals and personal enhancement.
So first, I wonder if you agree with that. Second, I want you to prophesy for a minute and tell me if you think Ozempic is just the first of many things, where it has that ease of transformation.
Angermayer: One hundred percent. And you’re hitting the best point — I always tell people there are very healthy supplements. As I said, we offer that as well.
But we always have to say, like, you maybe get 5 percent or whatever, but the supplements are the free sellable ones. They’re making you a bit better, which is already great, but they are not a wonder drug.
By the way, nothing is a wonder drug. I always predicted that we need to use real medical drugs that have a very tangible effect. And once that happens, once you take Ozempic and you lose like 15 percent, 20 percent of your weight, then you’re like: Wow, I want that. That’s great.
Let’s take a very simple enhancement drug for men, testosterone. I can tell you should try it out and then report on it on the podcast.
Douthat: You’ve suggested that. Yeah.
Angermayer: And by the way, we’re not selling anything for men that I don’t do myself.
Douthat: Well, I want to ask about what you do yourself ——
Angermayer: I can tell you with testosterone, it makes you feel more than 10 years younger as a man. Full stop.
With medical drugs that are already available today, we can make a massive improvement in performance, in weight, in appearance, similar to the amounts we see with Ozempic. And what I predict is, because the ice is now broken, every pharma company is like: Wow, I want that. I want those revenues.
And now they are saying or understanding — and what I am trying to say — after these 28 years is that, obviously, the market is much bigger if you have a total addressable market of ideally 100 percent, than only for cancer. We should always work on cancer as an industry, but luckily not everybody has cancer.
I’ve always said that in addition to curing things, the bad stuff, why don’t we also find things that everybody wants more or less. And that race is on now. Weight loss is still No. 1, but people are already looking now at muscle growth, beyond testosterone.
Douthat: Right. So you take a pill, you take an injection, and you still have to exercise, but your muscles increase radically without being in the gym every single day.
Angermayer: Exactly. So one of my private biotech companies is doing exactly that. We’re working on a drug. The mechanism is called AMPK activator. You actually lose weight and you gain muscles. You still have to train a bit, but much less. The holy grail would be if you don’t train at all.
Douthat: And then hair?
Angermayer: Hair loss is huge.
Douthat: So is that fixed? What’s the status of hair loss? I’ve tried not to pay attention to it.
Angermayer: [Laughs.] Currently, you can already do a lot with topical versions of finasteride. But ideally, you start them when it starts. So in your case, at the moment ——
Douthat: No, I’m not ——
Angermayer: OK. Sorry. But yeah ——
Douthat: In a hypothetical case, Christian.
Angermayer: In a hypothetical case, at the moment, you would still need to, if you have lost a lot of hair already, get the transplant and then make sure that it doesn’t fall out.
Douthat: OK. So we don’t have the regrowth drug yet.
Angermayer: But there are drugs in development that do that, and actually late stage — not from us. I would say, give it five years and there will be a hair regrowth drug on the market.
Another huge thing will be sex. If you want to see it like that, Viagra was actually the very first best-selling ——
Douthat: Right. That’s a good example.
Angermayer: We just didn’t call it that, but it is. Then came Ozempic.
But now it’s like: What’s the next leg up? One of my favorite companies in our biotech portfolio is a company called Kadence. It’s not listed. They work on premature ejaculation, which happens to more people — men — than you think.
Douthat: [Laughs.] Sorry. Sorry. Go on. Yes. Yes.
Angermayer: I think it’s 30 seconds. I can’t relate. So we actually are really out to cure it, and the drug we have in late stage is giving those men affected … More, but then we found out in the healthy group ——
Douthat: [Laughs.] Sorry, this is very serious. I’m just ——
Angermayer: It’s very serious. I tell you, we’re going to be back, and it’s going to be a huge market. And practically, so far, no big side effects.
So, sex is a big thing. And then my No. 1 is, like, happiness. What I’m trying to get across is that we have some illnesses, and that’s how the whole pharma world thinks so far. It’s black and white, where it’s very clear that having cancer is bad. It’s not the standard. Curing it means bringing you back to normal, and that’s it. There is no enhancement.
The same having a viral infection or a bacterial infection: It’s not normal. Let’s cure it. You’re back to normal.
But there are so many subjective things, and for me, it’s looks, happiness, sex, intelligence.
Douthat: What do you think women want in this landscape? We’ve been talking about male-pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction. Just give me an example of the female market.
Angermayer: But saying one thing is like — I can give you examples, which a lot of women tell me, but I don’t even want to generalize because my whole message is: It’s up to you.
A lot of people think this is pushing people more into body conformity. I think the moment we make it easy to achieve, the world will become more diverse. Because if you go ——
Douthat: Because right now, temporarily, there is the phenomenon of the Jenner family who all seem to have ended up with the same face. There are certain convergences in looks that you get under these conditions.
Angermayer: Yes, because it’s still hard to access because it’s expensive. Their look is not a therapeutic use of drugs; their use is operational, which is very expensive. But if that were available to everybody, I don’t think we would all want to look the same.
