Aaron Rodgers, quarterback for the New York Jets, was a featured speaker at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver earlier this week. He was very well received by the audience there.
Terry Braud, a nurse practitioner, told Jonathan Lehman of the New York Post that Rodgers’ performance had an emotional impact on her. “I was moved,” Lehman quoted Braud as saying. “I thought it was amazing that two people who have such standing in our society could stand up and talk about this and the potential,” the first person said. “I thought it was amazing that two people could talk about this and the potential.”
At the psychedelics conference that took place on Wednesday night, Rodgers was heard speaking with podcaster Aubrey Marcus, as reported by Jesse Bedayn of the Associated Press.
According to Rodgers, “hundreds of NFL guys” have come out to him about his use of ayahuasca, which is a plant-based psychedelic beverage, as Lehman mentioned in a previous post. Rodgers also supports the legal acceptance of psychedelics in all fifty states. During the conference, Rodgers said that “hundreds of NFL guys” had reached out to him about his use of ayahuasca. Pro Football Talk was notified in August 2022 by the National Football League and the NFL Players Association that the consumption of ayahuasca is not prohibited by any regulation enacted by the league.
This past December, Rodgers made news when he stated that ayahuasca and psilocybin (mushrooms) let him glimpse “the other side,” and that this experience made “the idea of death more of a passage and less of an ending” for the future Hall of Famer. Lehman was informed by Professor Draulio B. de Araujo of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, who has conducted a study on ayahuasca, on what Rodgers may have experienced while under the influence of the plant.
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“In ayahuasca, the visions, most of the time, come with your eyes closed,” Araujo added. “This is the most common way to experience the visions.” several dramatic, with several varied kinds of things going on and settings. It may take the form of geometric pictures, or it may take the form of a dialogue with someone you know. … Many times, people get the sensation that they have passed away, and then, as a result of that experience, they are reborn.
Douglas Finkelstein, a supporter of the Seattle Seahawks who is employed by an organization known as An Empathic Society, was also present at the conference. While chatting with Lehman, Finkelstein tormented the Jets by bringing up the fact that the team hasn’t been victorious in the Super Bowl since January 1969.
Finkelstein added that individuals who were not familiar with psychedelics may learn “how to cope with misery” through Rodgers’ message. Rodgers was speaking directly to supporters of the New York Jets. “For football fans as a whole, that really, at the end of the day, he is a human being, and he has problems like all of us do, and we all have to find what works best for us to tackle those problems, pun intended.”
Once players come for training camp later this summer, at the very least some New York media members are going to have a little bit of fun with Rodgers referencing the conference.
