In a 1966 interview for Playboy, psychedelic counterculture icon Dr. Timothy Leary declared, “LSD is a specific cure for homosexuality.” He was not the only one to think so. For nearly two decades, mental health professionals used psychedelics as a step in conversion therapy in an attempt to change the sexual orientation and gender identity of their patients.
Unfortunately, psychedelic conversion therapy is not a horrific mistake of the past. It has been resurrected through Wendi Rees, the author of The Christian’s Guide to Psychedelics.
Rees is a conservative Christian and a rising star in the psychedelic subculture. She is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and psychedelics caused her resulting lifelong mental illness to enter remission. Her book was recently promoted by former Texas governor Rick Perry and Americans for Ibogaine CEO W. Bryan Hubbard on the Joe Rogan Experience, reaching an audience of over 10 million listeners. Perry also wrote the forward, and Hubbard provided a glowing printed blurb for the book.
As an advocate for tolerance of psychedelics within Christianity, I was immediately suspicious. Upon reading the book, my suspicions were confirmed.
Conversion Therapy
On pages 67-70, Rees bemoaned what she describes as deviation from “God’s original plan for marriage” in Genesis, which is described with heterosexual metaphors. All other sexual activity is “distortion of identity” and “confusion.” She also wrote that psychedelics can “heal wounds around sexuality, bringing restoration.”
I emailed Rees, seeking confirmation that this was a description of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy. She initially responded that she does not “believe that psychedelics are designed to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
However, this is because she does believe changes can occur with psychedelics in a different way. She believes that “many people carry wounds so profound they lose sight of how God originally created them,” explaining that “when psychedelics help someone access and heal that root trauma, genuine change can follow.”
Reiterating the same point in different words, she wrote that “the better question is ‘Could the Lord use this tool to help someone heal the wounds that distort their identity, and could that healing lead somewhere unexpected?’ I think the answer to that is yes. But it’s between them and their Creator.”
To Rees, psychedelics function as the catalyst in a process that makes changing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity possible and desirable, though not inevitable. This is also reflected in Rees’ podcast, where she teaches that being LGBTQ+ is not an immutable trait. Rather, she believes it is both a choice and a response to trauma. If the trauma wound is removed, it becomes easier for someone to choose to be cisgender and heterosexual.
This is not Rees’ only troubling perspective about LGBTQ+ people. Alongside her podcast episodes about psychedelics sit two other podcast episodes. One is titled “A Pathway to Pedophilia,” and the other is “What is a MAP?” In both episodes, Rees conflates being LGBTQ+ with sexually predatory behavior. At one point, speaking of Target’s previous transgender-inclusive bathroom and changing room policy, Rees even fantasizes about killing a “pervert.”
Rees’ partnership with Perry to promote psychedelics is also not her first foray into politics. In 2020, she served as the director of public relations for a chapter of Take Back America Texas, a group implicated in an armed clash that ended in physical assaults on political opponents. Pictured in front of an open Bible in a Washington Post story on the incident, Rees said: “[W]e have had enough, and we are not going to sit back [and] let it happen anymore.”
Co-Opting a Movement
Rees’ newfound prominence raises a specter that many of my colleagues in psychedelic advocacy have been reluctant to accept: the rise of psychedelic far-right extremism. Psychedelics do have tremendous potential for treating mental and physical health conditions, but major political questions remain.
Who gets to decide what “healing” means? In a private healthcare economy, who gets to decide how capital is wielded, policy is written, and profits are distributed?
Liberal hippies were once thought to have a monopoly on psychedelics, but they have increasingly been embraced by white supremacists, Silicon Valley executives, and Make America Healthy Again activists. Wendi Rees introduces a new political player: the psychedelic Christian Nationalist.
After this research, I personally contacted Americans for Ibogaine CEO W. Bryan Hubbard and requested a comment. On April 17th, he assured me that he supports LGBTQ+ rights and rejects conversion therapy. He also wrote that had he been aware of the conversion therapy themes in The Christian’s Guide to Psychedelics, he “would never have offered an endorsement.”
Policy Crossroads
On April 18th, Hubbard stood next to President Trump as he loosened federal policy restraining psychedelics.
On April 19th, I met Hubbard in Asheville, North Carolina, at a symposium celebrating Bicycle Day, a holiday marking the anniversary of the first purposeful LSD trip in 1943. He hugged me, assured me that his email came from a deeply personal place, and wished me luck in my work.
Imagine my shock when, later in the conference, Wendi Rees bumped my leg as she walked out of a lecture about social justice and psychedelics. An organizer of the event told me that she was “a friend of the Hubbards.” Organizers assured me that they were in the dark about Rees’ views until I enlightened them.
Mr. Hubbard may have denounced Rees’ views on LGBTQ+ issues, but he did not limit her access to power using his connections. Watching Rees network in the same crowd as psychedelic heavyweights like Hamilton Morris, David Nichols, and Jackie Von Salm, she seemed symbolic of the crossroad at this moment of the psychedelic renaissance.
It remains to be seen whether far-right bigotry and religious fundamentalism are dealbreakers for both Hubbard’s psychedelic political coalition and the psychedelics-affirming movement as a whole. At least for Hubbard that afternoon, they did not seem to be.
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Baptist preacher and a justice organizer at UU Justice NC. Kaleb attended Duke Divinity School, where he founded Psychedelic Theology to help bridge the gap between Christians and entheogens. He is the host of the Psychedelic Theology podcast.