Douthat: You don’t think there would be convergence?
Angermayer: No, I think about that a lot. I love history, and if you go into history, the beauty standard of each time was always the hardest to get. A lot of beauty standards are indirectly signaling that you have money. Practically, what you’re signaling, if I’m very trained, if I’m thin — whatever — I have the time to do that.
In the medieval ages, for example, the beauty standard was very pale. Why? The peasants had to work outside, so they were very tanned. Only the rich ladies could stay behind in their castles and be very pale, so being pale was the unobtainable thing.
Douthat: And then being on the beach becomes the thing that rich people do. And tanned. So it switches.
Angermayer: Exactly. Exactly.
Douthat: But there’s still a standard. I mean, human beings are mimetic. It’s just hard for me ——
Angermayer: But what I’m saying is: If we make everything fairly easy, is that not actually opening up the window, because people are not seeing it as something unobtainable?
So, going back to your question about women: First of all, sex. It’s very unfair. Men at least have Viagra. Women don’t really have something. So many women I’m talking to are like: Hey, I want to feel pleasure.
And it’s always, by the way, connected to women’s health and well-being, and the No. 1 thing they’re all citing is: Menopause sucks. We want something for sexual pleasure, which we don’t have at the moment.
Douthat: And with menopause, does that include extending fertile years?
Angermayer: Both. Some want that. We have a biotech company which is working on that. But it can also be like, OK, you’re not fertile anymore, but you don’t have all the downsides going through menopause.
Douthat: Right. And how do you get to mass access for this stuff?
Angermayer: The same as Ozempic has done. Bring it to the F.D.A. so that people don’t try sketchy [expletive] they’re ordering from China because they heard it from an influencer.
Douthat: So no Chinese peptides, only all-American peptides?
Angermayer: Yes, because it’s also ——
Douthat: Or European Union peptides, right?
Angermayer: So you need to know the science, and then obviously you need to know that what you ordered is what you want to have.
And by the way, for the peptide market, it’s a long story because, again, there I’m fairly conservative. First of all, there are peptides that are already F.D.A. approved. I’m actually hoping they’re not going overboard, because there is a lot of stuff on it which I would call interesting. So I would like to learn more, I would like to see more science, but I would not put it in my body.
That’s where we as the Enhanced Games want to draw the line, and that’s what I want to message all the time. I want to give people the freedom because they deserve it, but freedom only makes sense if you have knowledge, otherwise it’s idiocy.
Douthat: So what are you putting in your body?
Angermayer: So the sentence before, my whole message is it’s scientific and you have to do it with a doctor. Because what is right for me — I’m 48 — even if a 48-year-old man is listening, saying: Even for that person — meaning he can maybe take as the closest sort of comparison ——
Douthat: Right. We’re going to imagine this: We’re watching television and this conversation comes with the immense bar at the bottom of the screen ——
Angermayer: Only go to a doctor. I want you ——
Douthat: The endless disclaimers ——
Angermayer: But just for example ——
Douthat: And you don’t have to tell me everything. Just give me a sense of your regimen.
Angermayer: No, there’s nothing I wouldn’t tell you.
Douthat: OK, good.
Angermayer: I’m really an open book. So testosterone is one thing. Since my 30s, I’ve been doing T.R.T. [testosterone replacement therapy]. By the way, very, very mild. I know exactly where my testosterone level was at 30, and I’m keeping it there.
And I don’t even think about it. But when I talk to friends who go to the gym and they’re 48 and they’re training and they have sore muscles for days, I’m like, I don’t have that. I’m really training exactly the same way, and it feels the same way.
So then, I’m taking GLP-1s because I’m a stress eater. Even if I have good stress, even if I have a fun day. If I’m busy, I’m like: Oh, here’s a cookie, there’s a cookie — and then I gain weight.
Douthat: [Chuckles] Happens to all of us.
Angermayer: But GLP-1s switched it off. I haven’t eaten today because I was busy, but now ——
Douthat: Do you find that they remove any nonfood compulsions? Like, do you feel like they’ve changed your personality in other ways?
Angermayer: Not for me. It’s a good point. But again, that’s why I say do it with a doctor.
So observe yourself. There is this side effect people report. Sometimes it’s a happy side effect.
Douthat: Right. People will say: I’m no longer addicted to scrolling social media on my phone — to pick a hypothetical problem.
Angermayer: Exactly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do that for me. I am addicted to that. Like, I try and my partner is like: Yes, he is. He’s trying and it doesn’t work for him.
Douthat: We’re all trying.
Angermayer: For me, it does what it should do. It just reduces my craving or my stupid like, “Oh, I’m eating a cookie.” So I have that.
I’m taking DHEA, which is a hormonelike substance. I’m taking pregnenolone. I’m taking a lot of things for sleep, actually.
And let me say, people always want to know from me, and this is exactly what we’re debating now: What medications can we take? It all just makes sense if you cover your basics, and the basics are five things in life for health. And sleep is No. 1. Get your sleep in order.
Second is social relations. Super cheap and super hard at the same time. Have a great life. Enjoy it. Have friends, have family.
Third one is no drugs. You laugh now, maybe, that it’s coming from me. But I hate drugs — the negative version of it. And I think the No. 1 drug which should not be even allowed is alcohol. It destroys everything. Alcohol is the worst, and it’s spiritually a path to hell. That’s my view. I’ve never touched it, and I will never.
Douthat: Marijuana?
Angermayer: I have not touched it. I would not. Makes you dumb. There are medical use cases, but again, everything is always a trade-off. If I had a medical use case where marijuana helped, maybe I would do it. But I clearly see the side effects, which especially when you’re younger, if you do it a lot, it does reduce your intellect — a little bit — for life. And why would I [expletive] do that?
So I have not tried any recreational drug except for coffee. And psychedelics, but that’s another topic.
Douthat: We’ll get to that in a sec.
Angermayer: But everything else I think is bad. So don’t touch it. No alcohol, no cigarettes, no smoking, no marijuana.
Go to the gym two, three times a week. Do a little bit of cardio, do a little bit of weight training.
And then food intake — be mindful of that as well. We’re always talking about the risks of drugs, and at the same time people are like, “Sugar is super bad for you.” So have a Mediterranean diet.
These are the five basics. And they, I would say, account for 70 or 80 percent of your well-being, aging, whatever. And if you cover those basics, then enhancements actually add on. That’s just the concept.
I do a lot of supplements for sleep to improve that. I do one medical drug for sleep, which is called Quviviq, which regulates the wake-sleep mechanism. At the moment, you have orexin drugs which promote sleep, like Quviviq, and the great thing is they give you more deep sleep. That’s what you really want.
Douthat: You need core.
Angermayer: You need core. And interestingly, in older people, they might actually reduce the risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s, which is a theory I’ve always believed in. Older people unfortunately get less and less deep sleep on average, so it was always a hypothesis I was looking at: If we give people more deep sleep, could that be prevented?
And it seems to be, so I’m taking that.
Douthat: You mentioned Alzheimer’s. Take me into the longevity debate and how you think about that. Prior to Ozempic, I had the sense that lots of interventions made a difference on the margins, and then Ozempic comes along and seems to make a really big difference.
My impression of all of the debates about longevity and anti-aging stuff at this moment is that people are doing 17 different supplements and avoiding direct sunlight and so on, and in the end, maybe it’s going to add 13 months to their average life span or something.
Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s my impression. Do you have an expectation that you are doing or will be doing things that will actually add meaningfully to what your life span would be even if you were healthy?
Angermayer: Yes. So, first of all, you’re right. At the moment, there is nothing you can take — again, there could always be the outlier statistics — but there is nothing which would make people live 10 years longer. But it’s going to come.
I’ll give you a different view. Let’s start aging better already. We need to dissect life expectancy, so how long do we live, and then quality of life. So already — we just talked about this — the quality of life, I think, can now be easily improved for every person on the planet, by 10-plus years.
At the same time, I think now, in the future, like in the next 10 years, we’re also going to see breakthroughs in life expectancy, so try to be alive.
By the way, the number ——
Douthat: If you want.
Angermayer: If you want.
Douthat: If you want the extra.
Angermayer: The No. 1 thing at the moment that is maybe just a practical thing, because it’s not a medication, is checkups.
I’m doing a blood cancer screening where you get your blood drawn, and I’m doing it every three months. I’m maybe a little bit obsessive.
Douthat: I mean, I did just get a colonoscopy, so I feel virtuous for that.
Angermayer: Great. I do that every two years.
Douthat: But yeah, I am not good at keeping up with checkups for reasons that I want to get into at the end.But now I want to ask about psychedelics. Where does the mind and consciousness alteration fit into this?
Angermayer: Oh, in so many ways. First of all, hopefully I get it across that I really think this was the beginning of our debate. I think life is awesome. It’s exciting.
Douthat: We’re not having a debate.
Angermayer: No, I know.
Douthat: This is ——
Angermayer: But I just wanted to say, that’s where my point comes in. I realized sometime that I have had this luck literally as long as I’ve been alive, and I really, really credit my parents. I come from this very small farm village, and I’m always fairly happy. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have bad days, but my baseline is happy.
At some point I realized that is not normal, and I think it’s very sad. Life is awesome, but obviously you need to be happy and healthy to enjoy it. We’ve covered the health part, but life without happiness is not good.
That’s why the baseline of psychedelics is that they have the potential to really massively, massively improve the mental health of people who have a medical issue, which is a lot.
Douthat: Meaning depression?
Angermayer: Depression, anxiety.
Douthat: PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]?
Angermayer: Addiction.
Douthat: But in this terrain, just to be clear, we’re not in the realm of things that are all F.D.A. approved. Right?
Angermayer: Yes and no. The amazing thing is, I’ve been saying that for 10 years, but I’ve always had to add: We’re going to prove that out.
