We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Madison Margolin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Madison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on has been the book that I just wrote and which comes out on November 7. It is a gonzo journalistic memoir, detailing my childhood growing up in Los Angeles. in the community surrounding Ram Dass (author of Be Here Now) and then as a journalist, reporting on the psychedelic underground community in New York. The story is highly personal, but also through my own personal tale, I use myself as a character to explore the efficacy of religion, spirituality, and psychedelic healing.

Madison, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in the cannabis legalization movement as my father Bruce Margolin is a criminal defense attorney, who specializes in weed cases and ran for public office a few times to legalize marijuana. I also grew up among “HinJews” and psychonauts — people with psychedelic experience, who integrated that consciousness into spiritual practices inspired by their time with guru Neem Karoli Baba (the same guru as Ram Dass). During my time in grad school for journalism, I was assigned to report on Hasidic Brooklyn, and there I fell into a crew of Jewish psychonauts, doing psychedelic trance parties upstate and plant medicine ceremonies in Brooklyn basements with Jewish music, and I found a lot of similarities with the community I was raised with. I put that all into a story – the book that I just published (Exile & Ecstasy). https://www.madisonmargolin.com/exile-and-ecstacy.

As a journalist, I also cofounded psychedelic magazine and media company DoubleBlind, as well as have written for Vice, Rolling Stone, Playboy, High Times, and other outlets. I currently host a podcast on the Be Here Now Network called Set & Setting, and work as a contributing editor to Ayin Press.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I want people to understand that psychedelics aren’t just about psychedelics, but about everything else they connect you to and help you think differently about. They are about paradigm shifting encounters with spirituality, politics, health/medicine, community, and the environment.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Seeing how my work impacts other people on their own personal journeys.

Contact Info:

• Website: madisonmargoin.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madisonmargolin/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MadisonMargolin/

Image Credits
Nechama Jacobson for the headshot, David Morgan for the additional photos