The hippie rabbit hole

Nuggets of gold in rivers of bullshit

Glossary

Ontological: relating to “what is”. Ontological claims are statements about the nature of reality. “The sun exists” is an ontological claim. “I feel good” is not.

Epistemics: “how do we know what’s true?” How can we separate plausible ontological claims from bullshit?

Bullshit: Claims made by someone that doesn’t care about whether the claims are true or not.

Intro

I’ve been an aspiring rationalist ever since I read the sequences a few years ago.
I also keep a deck of tarot cards on my desk.

I don’t believe there is an increased chance of drawing certain cards, or that “the universe” is telling me things. Tarot is a memetic randomness generator, a way to “unlock” insights through evocative imagery.

Many tarot practitioners would disagree with my perspective. Tarot is usually part of a package deal that includes belief in the supernatural, unorthodox takes on probability theory and general superstitiousness.¹

Most rationalists don’t want to be associated with this superstitious package deal. Tarot is seen as an outgroup thing that might erode your rationality or at least get you judged by your peers. This aversion is bolstered by the anti-religious sentiment that runs through the sequences.

One way to conceptualize this aversion is to use the metaphor of an epistemic² immune system. An epistemic immune system is a set of habits, knowledge and perspectives that helps you avoid swallowing bullshit. Most rationalists have very strong epistemic immune systems and suffer from “memetic allergies” triggered by the aesthetics of hippiedom.

Three years ago I had severe allergic reactions whenever someone brought up things with hippie connotations. If a hippie told me they “didn’t like my energy”, I started ranting about thermodynamics.³ Apart from rationalism and autistic tendencies, I trace the strength of these reactions back to my deconversion from Christianity at age 23.

Growing up, I used Christianity as the basis of my morals, what I strived for, and my political ideas. When I deconverted, I realized that I’d been doing a lot of motivated reasoning, embracing a patchwork of compartmentalized religious ideas. I was ashamed of past-me and resolved to never fall back to that way of being.⁴

Then I went to a cuddle party, got a 2-minute long hug, and started down the hippie rabbit hole. Engaging with hippiedom has changed my life, enriching me with perspectives and insights that have led to meaningful changes in how I navigate the world.

Along the way, I’ve encountered rivers of bullshit, people lured into harmful parasitic structures, psychosis-inducing “gurus” and #grindset-esque spiritual bypassing. Dodging these dangers requires a well-calibrated epistemic immune system, agency and integrity.⁵ Rationalist training helped me check all these boxes, preparing me to step into hippiedom.

This post will go into my mental models of hippiedom and things I wish I knew before jumping down the rabbit hole. Let me give you a tour.

Nuggets of gold in rivers of bullshit

Hippies tend to have a high openness to experience and willingness to experiment with psychotechnologies.⁶ All across the (rich parts?) of the world, hippies gather to experiment with new ways of being. Over time, groups of hippies invent, refine and remix psychotechnologies, iterating and learning by trial and error.⁷ Learnings are spread through the "web of hippiedom", layered atop social media, community groups, and recurring gatherings. Hippies that spread successful psychotechnologies are rewarded with prestige and/or money. This incentivises hippies to generate new approaches and feed them back into the generative process.

This process is similar to general cultural evolution (see meme theory). What sets hippiedom apart from mainstream cultural evolution is the rapid iteration rate and acceptance of novelty, combined with the specialized focus on psychotechnology, an area that’s rather neglected in mainstream society.⁸

The psychotechnologies generated by this empirical trial-and-error process are usually lathered in bullshit. An example would be “gong baths”, where you lie down and listen to the sound of someone beating a giant gong. The gong makes an overwhelming sound that induces a relaxing altered state of consciousness.

I don’t know how it works. There are studies available, but I haven’t taken my time to explore them.⁹ I haven’t read any studies on whether it’s relaxing to go to the beach either, but I don’t let that stop me from enjoying the immediately obvious benefits.

Unfortunately, people hosting gong baths usually make quite a few (unsubstantiated) claims about how and why they work. Reading a random sample of Facebook event descriptions, I find claims that the gongs harmonize with chakra vibrations, claims that the gong “heals autistic children”, and general claims of cleaning “toxins”.¹⁰

These statements might sound something like this: “The vibrations from the Gong align all the cells in your body, which heals and cleanses you”.

I’ve interacted with hippies that talk this way. I still get a bit allergic, but I try to remind myself that these people aren’t rationalists. Hippies tend to mix ontological claims and descriptions of subjective experience without making clear distinctions in how they language things. Getting caught up in these vaguely defined ontological claims is a mistake.

It’s common to reject spiritual descriptions of subjective experience as something faked in order to bolster ontological claims. While this might be true in some cases,¹¹ I'd argue that it's mostly the opposite way around. Hippies aren't lying about subjective experiences to bolster ontological claims; they are using ontological claims to explain their subjective experiences.