I helped start two companies, Atai and Compass. Both are listed. Both companies together raised more than $1.5 billion. I put in more than $100 million of my own capital. And now we’re there.
Compass has released Phase 3 data, which is the last final stage.
Douthat: For which?
Angermayer: For treatment-resistant depression. But then they have ——
Douthat: With which psychedelic?
Angermayer: Sorry, Compass is psilocybin.
Douthat: OK.
Angermayer: Which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. And then Atai is doing all the other psychedelics.
We just had phase 2B data for 5-MeO-DMT, which was maybe the best data set in neuroscience in like 30 years. It’s amazing.
Douthat: Sorry, for which is it?
Angermayer: 5-MeO-DMT, which is another psychedelic. They have several psychedelics.
Douthat: Is that equivalent to the DMT that is in ayahuasca? What’s the connection?
Angermayer: Very colloquially said, it’s a stronger version. It’s a different molecule. It’s in the same family.
Douthat: OK, it’s in the same family.
Angermayer: We also do DMT. Atai is doing 5-MeO-DMT, which is actually what people colloquially call “the toad,” if you have heard it.
Douthat: Yes.
Angermayer: Then, as Atai, we do DMT, which is colloquially what you take when you do ayahuasca.
Douthat: But you can do DMT without doing ayahuasca, right?
Angermayer: Actually we do it buccal, which is a much shorter trip, because I think if you do it medically in the medical system, the shorter the better.
I have to add, I believe psychedelics should be not only medically approved, but they should only be taken together with a clinician. So it’s a narrower approval.
For example, what we discussed so far are prescription drugs. You have to go to a doctor, consult, but then testosterone you can take home or get an injection or whatever. But psychedelics, my vision — and also where we agree, because the F.D.A. has the same vision — is they should be used only together with a clinician because the session can be very intense.
Douthat: Yes. I’ve heard that.
Angermayer: And you should do it with somebody who’s educated, and that’s how it unfolds the biggest, the therapy effect.
Long story short, psychedelics are about to be approved. You’re going to see psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — you’ll be able to take it with your doctor next year. It’s going to happen now. There was just a presidential order which just stated the obvious because it wasn’t needed actually — a different topic
And all the other psychedelics we’re developing — DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, ibogaine, a new version of MDMA — are going to come, I would say, over the next three to five years to market.
Douthat: And which are the ones that you have taken yourself or that you take now?
Angermayer: So I regularly do psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. Regularly means I do it once, maximum twice a year with a therapist together in a country where it’s already legal. So I do it the proper way, and how it will be in the United States hopefully next year or end of this year.
I have done 5-MeO-DMT. I’ve done DMT. I’ve actually done our entire pipeline except the ibogaine.
Douthat: All right. So what happens to you when you do psilocybin?
Angermayer: Wow. That’s always the most complicated question.
Douthat: Yes. Well, I’m going to ask about DMT, too, but I want to ask about both, as someone who has never taken either and finds the literature on them very interesting.
Angermayer: I’ll give you two answers. I’ll give you the personal one second, and I’ll give you the medical one first. And I’ll try to simplify it.
For all the psychedelics, one of the big effects is we have a part of our brain where our consciousness seems to be created, at least our sense of ego. Consciousness is already a tricky term. I’m going through a minefield of tricky terms.
Douthat: Right. Sense of the boundaries of the self.
Angermayer: Yeah, and ego. Not in the sense of, “Oh, somebody has a big ego,” but like ego in your sense of self. And that default mode network is reduced to really shut down.
The initial reaction of people is: “Oh, who am I when my ego is gone?” The interesting answer is, and I can try to make it very neutral, and I can give you my Christian answer, because I’m personally very spiritually religious, which is I want to make a clear divide.
And that’s the great thing with psychedelics. We can go through F.D.A. and don’t need to use the words “God” and “soul” and all of that because we show ——
Douthat: Right. But this is a safe space for using those words.
Angermayer: No, and I like it. I’m just always making clear there are certain things we know about psychedelics, and the great thing is we know that much of it is so easily going to be F.D.A. approved.
Side note, the side effect profile is also super benign. Yeah, people have headaches, vomiting. Some people have a high heart rate. Again, I don’t want to be too easygoing because everything has side effects and everything is a trade-off. If you drink coffee, your body will display some side effects. You just know them. But we’ve shown that they have generally mild side effects.
Douthat: Right. But back to the feeling itself. So your sense of ego and self weakens.
Angermayer: And then something else is there. You can call it your subconsciousness, you can call it your soul, your inner voice, whatever. Your brain or your head is not empty, so to say. And that is the moment which allows you to work through whatever the reason for your mental health issue is.
For me — again, it’s more like my personal opinion, because I’m also chairman of a biotech company publicly — but my personal opinion is that there are certain root causes for mental health issues.
Trauma is very widely talked about, but there’s also others like loss of connections, grieving, getting obsessed with negativity in your life. And depending what the root cause is, my subjective answer is that the beauty of all psychedelics is they show you the right answer or the right antidote to whatever your root cause is.
