The Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1565 - Gary Laderman

Gary Laderman is a professor of American religious history and cultures At Emory University. He teaches and writes about death and dying, religion and sexuality, and sacred drugs. His most recent book is Don't Think About Death: A Memoir on Mortality.

Gary LadermanguestJoe RoganhostJamie Vernonguest

Nov 16, 20202h 23mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Psychedelics, Death, and Modern Religion: Rethinking What’s Sacred Today

Joe Rogan and Emory religion professor Gary Laderman explore how drugs, death, sexuality, and celebrity culture function as modern forms of religion and meaning-making. Laderman argues that psychedelics and even everyday substances like pharmaceuticals and caffeine shape contemporary spirituality and reduce fear of death, often more than traditional churches. They discuss the erosion of institutional religious authority, the rise of “spiritual but not religious” identities, and how popular culture, social media, and celebrity worship now carry many religious functions. The conversation also covers teaching taboo topics like suicide and sexuality, the impact of social media and addiction, and the need for new frameworks to navigate modern life’s psychological and existential challenges.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Psychedelics are deeply tied to modern spirituality and reduced fear of death.

Laderman connects contemporary psychedelic experiences—including clinical psilocybin and MDMA trials—to classic religious language (mystical, spiritual, transcendent) and notes research showing decreased death anxiety, increased compassion, and lasting life changes.

Traditional religion is losing authority, but religious impulses are simply moving elsewhere.

He contends that as institutional Christianity and organized religions erode, people channel religious energies into other systems—celebrity worship, politics, social media, festivals, and personal spirituality—rather than becoming truly non-religious.

Everyday drugs, especially pharmaceuticals, now function as religious objects for many.

Prescription psychoactives (like anti-anxiety meds) are ritualized, trusted, and invested with salvific power—the promise to restore order, identity, and community—much like traditional religious sacraments.

Popular culture and social media teach more about values than churches do.

Laderman argues that music, movies, influencers, and platforms like Instagram and Twitter shape people’s moral outlooks, identities, and sense of the sacred far more than sermons, even though this influence is driven by attention and money rather than reflection.

Addiction is broader than substances, encompassing gambling, social media, capitalism, and even religion.

They compare gambling addicts, social media dependency, and obsessive materialism to drug addiction, suggesting that many modern “fixes” hijack the same human reward systems and can become life-defining and destructive.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

My goal is to confuse the hell out of them… what they think is religion is not the only game in town.

— Gary Laderman

Drugs are really the sort of source of spiritual life in America. That’s the future, as well as the past.

— Gary Laderman

The act of interpretation is very much obviously a part of the study of religion… too much literalism is really counterproductive, if not destructive.

— Gary Laderman

The most non-psychedelic thing is the way people communicate on Twitter. It’s like a bunch of mental patients throwing shit at each other.

— Joe Rogan

I don’t think you need a creator to be religious… you need some access to transcendence, a way of understanding your own self and identity, a system of values, and community.

— Gary Laderman

Psychedelics, spirituality, and reduced fear of deathThe decline of traditional religion and rise of “spiritual but not religious” identitiesDrugs (including pharmaceuticals) as sources of modern spiritual lifeCelebrity worship, social media, and consumerism as religious systemsTeaching death, drugs, and sexuality to college studentsAddiction in many forms: gambling, social media, materialism, and religion itselfSexuality, pornography, and shifting cultural norms around sex and gender

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