Dear Friends,
I want to introduce you to someone I have known for years and admire a great deal. Jamie Joyce came on Mind Body Health & Politics this week. She is running for Congress in California’s 12th district, she founded the Society Library, and she is an artist (I keep one of her pieces that she made with a particle accelerator on my dresser). She is the real deal.
You know how I open this program most weeks: human beings are tribal animals, healthiest when we live in small groups where we know one another by face and by name. The standing threat to that is the small number among us who would rather dominate than collaborate. Jamie has built her whole campaign on exactly that distinction. She is running, she told me, because she is tired of watching power concentrate in a few hands while the rest of us are talked past.
It has already cost her something. Twenty minutes after she announced, the phone calls began — people telling her they would ruin her life if she did not drop out. In a later call, they read back the names of old boyfriends, to let her know they had been digging. A private citizen decides to run for office, and that is the welcome she receives. She did not drop out. When I asked her about it, she said something I have not stopped thinking about:
“There are people who have taken bullets to the head for me to even have the ability and the right to run for Congress. If I’m not willing to risk my reputation to stand up for the rights of others, then I don’t deserve the job.”
I felt protective when she said it, and I told her so on the air.
Here is the part that delighted me. Jamie founded her Society Library after reading, in her early twenties, about a club Benjamin Franklin started — a small group that met to reason together in a spirit of sincere inquiry into truth, with no taste for argument or domination. Franklin called it the Junto. I started a Junto in Fort Bragg twenty years ago, and it still meets every Thursday morning. I invited her to join us. Two people, two centuries apart, reaching for the same simple thing: people thinking together instead of shouting at each other.
We covered a great deal: the bill she wrote, the art she makes with a particle accelerator, the long odds she is running against anyway. I told her on the air what I will tell you now. I wish her all the luck, and all the help and support that the people who know her can muster.
Go to jamiejoyce.com and see for yourself.
Then listen to the whole conversation.
And then, just below, I have a small practice for you this week.
Golden light,
Dr. Richard Louis Miller
A note for Californians
This letter reaches you on a Monday. Tuesday, June 2, is the statewide primary.
If you live in California, you almost certainly already have a ballot sitting at home, because the state mails one to every registered voter. There is still time, but not much. Do not put it back in the mail now. Fill it out and drop it in any ballot drop box, or at any polling place, by 8:00 p.m. Tuesday. Or vote in person that day.
I say the same thing at the top of the program most weeks, and I mean it every time: get out and vote, and vote for the people who will actually represent you. And if you happen to live in the 12th district, around Berkeley and Oakland, Jamie Joyce is on your ballot.
Today’s Practice
A simple thing to take with you from this week’s conversation.
Most weeks on this program I tell you to vote, and I mean it. This week I want to hand you something smaller and just as important — and it comes straight out of what Jamie and I were talking about: that we are tribal people, healthiest when we know the people around us by face and by name.
Here is the practice. For the next three months, say hello to the people you would normally pass in silence. Say hello to the checker in the supermarket. Say hello to the clerk in the store, to the plumber behind the counter, to the person sitting inches from you who never gets a word. Introduce yourself. “Hi, my name’s Richard. Glad to meet you.” That is the whole thing.
We live in a country that has been divided on purpose. We can begin to put it back together one hello at a time. Try it for three months and see what happens.
And if you want the civic version Jamie left us with: pick up the phone, take five minutes, and tell your representative the one thing you most want them to do — then ask a friend to do the same.
Show notes
[00:00] The mission
Richard’s standing frame: human beings are tribal, healthiest in small groups where they know one another by face and name; roughly 95% of us want to collaborate, and a small minority would rather dominate. The civic conclusion he always reaches — get out and vote — sets up the guest.
[02:39] Why she’s running
Jamie is running in CA-12 because she found her representatives unresponsive — she spent three months in DC last year and couldn’t get her own reps on the phone.
“We need to stop electing politicians and start electing legislators.” — Jamie Joyce
[06:17] “They said they’d ruin my life”
Within twenty minutes of announcing, she got calls pressuring her to drop out; a later call referenced names from her past.
“There are people who have taken bullets to the head for me to even have the right to run for Congress. If I’m not willing to risk my reputation to stand up for the rights of others, then I don’t deserve the job.” — Jamie Joyce
[10:54] The MAD Act
Jamie’s omnibus bill bundles ten titles she’d otherwise have to pass separately. As she describes them: data-privacy/surveillance limits (requiring brokers to delete holdings), a “Demand a Plan for AI” framework of technical working groups, limits on the Insurrection Act, dark-money disclosure, electoral reform (funding ranked-choice / STAR voting), and mass digitization of government records.
[23:48] The jungle primary
California’s top-two primary means Jamie and the incumbent — both Democrats — go straight to the general; no Republican is running. She’s a late entrant and out-fundraised, but the only challenger.
[36:05] The Society Library
In her early twenties, Jamie read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and the description of his debating club — a group that reasoned together in “a sincere spirit of inquiry into truth.” She built the Society Library to do that at civilization scale, extracting arguments and evidence from across media into models city councils and universities now use.
“Our reasoning is fractured and broken across the web... We focus on creating models of formal civilization-scale debate.” — Jamie Joyce
[42:30] Her art
Jamie funded college winning art competitions; a Burning Man honorarium led to her hand-cut wooden “wisdom” books and, later, Lichtenberg figures — three-dimensional lightning shapes made by irradiating acrylic in a particle accelerator.
“The real treasure is the friends you make along the way.” — Jamie Joyce
[48:22] Franklin’s Junto, and Richard’s own
Franklin’s club was the Leather Apron Club, which became the Junto. Richard started a Junto in Fort Bragg twenty years ago that still meets every Thursday; he invites Jamie to visit.
[50:33] Closing
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” — Benjamin Franklin, quoted by Jamie Joyce
“It matters less whether I win this particular seat... what really matters is that we never, ever give up.” — Jamie Joyce
Resources mentioned
Jamie Joyce for Congress — jamiejoyce.com
Benjamin Franklin’s Junto (the Leather Apron Club)
A note on working together
For those who feel drawn to working together more directly, I offer a limited number of one-on-one sessions.
These are not traditional therapy sessions. They are quiet, practical conversations focused on calming the mind, easing anxiety, and working with simple tools that support steadiness in daily life.
We move at a thoughtful pace. We work with what’s present. We focus on what helps.
My Books
I wrote Adverse Effects and Therapeutic Potential to contribute to how we, as a community, handle a moment of unprecedented attention and capital.
Will psychedelic medicines be another drug dispensed in 15-minute sessions with psychiatrists, or will they be used properly as facilitators of psychotherapy?
Early feedback:
Dr. Richard Louis Miller is a true elder and wisdom keeper of the psychedelic community, and his credentials come honestly, through hard-won experience. In this book, he continues his role as an educator by sharing his knowledge of both the perils and the promise of psychedelic substances. The reader will find valuable advice on how to avoid pitfalls while realizing the maximum benefits from the thoughtful and safe use of these remarkable medicines.
— Dr. Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist and author of The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
Putting forth the adverse effects of these substances in readable form contributes to their understanding and separates psychedelic scientists from those who would cover over, or even hide, negative effects of pharmaceuticals.
— Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco
If any of this speaks to you, you can order the book here.
My Other Books
Master Your Mind: Practical Tools to Calm Anxiety, Silence Your Inner Critic and Stop Overthinking
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)