I’ll give you two examples. For many people, their root cause is the simplest one, and the most common one is they don’t even know what makes them happy. We’re living in a world where we don’t embrace that, we don’t allow people to explore and communicate and express.
And that is one of the biggest groups of patients I see throughout all psychedelics. They go on a psychedelic trip, they come out, and they’re like: I know now what I want and that I deserve it, and I should do it.
Douthat: But you’re doing this, not all the time, but frequently, right?
Angermayer: Well, once or twice a year. That, I think, is the right cadence.
Douthat: But are you resetting and figuring out how your true self is changing? Like, what is the maintenance effect?
Angermayer: Let’s start with my first trip. The great thing for me is that it was very confirmatory. So I went into that, and I came out of it and was like: OK, the only two things …
Again, why I did this whole pre-thing, because it sounds so banal. Everything I’m telling people about how psychedelics work and what psychedelics teach you can read in a Deepak Chopra book or talk to your parents. You can also read the Bible. We have all these things out there which show us how to lead a good, happy life.
In Germany, we say it goes in the right ear and goes out the left ear, meaning you don’t listen to it truly. And on psychedelics, because your ego is reduced, it’s like you experience this kind of truth at a very, very deep absolute level, and you come out of it and you have the courage to live according to it.
In my case, though, it was very confirmatory.
Douthat: What was the revelation of your first trip?
Angermayer: Very simple: I’m doing exactly what I love. I’m blessed. Why? Because I always structure my life. Why would I do anything different? I don’t even understand how people can do things they don’t love. Because then, don’t do it.
And now people say that Christian is very fortunate because he’s very successful — no. I decided that very early, and then I became successful because I’m very sure about that.
The second was, though — and it’s so cheesy — it’s all about love. It’s like, yeah, you can have a lot of money. In my case, I like to build companies, so the message was: Do that, but make sure that you have enough time for your parents — because if life goes as normal, they’re going to be gone before me, and I have a great relationship with them, and I’m so grateful.
Since then, I spend more time with my parents. I make enough time. It’s so simple, people might say: OK, I could have told you that without a psychedelic trip.
But I want to really get across that you experience this on that deep level where you’re like: Wow, that’s it.
Douthat: So with DMT, which is in ayahuasca, which is a drug that has a whole sort of shamanic culture that’s grown up around, my understanding — and this is, I’m sure, a crude generalization — is that magic mushrooms, and things like them, induce some version of this sense of dissolution of self, oneness with the universe, self-knowledge, and so on.
DMT — ayahuasca — gives you a more extreme experience, where it feels like you are entering different levels of reality, encountering other entities and beings. People talk about angels. People talk about the machine elves — which people listening can Google if they’re interested — and just have a sense that it’s more like they are leaving this plane and entering another plane.
I’m curious. First, is that your experience? And second, there’s a lot of people who have what you might call kind of hellish experiences, especially in that they’re plunged into a sort of purgatorial landscape where they feel like they’re cut off from God and reality and so on.
Is my reading accurate, basically?
Angermayer: Yes and no. We need to dissect because it’s many things.
First of all, let’s stay with DMT. When people drink DMT — and that’s what it’s called, ayahuasca — it’s a very, very different sort of experience. It’s up to eight hours.
When I say we do DMT, we do it buccal.
Douthat: Meaning in your cheek.
Angermayer: Yeah, in your cheek. It could also be intranasal. It’s anything transmucosal.
Then it’s a much faster experience. From start to end, it’s about two hours. And it’s very different from ayahuasca, even though it’s the same ingredient.
Douthat: How is that experience different from magic mushrooms?
Angermayer: So that’s the second answer. A lot of people make the differentiation you just made and say: Oh, under DMT, ayahuasca — so oral or drinking version or transmucosal version or 5-MeO-DMT — you see entities. You go through, or perceive, another plane of existence, if you want to say it like that.
Mushrooms is more gentle. Most of them have done mushrooms recreationally, so they take fairly little. So I always ask people: When you had this experience, were you able to walk and speak properly? Most people say: Yeah, kind of. It was great. I did it on a beach, in a country where it’s legal.
But it’s a mild dose. The therapy dose, they’re actually much closer together. With the therapeutic dose of psilocybin, people also have a very spiritual experience. The nuance is different, but again, they’re much closer together than when you compare a very strong DMT dose to a very recreational psilocybin dose.
Douthat: Tell me what happens. If you take the therapeutic dose of magic mushrooms, or you’re taking this more condensed dose of DMT, do you feel like you’re on another plane of existence?
Angermayer: Yeah. For the sake of compliance, let’s say we’re leaving science now and we’re coming now to my personal opinion.
Douthat: Yeah.
Angermayer: So I do believe that psychedelics are opening up our … Again, I’m only struggling because I know that when I use religious terms, maybe religion is the one thing we don’t think a lot about, but it’s very loaded.
If I use the word “God” or “soul,” everybody has a view, and it’s not necessarily what I want to say with it. I’m just giving that as a disclaimer.