If someone says “I am connected to the source”, ask yourself what subjective state this ontological claim is based on, rather than trying to get the hippie to define “the source”. Most hippies in “source-connection mode” feel a deep sense of purpose and embodied flow. Instead of criticising ontology, you can get a better understanding of this flow state; what’s it like, and how to get into it.

Unfortunately, poorly thought-out models of the world stated confidently are better received than honest uncertainty. As such, many event creators spread this kind of bullshit¹² in order to seem authoritative when marketing their events. Instead of rejecting practices based on the claimed ontology, try it out! Treat the ontological claims like role-playing flavour texts!

Normies going to hippie events might take the efficacy of the practices as evidence for the bullshit explanations, absorbing all manner of ideas into their world model. Given a sufficiently active epistemological immune system, you should be able to steer clear of the bad ontologies while savouring the psychotechnologies on offer.

The nature of the rewards

I want to give a sense of what kind of learnings are on offer. This is very hard since part of the learning is about perspective shifts that reveal unknown unknowns.

One such perspective shift for me is an increased awareness of non-propositional knowledge. I think of non-propositional knowledge as all kinds of insight/experience that is hard to nail down as a series of propositions. This includes things like how to deadlift, the sensation of holding a rock in your hand, the resolve that gets one to finally quit Reddit, and similar.¹³

Non-propositional awareness has made me a better programmer, helped me understand how my emotions impact my reasoning, and given me tools for controlling my future behaviour and mindset through things like ritual and art.¹⁴

Another change is an increased awareness of my own body. Both my emotional state and my health are much more available to me, helping me catch downward spirals early, and make sure I get my needs met. This increased awareness helps me function more effectively while taking better care of myself.¹⁵

Via negativa

Most advice out there is about what to do. What specific practice to try, or what you might experience. Each person’s journey is different, with different dangers and different rewards. Harkening to Taleb, I’ll share some general heuristics and advice on what to avoid doing.

Advice 1. Avoid gurus

Avoid gurus. Try to find groups led by down-to-earth people. Once prestige gets connected to “how spiritual you are”, people will push themselves to become more spiritual. Pushing yourself is a great way to mess yourself up, by overstepping your boundaries instead of listening to your needs.

There are egalitarian co-creative contexts that will be happy to embrace you, search for “[my region] burning community”.

Advice 2. Start with things that are unlikely to be harmful

Before building discernment, start with things that are unlikely to be harmful. Do yoga rather than squeeze burning hot eye drops into your eyes. Go to a cuddle party (with consent practices listed in the event description) rather than jumping into a tantra weekend.¹⁶

What’s dangerous is highly individual. Be mindful of your comfort zone, past history and traumas, and pick something that’s unlikely to damage you. Over time, your comfort zone will expand. You have time, expand gradually.

Advice 3. Be mindful of innovation risks

If something has been tried by thousands of people with little harm, there is a good chance you will gain from it without being harmed. Whenever you try something new, be aware that it might be risky. And if something has a history of harm, be double mindful.¹⁷

Advice 4. Ignore the ontological claims (with one caveat)

Ignore the bullshit explanations and focus on the practices themselves when evaluating if something is good for you. It’s easy to get angry when people say things that conflict with your worldview. Just breathe¹⁸ and let the anger pass.

One important caveat is that the ontological claims might be a fundamental part of the practice, especially in traditional contexts. Embracing a traditional practice while rejecting its ontology might give you a different result compared to if you engage with “the package deal”. This can be further complicated by engaging in a practice that’s based on another cultural context.

If you try out practices ripped from their cultural context, without sharing the ontological beliefs of the traditional practitioners, you run much of the same risks as when trying out brand new practices.

Hence it might make sense to opt for things that have been done by many people who share your cultural background. If the practice involves ontological aspects (such as keeping attention “on your third eye”, consider playing along rather than skipping out on principle. If you’re uncomfortable with this (slippery slope?) I recommend avoiding these kinds of practices. Instead, pick a practice where the ontological claims are less integrated.

Advice 5. Try different things

Different strokes for different kinds. It’s hard to tell what you personally need. I suggest trying out various different things, and exploring until you find something that clicks for you.

Advice 6. Get someone(s) to talk to

Find people you trust to listen to you and give you feedback. Psychologists, mentors, friends, or all of the above. Having external feedback is vital since it allows you to course-correct. If you don’t have the ability to get peer review, you risk slowly sliding into unhealthy territory.

Advice 7. Some words on the different kinds of crowds you can find yourself in

I don’t think this advice is needed, but I want to mention that scams are prevalent in certain hippie circles. Distilled water meets multi-level marketing, buying crystals for purification, engaging in recurring expensive courses to fix things that ain’t broke.

