Jim Belushi Opens Up on the Power of Psychedelics to Heal: “They Helped Me Forgive My Brother”

The post Jim Belushi Opens Up on the Power of Psychedelics to Heal: “They Helped Me Forgive My Brother” appeared first on Psychedelia.

Interview by Tom Zuber

Jim Belushi is an international movie and television star, and a renowned comedian. He’s starred in hit movies like The Principal, Red Heat, and Curly Sue, and hit shows like According to Jim, which ran for eight seasons on ABC. He now divides his time between Hollywood and his cannabis company, Belushi’s Farm, in Southern Oregon.

 

His passion for the potential of plant medicine to improve lives inspired him to invite Psychedelia into his home in Oregon for a wide-ranging interview about his experience with psychedelics, and his thoughts as to the potential of psychedelics to not only improve the health and psychology of people suffering trauma, but also to facilitate people becoming better people.

 

Tom Zuber: Given the purpose of Psychedelia — to promote a healthy psychedelics lifestyle as the legal psychedelics industry emerges around the world — our readers will want to know not only what Jim Belushi thinks about psychedelics and this emerging legal psychedelics industry, but also about the personal journey that led you to knock on the door of psychedelics in the first place. What caused you to look to psychedelics as a source of healing?

Jim Belushi: The Doors of Perception [the autobiographical book by Aldous Huxley about his experiences under the influence of mescaline, which incidentally inspired the name of the classic rock band The Doors].

I was a juvenile delinquent. I was an angry kid who needed love and attention. I was an uncomfortable person. I did some LSD my sophomore year in high school, and I woke up the next day and my perception of the world had changed. It opened my brain up. It broke all the conservative laws and rules that we have growing up. I became a hippie, really, in spirit. I mean, I did grow long hair because everyone else was growing long hair, but it was also the beginning of my enlightenment. The doors of perception. My perceptions changed.

Zuber:

When was this?

Belushi:

When I was 16.

 

Zuber:

And at 16, did you already know that you wanted to go into acting, entertainment, comedy?

Belushi: At 16, I really started my acting. I did a play in my freshman year. And then sophomore year, I did all the plays. And between sophomore and junior year, I did summer theater where we did four plays.

Zuber:

And this was outside Chicago?

Belushi:

Suburb of Chicago. College of DuPage. And I remember, actually, that summer we used to do mescaline or LSD for two days and we’d take a day off and then go again. We went to three rock festivals. And I was doing a play called “The Time of My Life,” where I played Nick, the detective. And because I was doing LSD with buddies, my timing was off for rehearsal. I went to dress rehearsal, and I was tripping! I was on stage, with no audience, I don’t know what I said, I don’t know what I did. I got offstage, and here comes the director, who walked from the front all the way backstage to me, and he said, “That was great. That was really great. I love the way you said, ‘Ah, Nick!’”

 

Zuber:

While you were high on acid?

Belushi:

I was tripping. I had no idea what I did. I probably could not have recreated it the next night. So that changed my perception. And I messed around with LSD that summer and then maybe the next summer I did a little bit more, and then I just didn’t do it anymore because the LSD was not mescaline, and it was not psilocybin. It was chemically created. You didn’t know what you were getting.

I remember Del Close, the director, once said to me, “Have you ever done acid, Jim?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He goes, “Do you do it anymore?”

I go, “No, no, no, no. The last time I did it, I saw white.”

 

And he goes, “That’s where it begins, Jim.” [Laughing hard.]

I go, “Oh, Del, you’re nuts.”

But now it’s different. Now there’s testing, there’s cleanliness. It’s different. You can put things in your body that are clean. But anyway, I stopped doing LSD then, and I really didn’t do any more psychedelics until I went to Peru in 2013.

Zuber:

Tell us about your trip to Peru. Why did you go? Were you vacationing?

Belushi:

Well, it was a friend of mine, who was kind of a whiner and had trouble with his wife. He was just kind of neurotic. Kind of an antsy kind of guy, right? I loved him, you know, because he was vulnerable, and I’m a vulnerable person. I think we need care from each other, so I was very caring. I loved him.

Anyway, I saw him about two years later. We got together with a bunch of guys, and we were having some wine. And this guy ripped me an asshole in front of my buddies. He made fun of me so wickedly fast that I couldn’t say anything. The guys were all laughing their asses off. And I become the butt of all the jokes for about 20 minutes. This guy would have never done that before. I was always kind of a powerful guy, right?