But I do think psychedelics ——
Douthat: But it’s what I want to hear about.
Angermayer: Yeah, and I’m happy to hear. I’m just trying to make it the most accurate and not repel people.
Douthat: Right. And the disclaimer would be, you think people will have experiences and get these results even if they think and are sure that it’s all happening just inside their heads, right?
Angermayer: Yes. That will be proven. But when I read the personal questionnaires of the patients, which we also ask of them, this is all a very spiritual experience. Some people might not call it that.
I have a friend who’s actually — big shout-out, because he was my first sort of shaman on my very first trip. He would call himself, although he does psychedelics, an atheist. But then when I talk to him, it’s like: “You’re not an atheist. You just don’t like the word ‘religious.’ You believe in something bigger.”
I think there is no real atheist, or very, very few. I would almost claim that you cannot be a real atheist after you take psychedelics because everybody comes out and has these, let’s call it spiritual for now, or religious, very deep experience, that there is more.
Douthat: I mean, there’s data on this, as I understand it. At least with what I’ve read about DMT, it is similar to the data on near-death experiences, where you have a substantial number of people where they do a study and they ask, “Are you an atheist or materialist?” and they say yes going in.
And there is — maybe not with everyone, maybe not with your friend — but there is often this change of metaphysical perspective.
Angermayer: What I’m saying is he also ——
Douthat: He also has it, right. He just doesn’t want to say it.
Angermayer: But that is what people have. They have a very deep spiritual experience. Some people meet entities.
Do I personally believe? Yes, because I’m spiritually religious.
Douthat: Have you met entities?
Angermayer: Yes.
Douthat: Tell me about it.
Angermayer: I met God. Like, every single time.
Douthat: Tell me what that was like.
Angermayer: It’s indescribable, because that is the ——
Douthat: [Laughs, sighs] OK.
Angermayer: No, by the way, suddenly ——
Douthat: Sir, this is a podcast. Everything is describable.
Angermayer: Yes, I’m trying. I just give you the word, that it is undescribable, because that is the nature of God. When you suddenly ——
Douthat: So this is apophatic theology, which is the term for when human concepts fail.
Angermayer: One hundred percent. Obviously, we have to bring it across in a podcast, and you can say you don’t want to answer. Have you done it?
Douthat: No. No. And I’ll tell you why in a second.
Angermayer: You’re actually a good counterpart because I’m trying to explain it to somebody. Otherwise, people are immediately like: I know what you mean — because everybody has the same experience.
It’s practically like you read the Bible, where you can’t make a picture of God. It is like that. God is so much bigger and so much out of our comprehension that we have in this incarnation. I also believe we have an eternal soul. I believe we’re going to go forever. And it’s just so far out of our comprehension.
But on psychedelics, you’re going into a state of consciousness which allows you to comprehend the nature and, let’s say, the divine and to communicate with it.
And it was the most loving, best experience I’ve had. By the way, not always fun. I can tell you, people I work with have had the hardest bad trips. Like you said — the hellish ones.
Douthat: Right. And people report entities that are darker inside.
Angermayer: So I think a majority of what people would call bad trips is because they’re not prepared for it.
I can tell you about a very hard story I witnessed, with a very positive ending, and they were good because somebody was sitting next to them and guiding them. If that happened to you at a festival, you might find it was the worst experience you ever had because — and it sounds so simple — but I tell you, in psychedelics, with set and setting, it’s the way you know you’re safe and that you’re expecting it to a certain degree, and that you have somebody next to you.
Douthat: But to the extent that you actually believe that this opens doors — you’re not just locked into your head having this experience, you’re opening a door to the infinite — you don’t think that it’s possible to open that door and have something dangerous waiting on the other side?
Angermayer: That is one of the best questions, because I never had it in a podcast.
Douthat: Well, this is the special thing about “Interesting Times.”
Angermayer: This is maybe the one question I ask every religious leader I meet: How do you make sure, if you’re on the religious side — again, this is not science — that you’re meeting God and not a misleading entity?
Douthat: Yes.
Angermayer: If you want to simplify it.
Douthat: I have some concerns about the misleading entities. Yes.
Angermayer: So, I’m thinking about that an incredible amount, because ——
Douthat: But you don’t feel like you’ve met a misleading entity?
Angermayer: No. And the reason is, I think, how do I phrase it? Again, this always sounds cheesy for the ones who want to make fun of it, but I do believe that ultimately, not just life is good, but God is good. And if you go and have a sincere problem which you’re bringing toward God, then he/she/it will always answer.
That is my deep sort of religious belief, that these psychedelics are meant to open that up. God gave it to us for a reason. And because God — again, personal belief — gave us psychedelics, he wants us to discover Him in that way if you’re ready for it. That is my spiritual answer.
This is why it’s so important to go into it with exactly that intention. This is why, if I go back, and the right answer to your question is to also look how others have done it, all religions — Christianity, who used a lot of psychedelics ——
Douthat: That’s a separate podcast conversation, but we’ll let the claim hang there.
