Madison Margolin Comes of Age in the Jewish Psychedelic Underground in ”Exile and Ecstasy”

There’s nothing like pouring your heart, soul, and wallet into your debut book only launch it during the worst timing possible—be it a travel book during a global lockdown or a book a psychedelic Judaism during the height of the latest iteration of the never-ending Israel-Palestine conflict. At the same time, these are exactly the critical moments when uplifting books that inspire new thinking are the most needed.

On the show today: Madison Margolin, a journalist covering psychedelics and spirituality, and the author of Exile & Ecstasy: Growing Up with Ram Dass & Coming of Age in the Jewish Psychedelic Underground, a memoir-meets-Gonzo journalism endeavor that was just released on November 6. Madison is also the host of Be Here Now Network's Set & Setting Podcast, as well as the co-founder of both DoubleBlind Magazine and the Jewish Psychedelic Summit.

Exile and Ecstasy takes readers on a trippy coming-of-age journey through Margolin’s early years growing up within "HinJew" community surrounding Ram Dass—author of Be Here Now—and in the cannabis legalization movement, laying the groundwork for going inside New York's Jewish counterculture and the Hasidic underground, and somehow coming full-circle to find unexpected intersectionality between the Jewish and psychedelic experience.

Living on the fringe within the Jewish and psychedelic worlds, she uses journalistic reporting to offer practical, yet mystical ways to integrate psychedelic experiences into the everyday to feel connected, grounded, and reconcile “seemingly disparate experiences of spirituality and psychedelics, with traditional religion.”

She joins the podcast to discuss her book, the multitudes of Judaism, the concept of psychedelic lifestyle beyond drugs, and her visit to Ramallah just days before October 7 to meet with Arabs and Jews using psychedelics to resolve ancestral trauma.