 

And at the end of the party, I turned to him, and I said, “What the fuck happened to you, man?”

He goes, “Well, I went down to this place in Peru, and I did some ayahuasca.”

I said, “How do I get in on that? Because you are clear. You are funny. You are powerful. You have changed, and I don’t know what it was. But if it changed you, I could use some changes.”

So I went down to Peru, by the way of a very westernized experience. Blue Morpho Retreats in Iquitos. We were in the jungle in the handmade-thatch ceremonial huts, but there were mosquito nets, there were good beds, there were great showers, the bathrooms were tiled, the food was excellent. The people they had there to take care of you were beautiful, kind. And I felt very safe. It was in a safe environment. I went down there three different times. I did about nine ceremonies.

Zuber:

When was your last trip?

Belushi:

In December. I did ayahuasca. The next day I did San Pedro peyote. The next day, or that evening, we did iboga, which lasts about 40 hours. And then we did aya [ayahuasca] to close. And that was the cleanest, most beautiful journey I’ve ever been on. That was three days, four days, in Hollywood. A different shaman, a different practice.

Zuber:

What was iboga like? What did you feel like for 40 hours?

Belushi:

Well, it wasn’t hallucinogenic. It was a body experience. It was like a tsunami that just kept coming and coming. And you just kind of laid there and held on. And there wasn’t a panic or any anxiety around it. It was just, I don’t know, it was like a deep internal massage.

Zuber:

Was it pleasant?

Belushi:

No, it wasn’t pleasant. No, because when the six of us finished, we were in the best mood. I mean, the best mood we had been in years. And we figured out why — because it was over! [Laughing.] And we had enough energy to go to the bathroom, but that was about it.

Zuber:

Was there a benefit from that experience?

Belushi:

I’m still feeling the benefits from it. I don’t even know all that iboga did. I’m just trusting it.

I stopped chewing Nicorette gum, and I had been chewing it for 20 years. Oh yeah, microdosing iboga is really great for addiction.

 

Zuber:

When you tried ayahuasca in Peru, that didn’t help alleviate addiction to Nicorette gum, but the iboga did?

Belushi:

The ayahuasca was a different journey. All those plant medicines are about the disintegration of ego. And when your ego gets disintegrated during those journeys, you actually get close to hearing your voice that has been piled upon — piled upon by old stories, old traumas. And it cracks through like a heart surgeon cracks through your chest. And you can hear your voice and you can feel who you are. And it was beautiful to find out that I’m a good man. Because I’ve never felt that.

Zuber:

What was your experience with ayahuasca like?

Belushi:

It’s different for everybody. It depends what you bring in with you. It depends if you fight it. Your ego does not like ayahuasca, and it will do everything in its power to get you to stop. The first hour, the monkeys were chattering so loud: “This is a sham. This is a cult. This is not safe. This guy is trying to take your money.” All the trust issues that you walk in with.

We finished and he goes, “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

I said, “I got all these voices going on. All these monkeys in my head.”

And he had these singing bowls, and he started singing. And he starting hitting the bowls. Ding, ding! Singing, singing. Ding, ding, ding, ding! For about 10 minutes. I don’t even know. Time stops when you’re doing ayahuasca. All of a sudden, I slumped over in my chair, dropped to my knees, laid down on my back with my arms open, and I could breathe. I was breathing. And he says, “How you doing now?”

I said, “What the hell did you do?”

And he said, “Well, you said the monkeys were bothering you, so I shot them with the singing bowls. Ding, ding! I was just picking them off, right and left off your shoulder.”

I said, “Well, the monkeys are getting their messages from the gorillas. Let’s go gorilla hunting!”

The next day we went gorilla hunting. That’s when we started really going into the journey. I let go of my anger for my mom. I let go of my resentment of my brother, John, for dying early. I let go of the worst resentment I had toward my ex-wife. I found so many things.”

Zuber:

You mentioned your brother, and getting over the pain of that, and the anger of that. John, of course, famously died as a result of a speedball [an injectable mixture of cocaine and heroin]. You’re on record as saying that plant medicines may have made a difference in the way that John’s life ended.

Belushi:

I think Danny is the one who said it: “Now, Jimmy, if Johnny was a pothead, he’d be alive today.” Absolutely.

Zuber:

Dan Aykroyd?

Belushi:

Yeah.

 

Zuber:

Do you think that psychedelics would have made a difference?