Angermayer: All the pagan religions — all the ones who are still out now, like the nature religions in the Amazon — they all make sure that you go into it with that intention and preparation.
And then I think the answer is — what’s the quote in the Bible? If you ask God for something, He will always answer. But if you ignore the power of these substances, and if you do it in a non-intentional setting, I think you can accidentally meet other entities.
But I cannot go with that argument to the F.D.A. ——
Douthat: Right. They won’t listen to this podcast. Don’t worry.
Angermayer: No, but the good thing is I can come to the same conclusion with science.
A lot of people say I’m a hypocrite because, again, I’m trying to stay in the middle lane. I deeply believe these very powerful substances should be available. But I don’t believe at all, and especially for psychedelics, that they should be sold in a marijuana shop, because it can go terribly wrong.
I can give you the scientific answer why it can go wrong, because if you uncover a trauma and you’re whatever, then it can make it worse. And I can give you the religious answer that if you go into it without the preparation … But if you go into it with a pure heart, if you’re going into it with a good intention, and if the intention is to solve your problem, I think God will be there, because He gave us these substances. That is my personal religious belief.
Douthat: OK. I really appreciate you answering me directly. And just to bring us to the end, I want to sort of, I guess, offer my own Christian reasons for skepticism about these substances that I think connect to some reasons for skepticism about the quest for greater human potential overall.
You said something earlier like: The message that “God is love” is there in the Bible, and it’s there in Deepak Chopra, and it’s there in Oprah Winfrey — and so on. I agree with that. But I think that there’s a lot of spiritual thought and practice nowadays that starts with the assumption that if you find it in the depths of your soul, it’s probably basically good.
And I feel like Christianity starts from a somewhat different perspective and says: The depths of your soul are also divided. Human beings are divided. We have an angelic side, and we have a fallen side.
But then, the encyclical that I started with, and I know you haven’t read it — you don’t have to read it to respond to this — the pope says something basically like: There are certain kinds of suffering, certain kinds of experiences, embodied experiences, experiences of difficulty, heartbreak, sorrow, disease, death itself, that human beings are supposed to go through.
And again, I should say, I’ve had Christian friends who have had conversion experiences based on psychedelics, so I’m not denying that they can have positive effects. But as a consistent practice of a culture, you’re stepping outside. You’re sort of leaving the trials of the flesh behind.
And then in the same way, everything else that you have talked so eloquently about, it’s like we’re escaping it, the suffering, the things we’re supposed to go through. We’re maxxing out.
I just worry about human vanity. Isn’t vanity a problem here? Isn’t ego a problem here that you don’t necessarily escape just by getting to the depths of yourself?
Anyway, that’s a ramble.
Angermayer: No, I love it. I love it.
Douthat: Just give me a response.
Angermayer: I always want to talk about it, because there are two answers. Let’s come to psychedelics, say, on the enhancement side, on the physical enhancement side.
Douthat: Yeah. On the physical side.
Angermayer: Actually, I thought about it because I’m deeply religious, or spiritual. Again, I only say spiritual because I’m Christian, but I kind of think ——
Douthat: You have some heterodox ideas, I think it’s fair to say.
Angermayer: And I’ll get to the Catholic Church in a second — not to this encyclical, because I haven’t read it, but to what’s missing.
I think what all religions did — by the way, this would be a separate podcast, and I’m doing a lot of research there and financing a lot of research — most religions are built on psychedelics.
And I can see it, by the way. I read the entire Bible, I read the Quran, because I’m interested in it. And once you read it with the eye of having done psychedelics, you clearly see where the psychedelic influence is.
Douthat: No, but wait. Wait, wait, wait. I can’t let that go. Couldn’t that just be that psychedelics give you, through a drug, a spiritual experience that people in the Bible or the Quran or wherever else are getting direct from God?
Why does it have to be that they’re — like, I agree there’s ——
Angermayer: Great. Hopefully we have a little bit more time because I love this debate.
So, a discussion. Because, for example, I financed a very important and, I think, very good study, a completely different thing because I believe somewhere we’re going to use psychedelics for peace negotiations. Totally.
One of the things, and we showed it, is that in all these conflicts in Israel and Palestine and Rwanda, they are dehumanizing the other side. And when I talk to politicians at the moment, most of them are like: Ah, they manipulate me.
What we did is we had a group of Palestinians and a group of Jews trip together. And they all went in and were like: Oh, when I come out, are you going to give the land away? — That was the manipulative worry they had.
What actually happened, which is much more beautiful, I think, is they came out and said: It’s such a complicated debate. I want to live here. But for the first time, I see that the other person is a human with a family. He’s like me, and they just want to live and make a good life for their family, and I want to find a solution.
They didn’t find a solution, but I think it was a great answer because it was not compelling them, both sides, to leave the land. It gave them the understanding that there is a human on the other side, which if you read it, you’re like, “What did they think before?”
