Dear friends,
For 20 years, psychotherapist Charley Wininger has been quietly conducting what might be the most important social experiment in America—using MDMA to rebuild the community connections we've lost.
"Community is the medicine" Charley told me from Brooklyn, where he's led group experiences with 6 to 60 people, watching ex-friends heal seven-year rifts and strangers become chosen family.
His timing couldn't be more urgent. As Charley points out, we live in a culture of hyper-individualism where technology distances us even as it connects us. People are dying from complications of loneliness as surely as from any disease.
After 35 years as a therapist and 50 as a psychonaut, Charley's developed precise protocols for group MDMA experiences. Not raves. Not therapy. Something he calls "serious fun"—structured days where defenses drop, hearts open, and lasting bonds form.
The rules are clear: Everyone participates (no observers). Pure tested medicine only. Explicit consent for any touch. A designated "chill space" for those needing solitude. And most importantly—the people who meet in these sessions become each other's emergency contacts, chosen family, the ones they call in crisis.
Charley's now teaching others to lead these experiences across the country, building toward something unprecedented: a nationwide day where groups simultaneously share this experience, briefly connecting over Zoom—"like Bicycle Day for LSD, but for connection."
At 76, Charley's done hiding. "I'm tired of being in any kind of closet about the way I live my life," he said. His book "Listening to Ecstasy" was his coming out. Now he's going further, actively training facilitators because "the need for community is a life or death issue."
One note of caution emerged in our conversation. While some couples report using MDMA multiple times weekly at micro-doses with no ill effects, both Charley and I urge extreme caution. Most experts recommend spacing sessions by months, not days. The magic isn't in frequency—it's in integration.
As we face increasing division and isolation, Charley's work offers something beyond politics:
"Taking a stand for humanity, for higher consciousness, for understanding that our similarities are more important than our differences."
Community truly is the medicine. The question is whether we're brave enough
Golden light,
Dr. Richard L. Miller
Links & Resources:
Charley Wininger: higherpurpose.community
Book: Listening to Ecstasy
Fireside Project support line: firesideproject.org
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My Other Books:
Psychedelic Medicine at the End of Life: Dying Without Fear (release date: November 5)
Freeing Sexuality: Psychologists, Consent Teachers, Polyamory Experts, and Sex Workers Speak Out
Psychedelic Wisdom: The Astonishing Rewards of Mind-Altering Substances
Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca
Integral Psychedelic Therapy (co-edited with Jason A. Butler & Genesee Herzberg)
