Bill Atkinson was a computing pioneer who, in the 1980s, effectively made Apple computers usable for everyday people by transforming code into windows, menus, and graphics.
But few people know that later in life he was a secret advocate of what's widely considered the world's most potent psychedelic: 5-MeO-DMT.
The hallucinogen, also called "the God molecule," is a compound found in the venomous secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad named Incilius alvarius (it's commonly called Bufo alvarius) and is known to bring about ego death, a total dissolution of the senses, and a euphoric feeling of existential connectedness, all in a roughly 20-minute trip. Atkinson, who died from pancreatic cancer on June 5 at the age of 74, was a member of a close-knit, private online community of 5-MeO-DMT enthusiasts called OneLight, where he went by the alias "Grace Within."
Several of Atkinson's friends and fellow psychonauts tell WIRED their "beloved" Atkinson played a key role in helping people access smaller doses of 5-MeO-DMT, which can be made synthetically, as he believed it would maximize the benefits of the potentially dangerous drug while minimizing harm. "The same creative mind who affected personal computers so profoundly continued to influence human evolution through his efforts to make the miracle of 'bufo' safer and more manageable," says friend Charles Lindsay, an artist who has worked with the SETI Institute, which works to find signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. "He truly pushed boundaries. That requires a willingness to consider what might easily be deemed ridiculous." Or, he adds, "risky."
[...] Wishing to spread the gospel about how to use the drug more responsibly, six sources confirmed to WIRED that Atkinson was behind a pseudonymously published manual that contains step-by-step production photos detailing how to produce lower-dose 5-MeO-DMT vape pens known as "LightWands." The guide was published online, on the psychedelic educational nonprofit Erowid. It was first posted in 2021, before it was updated in the month before Atkinson's death. Atkinson collaborated with the makers of the pens—also members of OneLight—to help refine the manufacturing process and make the vaporization process safer, friends say.
"My deepest gratitude goes first to this amazing molecule and to all those who have given of their heart, mind, and courage to bring it to our world," Atkinson wrote pseudonymously on Erowid, outlining how "many of the most beautiful and healing insights are found at lower levels of Jaguar." (Jaguar is the name given by psychologist and psychedelics pioneer Ralph Metzner to 5-MeO-DMT.)
Atkinson—who was also a keen nature photographer—first smoked 5-MeO-DMT in 2012, according to OneLight member Axle Davids, but his relationship with psychedelics goes back much further. In 1985, Atkinson took LSD. He wrote about that experience in 2020: "For the first time in my life I knew deep down inside that we are not alone." He explained how his LSD trip inspired him to develop HyperCard, a Mac application that wove text, graphics, and sound together in a format that predated the World Wide Web and popularized hyperlinking. "I thought if we could encourage sharing of ideas between different areas of knowledge, perhaps more of the bigger picture would emerge," he wrote.
In his final years, he gave away up to 1,000 LightWand kits containing low- to medium-dose 5-MeO-DMT pens and mentored other creators in the OneLight community, according to Davids. Giving people access to lower doses is important, particularly because some are "hypersensitive" to 5-MeO-DMT, he says: "They can lose consciousness. They can purge and choke on their vomit. They can lose their shit entirely."
[...] Atkinson's use of "the God molecule" appeared to contribute toward a spiritual shift and an interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, says MacNiven. "Bill was a completely non-spiritual guy in the beginning," he says. "Then he became extremely spiritual, talking about past lives and future lives."
According to a "Request for Prayers" Atkinson posted on the OneLight forum in November 2024, revealing his identity to the wider community and disclosing he had terminal cancer, he said he had taken the intense African psychedelic iboga in 2017 and that it helped him accept death. "From my Iboga experience seven years ago, I know for certain that my consciousness will continue after I leave my body behind," Atkinson wrote, signing off the letter with his name instead of his pseudonym. "I have no existential fear of death. Actually more anticipation and curiosity."
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday October 23, @04:29AM (3 children)
Plenty of them [wikipedia.org], come help us control them [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday October 23, @09:32AM (1 child)
Only if you take all your damn possums back [wikipedia.org] first.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday October 23, @10:14AM
Mmmm... I now realize I didn't point the relevance.
The cane toad secretes 5-HO-DMT [wikipedia.org] (aka bufotenin) The psychedelic effect is lower than 5-MeO-DMT, tho', the hydrophilic nature of the -OH group makes it harder to cross the blood-brain barrier.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24, @01:57PM
There are a number of projects planning to use drones to control cane toads [gofundme.com]. There's even a gofundme for one of the projects for an autonomous drone that will identify cane toads, drop tadpole traps
Nothing beats a drone with a dettol spray pack. Nothing. Newer projects are going for a more humane approach - capture and deliver to a processing centre, or humanely kill with a spike throught the head or similar. Something like eugenol [pestrol.com.au].