Douthat: All right, this is good, though. This will sharpen my question. In the New Testament, Jesus does want people to have a direct relationship to God, to pray, to call God “Father.” There’s clearly a strong thread of mystical experience running through the whole New Testament.
But, how shall I put this? Jesus is not humanmaxxing. Everything Jesus is talking about is giving up your body for other people. This is something I fail at, by the way. I’m not holding myself up as a paragon of this. But you’re giving your possessions away, and you’re also sort of giving of your physical form.
And I think the worry, whether it’s the pope or me sitting here talking to you now, is that there’s a combination of maxxing of the body and sort of spiritual escape that risks getting away from that fundamental obligation.
That’s my question. Don’t we risk getting away from fundamental obligations? Like, just in your examples. I’ve got a lot of kids. I don’t have time to do certain maxxing things or even to think about certain maxxing things, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
Angermayer: So first of all, there’s two different answers for psychedelics. Let’s call it mindmaxxing, if you want to call it that.
To finish that, I also want to say everything I just said, you can actually achieve without psychedelics. I’m not the one who says, “Hey, this is the only way.” Religions have all developed various techniques — meditation, prayer, whatever.
My critique is, and it’s my biggest critique as a Catholic: They traded away the mystical experience and the direct relationship to God and helping people to achieve that, even without psychedelics.
I want people to have that because I think that is the core of having a relationship with God, and they traded that away for power and organization. And they made themselves very hollow.
So yes, it’s important that the pope says something about A.I., but I don’t think we need the pope for that. I want the pope to give much deeper answers, much more spiritual answers, on the condition of being human. And I think they lost it.
And it’s sad because I think people deeply, deeply need that and long for it, especially in a world which is changing. Again, coming back to that, we need religion. We deeply need it.
Douthat: OK. So that’s the mindmaxxing side. Now talk about the bodymaxxing. Am I doing something wrong, maybe, by letting myself get a little bit fat and ignoring my lost hair ——
Angermayer: Yes, but ——
Douthat: In the service of trying to be a good journalist and a good husband and father, and not have that be in my mind all the time?
Angermayer: OK. I’m giving you a personal answer. You asked in terms of ——
Douthat: I want a personal answer. Yes.
Angermayer: So you have children. How many?
Douthat: Yes, I have five children.
Angermayer: You have five children. How old?
Douthat: They are anywhere from 15 to 2.
Angermayer: So you want to be there as long as you can. You’re a tiny bit overweight. It’s putting a toll on you.
[Douthat laughs.]
No, it’s storing inflammation.
Douthat: Yep.
Angermayer: It’s increasing your risk for cardiovascular disease. And you have a responsibility, I believe, to the kids you put in this world, to be there in a healthy state for them because I believe in family.
Douthat: But maybe not the hair. I can leave the hair alone.
Angermayer: Maybe not the hair. But if it makes you a happier dad? It’s not that I’m saying we all should do that. I think there are people who, if they do X, it makes them happier, and I want them to be happy. Because it’s only if you are happy that you can make other people happy. If you’re miserable, you’re going to make other people miserable.
So be happy, have a connection with God, and be healthy, because that is the basis, and then you can be the good force in life to whomever you want — to your children, to your wife, to your readers, or whatever.
So, it’s not a conflict. People always want to talk up that conflict and make it egocentric or whatever. It’s not at all.
Douthat: But you would admit it’s a conflict for some people. It’s why I struggle with it myself, that there is a balance between healing and seeking health, which I think Christians, people who believe in God, are absolutely required to do.
But then there’s also the perils of vanity, narcissism and egocentrism that I think whatever psychedelics may or may not do are sort of carried in the train of personal improvement.
Angermayer: I hear you. And I think if some people become narcissistic or very vain, then it is a treatable issue itself, and then I would say go to psychedelics. But I don’t think that people who just want to be the best version of themselves should be called that.
I’ve never had a podcast where the other side was also a Christian believer. So I guess you believe the term “child of God” is an accurate one. Like, are we God’s children?
Douthat: Yes, with some theological debate behind it. But yes.
Angermayer: I think sometimes that the theological intellectual debate is the wrong one, but I think maybe it’s the real one. Like, maybe you should take things more literally.
Because I was thinking: Why do I like biotech so much? Or not even me. Forget about me. Why are we humans so curious? Why do we want to invent?
There is this drive. Like, zoom out. We are a very curious, adventurous, innovating species. We have this drive to do that.
Actually, my personal answer is, because that is the divine in us, the part of God. If God has a very creating nature, which we definitely as Christians would say He does because He created the universe and us, isn’t it that we have that spark in us and we want to create on a much smaller level? It’s like children imitating you.
And I think trying to optimize things, trying to do any science, is actually the divine spark in us. That’s why I think it’s good — it’s inherently good — if we’re trying to, as I said, become the best version of ourselves. And I don’t think there is anything bad in science helping us do that.
Douthat: I’m very hopeful that this has been the best possible version of this podcast. So, Christian Angermayer, thank you so much for joining me.
Angermayer: Thank you. It was amazing.
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