Written by Jamie Wheal in 2021
Synopsis: Wheal argues that a lack of Meaning in our society today, a crisis of faith in both religion and secular institutions, is leading to a rise in rapture ideologies—obsessive belief that the AI singularity, Mars colonies, or an apocalypse will change everything and it isn’t worth fixing our current world. In three parts: 1. Choose Your Own Apocalypse, 2. The Alchemist Cookbook, and 3. Ethical Cult Building, Wheal outlines the problem and its causes, surveys a variety of physiological tools like breath work and music that create mystical experiences, and outlines how we might build community rituals to rehabilitate our faith (recapture the rapture) and move humanity in a positive direction.
Review: Wheal’s writing felt similar to how I would’ve written this book, and I mean that in all the worst ways. Picture an amateur writer wanting to play with language, who’s also fascinated with science that he really wants to tell you about because it’ll save your life and the world. That’s me coming up for the tags for this blog in 11th grade, and that’s Jamie Wheal overstuffing a book with punchy metaphors and neologisms in a string of unrelated science anecdotes that tee up a revolution but lose all steam in the section of the book meant to offer concrete resources.
Here’s an example of Wheal’s language: “‘Buy the ticket, take the ride,’ as Hunter Thompson said. Millions of people are heeding that advice. It’s not surprising that with such inconsistent preparation and repeat visits to the cosmic carnival, some of those roller coasters go off the rails.”
End one chapter like this, and the ‘off the rails’ idiom is a fun button. Start and end every section of each chapter like this, and the reader starts to wonder when we’ll get to the point.
Here’s another: “Church, then, could become something else altogether. Self-organized synchronized consumption of prescription pharmaceuticals in a revelatory, celebratory environment. B.Y.O.E. Bring Your Own Entheogens. Brought to you by your local Groove and Reconciliation Committee.”
Again, each individual bit of language play is clever. But when it’s embedded in every sentence, the educational nonfiction you bought ends up clouded by poetry.
Unfortunately, Wheal takes his creative license far enough make me doubt the content. Recapture the Rapture contains a dozen charts, terms, and theoretical frameworks coined by the author, who is not a scientist himself. Notably, Wheal overlays his own four options for how we respond to a charismatic leader: Follow, Fuck, Fear, Fight, onto a two-axis framework for emotions developed by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett (positive/negative and active/passive). Barrett’s chart has experimental backing, but we’re given no reason to believe she would accept Wheal’s additions, and connecting them gives a neuroscientific credibility to Wheal’s idea that I’m not sure is earned. There are a few other moments like this where Wheal glaringly oversteps his authority. One is his willingness to prescribe how society might administer psychedelic rituals, after only one anecdote and no experimental, cultural psychology research to back it up. And then there are his “Ten Suggestions,” a blend of moral/health/spiritual guidelines presented as ‘open-source’ alternatives to the Ten Commandments. Wheal graciously acknowledges that this list is not meant to be the last word and that we should “Take what’s helpful, leave the rest,” but the book’s concision and coherency would be better served by scrapping these generic recommendations and their flippant names.
As for the content underneath the stylistic layer: Wheal did his research, and he offers a sufficiently convincing argument of why we need to revolutionize meaning. The ingredients of “The Alchemist Cookbook” also all come with decades of science. However, Wheal has to run through a gauntlet of physiological research when each of the chapters in this section can be and has been made into its own entire book. Frankly, you’re much better off just listening to the podcast interviews that scholars like Barrett and Andrew Huberman have done to improve the relevant areas of your life than working from Wheal’s summaries of their findings. Furthermore, “Ethical Cult Building” was an overly ambitious undertaking. I respect the author for trying, but the individual therapeutic benefits of psychedelics don’t scale up so easily to revitalizing communities, most readers don’t have the leverage to just create new sacraments and deities for their neighbors to try out, and none of us who believe in your philosophy, Mr. Wheal, want to call ourselves Omegans.
Strengths:
The breath chapter describes specific exercises and their benefits in a clear, actionable way.
Wheal powerfully illustrates how interconnected the global environment has become, removing any safe “away” to escape to.
Weaknesses:
The (double-checking my notes here… ah, yes…) BDSM vampires in NYC are never adequately explained.
When Wheal turned his flowery language to two full chapters on sex, I had to skim them out of second-hand embarrassment.
Rating: 11/20 endocannabinoid system resets
Ideal Setting: Read this book before trying to convince your parents to trip on psychedelics with you.