Belushi:

Well, back then psychedelics were looked at as a drug and not a medicine. I think the perception of psilocybin and some of these wonderful plant medicines have changed. The framework and the intent behind doing them have changed. I’m not partying. I’m not doing ayahuasca to have a party. I’m doing these kinds of plant medicines to explore my inner knowledge — knowledge of my consciousness and the world.

If I were in severe depression, I would microdose mushrooms for sure. I’m not here promoting the commercial use of psychedelics as medicine for entertainment. I think it’s a healing medicine that can bring men and women that are suffering from great traumas out of their severe depression and anxiety and addictions. I think plant medicine is an enormous help to addiction, so I really see it as medicine.

And I think I’m interested in this interview, I’m interested in your magazine because I want to learn more. I don’t know everything about it. Michael Pollan wrote a great book on it. There was a great interview with him and Joe Rogan. I was just blown away. The history, the study of psychedelics. Mescaline. He touched on aya a little bit, but you know, they stopped studying psychedelics. Now there’s this rejuvenation of research. And I applaud Oakland and Denver and Oregon for decriminalizing this plant medicine.

Zuber:

Psychedelics are often lumped together with poisonous drugs like cocaine. I’m going to make a distinction between cocaine and psychedelics, and I’d love to know your thoughts: Doing cocaine is all about doing more cocaine, and it diminishes the quality of relationships. Doing psychedelics is often about empathy, and forming deeper connections of consciousness between people, and actually wanting to understand the perspective of whatever conscious being you’re speaking to at the time, regardless of walk of life, or business angle, or romantic angle, without being weighed down by ego. What’s your impression of that?

Belushi:

My daughter is so happy when I come back from an ayahuasca journey because I’m light, I’m free, I’m generous. I listen. I’m joyful. And it lasts for a long, long time. So it allows me to be connective. Listen, we all need a net of love. We provide a net of love for our children. If you’re not connecting to your children, they don’t have the net. And it’s probably because you didn’t have a net, and you don’t know how to provide a net.

The number one fear in life is death. The number two fear in life is the collapse of the family. And families collapse because of alcoholism, addiction, tragic death, severe illness, loss of a job, PTSD for veterans. So if this plant medicine can help achieve connectivity between you and your family, come on. What’s wrong? Why not give it a try? We all need that net of love. And our traumas have cut us off from love. And where does love come from but connectivity? And this stuff helps with that. I say let’s do it.

Zuber:

You mentioned that you tried acid earlier in your life as a teenager and that you sort of moved away from synthetics like acid and toward more natural medicines. And it’s not the first time that you or I have heard that distinction: “Acid is synthetic, psilocybin occurs naturally, and I’ll stick with what occurs naturally in nature.” How broad a line is that for you? Are synthetics like LSD a less worthy medicine than naturally occurring compounds like psilocybin?

Belushi:

Well, I can only speak from what I heard from Pollan, you know. It’s whatever gets you into that journey. You need some help with synthetics to get there? Okay. I’m not going to say no to it. But when I was doing LSD, it was made in people’s houses and on the street. I wasn’t getting it from Tim Leary [the deceased clinical psychologist at Harvard University who advocated for psychedelic medicines]. Half of it was arsenic, you know what I mean? So it’s different now. The people that are creating (synthetics today) are creating them with great context. It’s clean, it’s beautiful. They’re bringing giving and loving into the world, and spreading the healing. Their context is right.

 

Zuber:

We’re sitting here on the back porch of your beautiful home in Oregon, which is an exciting state in the psychedelics world right now. Last November, Oregon decriminalized many psychedelics and announced the launch of a commercialized psilocybin industry. You’re obviously involved in cannabis, and your company is doing well. Do you have ambitions to expand into psychedelics?

Belushi:

I have an interest, but I don’t have a pathway. It’s still new to me, you know. I’m invested in a company that’s developing psychedelics. I feel like a fan, and I’m interested in following it. As far as a business is concerned, and as far as actually growing it on my farm, I don’t see that as of yet, but it doesn’t mean I can’t get there. These girls, these plants, have led me to a lot of places. I mean, I came out of Peru and all of a sudden I’m on a farm growing marijuana. I feel like those spirits brought me here for my journey to continue — my journey of self-knowledge and healing of consciousness of the community.

And that TV show I do, Growing Belushi, the metaphor is not just me growing cannabis, but me growing as a man, because since I’ve come to this property, I’ve got a sweat lodge, and I do a little shamanism of my own. This is a very spiritual place. I’m right between Table Rock, which is a Native American sanctuary, and Mount McLoughlin along the river with beautiful river spirits. I feel very connected to myself and my love and community here. And I don’t even know how I got here. But here I am.

Zuber:

Do you think there’s any shot that the federal government is going to do what Oregon did, and decriminalize psychedelics anytime within the next decade?

Belushi:

Within a decade? I would think so, especially with the research and the amount of suffering that people are going through — the severe anxiety, depression, trauma that people are experiencing. I think they’re demanding alternative medicines.

Zuber:

Psychedelics clearly have the potential to alleviate the human condition, not just the physical condition, but the psychological condition as well. And that’s a profound potential. People have benefited from psychedelics for millennia, but in the United States, most psychedelics still reside on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, along with heroin and other such substances that are deemed to have a high potential for abuse “with no currently accepted medical use.” Why is that?

Belushi:

I didn’t know I was benefiting when I did LSD in school. But now, in retrospect, I know I did. And again, it goes back to the culture of the time. Our culture right now is looking for alternative medicine. And I think the context of psychedelics has changed. And the way people look at psychedelics has changed. The term “microdosing” is a relatively new term. So I think the consciousness of plant medicine has changed. And I think that psychedelics will become more popular for those who are struggling.

Zuber:

Have you tried psilocybin?

Belushi:

[Nods.]

Zuber:

What was your experience?

Belushi:

It’s just lovely. What can I say? The word “lovely” comes across my lips. It felt really good. You know, I really shouldn’t say this, but I’d like my children now as adults to try it. To change their perception. To release some of their anxiety. But it’s only because I did, and it changed my perception.

Zuber:

Any final thoughts you’d like to leave our readers with as far as your own experiences with psychedelics, or about the potential of psychedelic medicine to heal?

Belushi:

Those experiences, they helped me forgive my brother for his mistake, and the aftermath that we had to live through: The trauma of a national — an international — drug overdose.

They helped me forgive my mother, who I always felt abandoned me in my own house. I have great love and empathy and compassion for her now. And it’s really helping me on the journey that I am on now, and that is forgiving myself. You have to forgive other people, and know what that feels like. So when you know that feeling, you can then begin to forgive yourself. And this plant medicine has led me on that journey of forgiveness of myself.

Zuber:

Are you talking about your experience with a particular psychedelic?

Belushi:

I’m talking about the ayahuasca.

Zuber:

That’s helpful because I think people can relate to your perspective. John’s death really was such an international incident, and the anger from it is reasonable. We all are burdened with reasonable anger, and reasonable anger is the toughest to defeat sometimes. So let’s get more specific: How did psychedelics help you to forgive others, and then yourself? What was the mechanism? Did it cause you to take another look at yourself? Did it cause you to separate your mind from your body a bit, so your consciousness could get a better look around?

Belushi:

It caused me to separate from myself enough to see my mom for who she was, and know that she did the best she could with what was given to her.

And it got me the perception that John really didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident. And I forgive him.

Zuber:

I’m going to end with a self-indulgent question, which I’ll confess is only partially on topic. When I was a kid, I loved that show Wild Palms, the Oliver Stone-produced 1993 miniseries in which you played attorney Harry Wyckoff. I found it to be the trippiest show around, alongside Twin Peaks.

Belushi:

Oh yeah, totally, totally trippy! The show was set in 2007 … and it was not far off. Yeah, that was trippy! And I was the one on the trip!

Zuber:

I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, but it did make an impression on me. One, I thought it was a fabulous show, and I thought you were great. Two, the show was quite prescient in some ways, in terms of the divisiveness of politics today, the increasingly immersive nature of entertainment, the sensationalism underlying news, the privacy issues, and that sort of stuff. And that was back in the early 1990s. As you look around you at the world today, do you think back on that show?

Belushi:

Bruce Wagner [the author of the book on which the show was based] was way ahead of his time. Yeah, he was a visionary. Bruce and I just did a commentary for it. I think it’s on Blu-ray. I rewatched it with Bruce in the room, and you know, you’re supposed to be commenting, right? The room went silent for a long time because we were just watching it again: “Wow, this is really good!” That was a good show, man.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tom Zuber is the managing partner of the law firm Zuber Lawler, which has been representing leading plant medicine companies for more than 15 years.

Photos by Matthew Wright / Fig Tree Photography