Ryan Doherty, the vice president and executive editor at Celadon Books, acquired North American rights from Todd Shuster and Daniella Cohen at Aevitas Creative Management, who represented the author and The Times.
Tentatively titled “Trippy: Unearthing the Past, Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics,” the book will document a booming and unregulated marketplace for alternative mental health treatment. Londoño will explain how a vibrant psychedelic retreat industry took root in Latin America over the past decade, drawing tens of thousands of people struggling with depression, trauma and addiction.
“Trippy” will introduce readers to some of the leading figures working to legalize and broaden access to psychedelics administered in therapeutic and spiritual settings. The increasingly-crowded field includes Indigenous elders, respected psychiatrists, military veterans, alternative healers, charlatans and predators.
As support for decriminalizing psychedelics grows in the United States, the book will explore the appropriation of centuries-old Indigenous rituals, take readers behind the scenes of innovative clinical trials and explain how religious freedom laws in the United States are enabling the movement to legalize psychedelics.
Londoño, a former editorial writer and Brazil bureau chief at The Times, became fascinated by the rise of medicinal psychedelics after attending an ayahuasca retreat in Brazil in February 2018 while he was struggling with a serious episode of depression. The experience was transformational and sparked a desire to understand, and treat, the roots of his distress. To do so, he delved into the history of mental illness in his family and revisited traumatic memories of his childhood in Colombia and the years he spent covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Londoño will remain on staff while working on the book, collaborating closely with Caroline Que, the head of book development at The Times.
“This timely and important book project advances The Times’s mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world,” Que said. “Ernesto’s background and personal experience make him an ideal guide to this complex field.”
Londoño is traveling to a remote Indigenous village in northwestern Brazil in late February for the first of several reporting trips for the book.
“Many mental health experts have come to see psychedelics as a potential game changer for millions of people who are in distress,” said Londoño. “I intend to provide readers with valuable insights on the reasons to be cautious and hopeful about their therapeutic potential.”
