When Mescaline Led a Philosopher to Hallucinate Crabs

Frequently touted as a heart opener, most Mescaline experiences tend to be positive.

But what's the fun in reading about just positive experiences?

That's too boring.

So today, we're going to look at a wacky, old-school encounter involving crabs... not the sexually transmitted kind, but the imaginary kind you may see when you're too high on Mescaline 🤭

As you may know...

Mescaline is a substituted phenethylamine derivative that occurs naturally in certain cacti like Peyote and San Pedro.

One notable effect of phenethylamines like Mescaline and 2C-B is a heightened sensitivity to physical awareness.

They tend to add a dimension of subtle texture to the experience, which you can literally feel due to the enhanced tactile sensations.

First, let's rewind back to 1918 for a second.

Once upon a time, a German chemist and psychedelics pioneer Ernst Späth isolated and purified Mescaline from the Peyote cactus 🌵

...and a year later, in 1919, Ernst became the first person to accomplish a complete synthesis of the compound as well.

Fast-forward to 1935, and 30-year-old Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existential philosopher, is wildin' out getting Mescaline injections by his homie (and psychiatrist) Daniel Lagache at Sainte-Anne Hospital in Paris.

As a philosopher, Sartre held the belief that Mescaline had the potential to aid in his research in phenomenology and enable him to perceive the world differently.

Little did he know that Mescaline would eventually lead him to a nervous breakdown.

In 1971, a conversation between French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and John Gerassi, a political science professor at Queens College in New York, was documented in the book "Talking With Sartre: Conversations and Debates." 

In this conversation, Sartre recounted his Mescaline experience from 1929.

The following is an excerpt from that conversation:

Sartre: I ended up having a nervous breakdown.

Gerassi: You mean the crabs?

Sartre: Yeah, after I took mescaline, I started seeing crabs around me all the time. They followed me in the streets, into class. I got used to them. I would wake up in the morning and say, “Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?”

I would talk to them all the time.

I would say, “O.K., guys, we’re going into class now, so we have to be still and quiet,” and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.

Gerassi: A lot of them?

Sartre: Actually, no, just three or four.

Grassi: But you knew they were imaginary?

Sartre: Oh, yes. But after I finished school, I began to think I was going crazy, so I went to see a shrink, a young guy then with whom I have been good friends ever since, Jacques Lacan.

We concluded that it was fear of being alone, fear of losing the camaraderie of the group.

You know, my life changed radically from my being one of a group, which included peasants and workers, as well as bourgeois intellectuals, to it being just me and Castor.

The crabs really began when my adolescence ended.

At first, I avoided them by writing about them — in effect, by defining life as nausea — but then as soon as I tried to objectify it, the crabs appeared.

And then they appeared whenever I walked somewhere. Not when I was writing, just when I was going someplace.

The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and that I just wouldn’t pay attention to them. And then the war came, the stalag, the Resistance, and the big political battles after the war.

That's a hell of a trip, huh? 😅🦀

It is interesting to note that the crabs disappeared as soon as Sartre decided that he was bored and refused to pay attention to them.

In a way, the crab, representing fear(s), could also be looked at as one of his internal demons.

As mentioned in How to tame your inner demons, the demon disappears as soon as you surrender to it.

You see...

The crabs represent the human condition

The crustacean symbolized the existential struggle of humans: a solid, rational exterior hiding an irrational, amorphous interior.

We appear rigid and solid on the outside, but we are actually chaotic and gooey on the inside.

This duality mirrored Sartre's belief that people strive to appear coherent and in control while dealing with life's inherent ambiguities.

Like a crustacean's hard shell concealing its messy insides, we build facades of stability, only to face the fluid complexities within.

Just as the crab’s shell provides protection and structure, we too often cling to our familiar habits, routines, and self-image, feeling secure in our established identity.

However, just as the crab must shed its shell to accommodate growth and evolution, so too, must we be willing to release our attachment to who we think we are and allow ourselves to adapt and transform...

The process of shedding and regeneration is crucial for spiritual development and for thriving in a constantly evolving world.

By embracing flexibility and openness, we can tap into the boundless potential within us, much like the crab’s ability to molt and emerge anew.

What are you currently shedding to make space for the next stage of growth?

Have a lovely day!
Your friend,

—Dr. D

🧙🏽‍♂️❤️🧞‍♂️

⭐ = Mustafa's favorites

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I have no routines or personal history.

One day, I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them.

One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little.

If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts.

And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.

It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people.

I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life.

And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am when I am all this?

―Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan