Aubrey Marcus’ Darkness Retreat Produced Psychedelic Visions
Aubrey Marcus is widely known as being the founder of health and fitness brand Onnit, a company focused on what he calls “Total Human Optimization,” which develops dietary supplements, nootropics (natural compounds that enhance brain function), and exercise gear.
Concurrent with his company’s meteoric growth, Marcus has become one of the most popular voices in the alternative, new age space with his eponymous podcast, where he discusses topics ranging from mental health to plant medicine, sexuality, and cultural paradigm shifts.
Like most stories of success, Marcus struggled in his early adulthood to find true meaning in life. While discussing his legacy in a recent interview on Open Minds with Regina Meredith, Marcus said, “I was looking for my purpose. I always felt like I had something important to give.”
This sentiment began early in his life, inspired by movies depicting sagacious masters who encouraged their protegés by telling them they had something important to contribute to the world. But like the archetypal Hero’s Journey, his road to success was punctuated by obstacles he first had to overcome.
One of the ways Marcus gained clarity on his journey was by imbibing the powerfully psychedelic ayahuasca brew, which gave him insight into the nature of his mind and his role in the universe. Today, psychedelic modalities through breathwork, sensory deprivation, and plant medicines are topics regularly discussed on his podcast.
But it was through his initial experience with the DMT-containing ayahuasca that Marcus embraced not just an internal philosophical shift, but also one in his identity. Choosing to rebrand with his middle name “Aubrey,” he began to build Onnit, based on a conversation with Joe Rogan about what kind of supplement he would be interested in trying. When Rogan responded with a cognitive enhancer made from plants and natural substances, he began formulating Alpha Brain and subsequently formed a fortuitous partnership with the world’s most popular podcaster.
Marcus’s conclusions about life are highly influenced by his fascinating firsthand experiences that drive his philosophical curiosities. While potent psychedelics like ayahuasca are an almost guaranteed method of achieving ego death and confronting inner demons, Marcus’ desire to explore the deeper realms of human consciousness has taken him even further.
In 2020, he embarked on a retreat spent in complete darkness for an entire week. This sensory deprivation was undertaken with the intention of self-reflection as well as inducing a release of endogenous DMT to produce psychedelic visions. Though the first few days didn’t exactly produce powerful visions, Marcus says he did contemplate and pick apart every aspect of his life, convincing himself he needed to change everything, but these thoughts were fleeting. Then, after a few days, he says he eventually experienced some of the most intense visions, culminating in a discussion with the Buddha, himself.
Marcus says the insight from these experiences gave him new outlooks on life including an appreciation for his family and loved ones, in addition to learning how the machinations of the ego shape our daily thought patterns.
Marcus’s work is also about helping people discover the freedom to be themselves by recognizing who they are in all their complexity. He tells Meredith we are really a mixture of good and bad, courageous and fearful, and that we don’t have to pretend to be one or the other. It’s about being aware of the “shadow aspects” that we suppress instead of embracing who we are.
Marcus admits, “I know nothing. But every day I ask questions and take a seat at the table where Truth likes to have snacks.”
What is the Hero's Journey?
When I was in my early 20s and my father was dying, a friend gave me a painting. It depicted a river wending its way through soft mountains, with a small sailboat in the distance floating down the river. It struck me at the time as a metaphor for my life. And I was left with the sense that our life is like the journey in a fairy tale, a small vessel following the currents, passing through different terrains, in search of what’s around the next corner. The river knows where it’s going, but we on the boat do not.
On this life journey, we are each discovering the geography of our own inner world. And yet, when we take a step back and look at it from a larger perspective, that geography, and our life journey, is not so different from the basic story that humankind has been playing out since the beginning. Birth. Separation. Initiation.
Return. This shows up in our own lifecycle, and then in the countless ways that we are called to leave what is familiar to us and venture into the unfamiliar. Each of us slaying inner dragons and facing outer obstacles, to be reborn in a new version of ourselves, more true to who we are.
This death and rebirth motif shows up in stories and myths all over the world; is at the heart of some of our great religions; and animates our most powerful films.
George Lucas, struggling for years to create a film his heart had been calling him to write, was able to finish the Star Wars story while reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a 1000 Faces, which lays out the basic bones of the human story. Just as the heroes and heroines in that saga overcome fear and attachment to the familiar and rise up to be of real service to the Universe, we are each doing the same thing in our own universe.
Each of us is rising above our self-imposed limitations and outer challenges to expand our sense of self and walk our path of destiny. Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey gave us a map to guide us, and signposts along the way, as we take our journey.