How about we join the forces and pitch the fire ants against the cane toads and just let them kill each other?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday October 23, @03:22PM (5 children)
A peculiarity of the psychonauts I've observed over the decades as a guy who started out in university as a chemistry student, is their weird "moth to a flame" attraction to incredibly potent substances.
If a cook wants a hot flavor dish, its possible to obtain extremely potent industrial products where a drop of the stuff will make you vomit but "most human cooks" just buy a jalapeno pepper (or similar) from the produce aisle and dice it.
IMHO the most popular artificial sweeteners are low potency nearly as weak as table sugar sucrose not the insane single crystal on your tongue makes your tongue quiver stuff.
But the psychonauts all seem focused on milligram or microgram super potent substances leading to ENORMOUS headaches in manufacture. Why do they always get attracted to that instead of saner dosage substances? Imagine if there were something like a 40oz of beer that gave you a nice trip instead of all these "first, buy a microgram-capable scale" headache inducing problems. Its a lot easier to measure 40 oz of beer than 30 mg of fun-stuff.
I looked at his vape pen page and the sheer hassle of measuring 30 mg accurate to a percent or so, is so annoying.
My best theory so far: Its an intelligence test. You have to work this hard to trip, implying you probably have enough intelligence, agency, and motivation to not F up and ruin it for everyone by being an idiot about (ab)using it in public or doing dumber than normal stuff. Best analogy for SN is its like using a CLI as a filter for computer users to filter out the people who probably shouldn't have access to computation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday October 23, @05:01PM (2 children)
There are 2 reasons I can think of for this, as someone who knows some of the sorts who do that kind of thing (never been my thing, but they're generally nice harmless people):
1. It's easier to move small doses unnoticed by law enforcement, important ever since the War on Fun took over so much of American policing.
2. They're at least curious about what happens if you up the dose. And yes, bad stuff is among the things that happens, but they won't know until they try it.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 23, @05:35PM (1 child)
OK that IS probably the main reason, although all it does is abstract the problem to now the cops track peeps who "make their own vape juice" && "Own microgram capable balance" both probably purchased from Amazon in the same order LOL. I'm sure they cooperate with the feds LOL.
As I think about it, my state does sell "legal" THC beverages at licensed liquor stores so perhaps my idea of a DMT 40 oz can is not that far off. Legal in quotes because THC is not federally legal as I understand but it is state legal where I live. Its a recreational state, anything that makes visitors happy is encouraged and at least some people like to get high so we "have to" legalize weed here to keep up with all other vacation destinations.
I would say a solid 5% of the liquor store is THC products now. 1/20th of the store. If it has five aisles, its about a quarter of an aisle of products. Possibly the demand for DMT trips is low enough that a tiny fraction of a small fraction is too small to stock even one item at the liquor store (if dmt were legal in my state at the state level, which I don't think it is...). From what I understand of THC dosage, you'd have to drink about $30 of the THC stuff to get high I am not a weed-dude-bro so I don't know how that competes with street prices for weed. I am repeatedly told by severely addicted people that purely coincidentally weed happens to cure everything all the time for everyone, whereas non-addicts usually are very mildly supportive "not as unhealthy as alcohol" which is probably closer to the truth LOL. I am tempted to buy some THC "sodas" and see what its like.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday October 23, @06:13PM
I think DMT is Fed sch. 1 in the USA, which means illegal everywhere; but you see ads for a certain herb all the time. I got curious about what it might do, and that's how I found out it's a DMT precursor. I forget his name, but there's an article out there about a guy who used it to become the DMT king for a while after a woman showed him how it's done. His contribution was to scale it up and build a network of customers until he got busted. IIRC, the scale-up was not that hard. He was supplying a significant chunk of the USA from his house. If you could run Budweiser out of your garage, you'd definitely do that.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24, @12:57AM
Is this just the same as pharmaceutical medicines that are 5mg or 100mg doses? That are then bulked out with liquid or solid to make them macro sized for human use? Well... remove the user-friendly bulking and you are left with the exact same thing. Unless you are into "a cup" or "football field" of LSD.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Friday October 24, @04:32PM
I don't know if anyone else has run into this, but a couple times at a restaurant I asked for extra habaneros, and got something that tasted, close as I could tell, like it had extra heat, but without an accompanying sensation of flavor. Not sure if I was imagining it, if the habaneros were adulterated, or if the restaurant was adding it after the fact.