In general, you can divide hippies into two camps. One of the camps is pre-modern, consisting of people with ad-hoc worldviews derived from their peer groups. These people have never prioritized forming a coherent, non-compartmentalized worldview.

The other camp is post-/meta-modern. These people usually have degrees from higher education, are (former) engineers, or have some philosophical inclinations. These people are moving beyond a formalized coherent worldview (rejecting logical positivism). These people tend to be more aware and are less prone to falling into bad situations.

In reality, this dichotomy is more of a spectrum. The groups tend to overlap and intermix. But it’s a nifty mental model for evaluating the social contexts you find yourself in. Please note that I’m not judging or rejecting people with pre-modern worldviews. These people might have exceptional emotional skills, deep intuition for certain psychotechnologies, great embodied awareness, or simply a nice vibe.

A non-exhaustive list of hippie stuff you might want to explore

I want to give you some pointers for things that are out there. This will not be exhaustive, but once you start somewhere you are likely to find other hippie stuff to try out.

1. Cuddle parties - meet up and cuddle with strangers. A great way to get oxytocin flowing, helping you relax. If you feel repulsed by the idea - great! You have discovered an inhibition that is most likely not rational, seeing how it limits the scope of your agency.

2. Tantra events - increase your ability to feel pleasure and relate to other people. Social connections and well-being is important for psychological stability and productivity.¹⁹

3. Breathwork - calming and energizing at the same time. I’ve mostly tried Wim Hof style. If you find yourself restless, unfocused or anxious; this might do the trick! You can try this out by yourself in your own bed using this video guide:

4. Impro theatre - Improve your ability to relate socially, come up with quick replies, and increase responsiveness and awareness of other people.

5. Meditation - it’s like going to the gym, but for your mind. I’ve heard good things about both Zen Meditation and vipassaña, but have tried neither (too much ontology, also vipassaña is a bit hardcore). Can recommend trying out shi-ne meditation

6. Burns (events akin to Burning Man) - A good place to find engineers, entrepreneurs and other high-powered people who get together to explore new ways of being.

7. Circling / Authentic relating - increase your social & emotional awareness. Might be triggering to some people. Important to find trauma-aware & humble leaders.

End Notes

I feel a bit like a hypocrite writing this post. I haven’t been overly safety-minded during my trip down the hippie rabbit hole. I’ve had some fairly rough experiences, that I’ve luckily grown from.

I have made sure that I have a mentor, psychologists and friends to give me feedback on my path. A big thank you to all of you for your ongoing support!

1. Note how I used the second paragraph to clearly step away from this category.

2. epistemics= “how do we know what’s true?”

3. Energy crisis before it was cool?

4. It went ok…

5. I use “integrity” to mean “acting in ways that are aligned with your values/needs” here.

6. Psychotechnologies are “technologies” that:

• Resides (mostly) in the mind

• Can be transferred/taught

• Gives the user/community advantages

Examples include meditation, time, arithmetic, money, self-love, negative visualisation etc. Think of them as “mental tools”, “systems of practice”, “transferrable insight”, or “mental models”. Downloadable software for the grey goo.

7. I talked to one person about an intersubjective meditation practice called circling, and he mentioned how trauma awareness has come active during the last ten years, integrating psychological research as a means of harm reduction. The power of iteration! :D

8. We’ve lost most of our institutions for generating psychotechnologies in conjunction with the death of god/religion. Good riddance, but secular societies need to step up our game. This is a bit hampered by liberalism’s insistence on putting “personal development” in the private sphere. Metamodernism anyone?

9. I rarely read studies. I’ve been burned by the replication crisis. Instead, I fall back on iteration, trying out things with limited potential downsides while looking for ways to improve whatever it is I’m aiming for.

10. Maybe we should put small gongs in the exhaust system of cars?

11. particularly when degrees of spirituality become a proxy for group status

12. Let me repeat myself here. I use “bullshit” to refer to claims made by a speaker that is not concerned about whether they’re speaking the truth or not. See On Bullshit

13. Logic positivism can be seen as blindness to non-propositional knowledge, ignoring the fuzziness of real life and the reasonability that underlies all reasoning. Logic positivism is rampant in rationalist circles.

14. Still nothing supernatural about it. The general aversion to ritual is a bit befuddling, seeing as religious people use ritual all the time to great impact. It’s not like their experience is more supernatural than others, given a materialistic worldview.

15. The one major downside is that I’m more sensitive, but that can be solved with noise-cancelling headphones.

16. If you don’t feel like it

17. Do the teachers sexually harass people? Have people gone into trauma?

18. hehe, channelling my inner hippie

19. https://wellbeing.hmc.ox.ac.uk/news/productivity-management-science/

https://www.cusp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/pp-wellbeing-report.pdf

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1711231&dswid=2019