7 November 2023: Amazon.se
Through the perspective of having grown up among “HinJews” in the Ram Dass community and cannabis legalization movement, Madison Margolin takes the reader on a journey inside New York”s Jewish counterculture and the Hasidic underground, reconciling her roots, tackling ancestral Jewish trauma, and finding intersectionality between the Jewish and psychedelic experience.
Exile and Ecstasy sets out to explore the psychedelic path that occupies the crossroads between the Ram Dass movement and Hasidism. It”s a path of seeking and escape, rebellion and return, medicine and magic.
Bridging the polar ends of the Jewish and psychedelic worlds, while buttressing the experience with expert reportage, Madison Margolin prods at Be Here Now to find its relevance and utility in a new generation, facing different issues than those Ram Dass faced as a generally well-to-do boomer. In doing so, she looks at solutions to our lack of presence and offers practices that help us integrate our psychedelic experiences in mundane life, as well as in the context of our roots and religious identities.
This book is for anyone looking to feel spiritually kindled, to make peace with where they come from, and to reconcile seemingly disparate experiences of spirituality and psychedelics, with traditional religion.
Loved this book. The author is a very curious, intelligent, sensitive and especially brave soul! Who, at her age or any age, bares their soul and life experiences for all to see? One might have a cynical response to that question or feel that nobody even should bare their soul publicly, but I don’t see it that way at all. She wrote this book about her experiences growing up and then after high school living amongst psychedelic, “turned on” Jews.
For that alone it is a most interesting read. Caveat. I fit the description of the people she writes about albeit I’m nearly twice the author’s age. It is a story, Madison’s story, of her life and voyage of discovery. So that same cynical reader might say what woman from an, arguably, privileged background in her early 30’s has the zachut or merit and life experience to write an auto-bio or even has anything worthwhile to share with the world. She does. And, if someone is more qualified to have written this, they didn’t and Madison did. So there!
There appears to be quite a growing number of people experimenting and using psychedelics. Including in the observant Jewish world. She writes about that world and finding her place in it.
Psychedelics can have tremendous healing power and be an amazing vehicle for tapping into wisdom and even a catalyst for profound and positive change. However not everybody who uses them has the resources or access to guides or trip sitters who can help bring out the healing or understanding of the experience. Many people may not be aware of what they need to work on or that there is even “work” to be done! Madison describes her numerous experiences with psilocybin, LSD, cannabis and ayahuasca. She writes in detail how these psychedelic experiences helped her find her current life’s work and how it helped her come to terms with and make peace with the many aspects of her life outside of work especially with family, friends and intimate partners.
She describes these experiences from within a personal framework of having grown up in Los Angeles and then deliberately leaving, going away to Berkeley, traveling to Israel and being Jewish. Most importantly what comes through clearly in her writing is of being a most ambitious spiritual seeker. Any person who recognizes that they are on a spiritual path, who wants to change or improve their life could benefit from reading about her experiences. It’s also very funny and entertaining. It is so deeply heartfelt and the author is so earnest about sharing her experiences for the benefit of the reader.
This book would be of interest to virtually anybody on that psychedelic, spiritual path or to anyone who knows people on that path and is seeking to understand what that path is or can be. I clearly remember being on the identical path (in so many ways that I found myself laughing continually over separately shared experiences). I was a little concerned as I began reading because of the numerous Hebrew and Yiddish words she used (they are, if not necessary, probably better than their English counterparts) and thinking that any readers besides observant Jews would be lost or confused without a device to look the word up. However when I finished the book I realized there is a glossary at the end that does a very suitable job defining every Hebrew and Yiddish word or phrase. If you don’t understand go to the glossary.
Madison describes a very real dilemma for Judaism in that so many Jews post-holocaust turned away from the Judaism they saw around them as they connected it to something less than spiritual. She describes a pogrom/holocaust/anti-Judaic mindset amongst Jews that has been passed down from generation to generation. In short an inter-generational trauma. She describes how Jews of her parent’s generation often left Judaism for the spirituality of the East more rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism. I know dozens if not more people like this that I grew up with. I’ve often felt disappointed about this wholesale rejection having myself discovered the power of spiritual Judaism. Judaism can be a very powerful spiritual path. So can the other great belief systems of the world. Depends on whose teaching or preaching as there are infinite interpretations of all religious teachings and scripture. Madison writes extensively about Ram Dass as an example of this and about her privilege of having known him as a child and teenager and about her parents’ friendship with him. If you are a fan of Ram Dass’ teachings or his book, “Be Here Now”, Madison’s description of his leaving Judaism for a Hindu guru post his Pyschedelic experiences of the 60’s and 70’s and then acceptance of his Judaism will fascinate you.
If you are Jewish and spiritual, but see little value in the religion as you know it read this. Even more so if you use psychedelics. If you have children using Pyschedelics and you don’t understand why read this. If you are not Jewish and want an intro to spiritual Judaism read this. If you are a young woman and are looking to be inspired by a peer read this. If you are a young man and feeling a bit lost in our culture and perhaps in your dating life read this. Madison will give you a good sense of what women want.
In wrapping up this review I’m compelled to write one more thing. This book came out about three weeks ago and it took me a few days to learn it existed. I read it over two Shabbats and could hardly put it down. It was obviously written pre- October 7th. I could easily imagine Madison being at the Nova rave near Gaza. This thought brings me to tears. My sole complaint is that she might be a bit naive about some aspects of the world. She is young and this can be expected. She infers, I think it was twice in the book, that she is anti-capitalist. Madison, you wrote a book. You put time and heart into it. You want it to sell. A publisher invested in you. You publish a magazine. You want advertisers. You want the widest on-line circulation. You are an influencer and likely to become more influential. You deserve to make a living and live in not only spiritual abundance, but material abundance as well. It’s OK. Capitalism isn’t evil. People can be. Also, please find your soul doppelgänger in the Muslim world and help her write this book for her people. Thanks for helping make the past two Shabbats so educational and fun! Yoshua Ben Eliyahu.
A fantastic read!! I’ve followed Madison’s career from her time as a Village Voice and VICE writer to her founding of DoubleBlind—she’s done amazing reporting on cannabis, psychedelics and spirituality, and her description of the personal journey that put her on this path is equally compelling.
From growing up with her father’s pioneering work as a defense attorney fighting for the victims of the war on drugs, to her voyages from California to New York, Tel Aviv, India and the Himalayas exploring her own millennial angst, transgenerational trauma and the new wave of psychedelic awakening, her story takes you all over the world while putting you at the forefront of a spiritual movement that incorporates mushrooms, Judaism, HInduism, Eastern spiritual traditions, trance music and mystic wanderlust.
This book is authentic, easy to read, and a true masterpiece. It is the culmination of the author’s personal journey at the intersection of Jewish tradition, various esotericism such as the Kabbalah, Ram Dass-ian life philosophy, and psychedelia. This is very relatable in so many ways. It would be my honor to meet the author one day, Be’ezrat Hashem.
