Father of Modern Microdosing – Jim Fadiman

It was my great pleasure to have a conversation with Dr. Jim Fadiman. Jim is a delightful gentleman, an elder wiseman with a great sense of humor. Here’s a very concise bit of information about his life:

Jim Fadiman has been at the forefront of the exploration of consciousness since he was introduced to psychedelics by his former Harvard undergraduate advisor, Richard Alpert (aka, Ram Dass) in 1961. He went on to introduce a good number of folks to LSD and psilocybin, some who became counter-culture heroes in the Sixties, such as Stewart Brand who later developed the iconic Whole Earth Catalog.

While he grew up in a Jewish-atheist family, his psychedelic experiences turned him towards a spiritual path. Along the way he studied with Idris Shah, a Sufi mystic, and co-authored the book Essential Sufism with Robert Frager. Jim was an early pioneer in establishing transpersonal psychology, considered the fourth branch of psychology, directly integrating psychology with spirituality. He was the president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology and along with Frager, founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Menlo Park (now known as Sofia University).

In the pre-prohibition days, Jim was one of the researchers working with psychedelics to enhance creativity, solve problems, and develop higher awareness of self and the world. Those programs were halted by the war on drugs in 1966. During that time, he bridged the more academic and research study of psychedelics while maintaining relationships with the counter-culture. He was a friend of Ken Kesey and wrote about the hippie scene in The Other Side of Haight- a Novel.

In our conversation, Jim shares about his early family life as well as his trajectory through many projects and activities until the present. Of his present focus, he might say that the universe has a sense of humor. After all his involvement with deep spiritual, transformative work with moderate to high dose psychedelics, he is now the most well known spokesperson for microdosing, the use of tiny, sub-perceptible doses of psychedelics to enhance people’s functioning in profoundly varied ways.

When I asked him if he was comfortable with being called “the father of microdosing,” he said he preferred the term “modern microdosing.” That’s because his research has led him to recognize that indigenous people have used micro-levels of various plant medicines for thousands of years. This surprised me as these are the substances which many of us know to be used only in larger doses and exclusively in sacred ceremonies. 

It would be an understatement to say he has become enthusiastic about the potentials of microdosing. Along with colleagues, he has set up a citizen science reporting network from which he receives thousands of accounts from people who are microdosing. He speaks of athletes improving their performance, students doing better on tests, people being lifted from chronic intractable depression, sleeping better, dropping additive patterns, even very unexplainable resolving of long-term medical conditions.

Now in his 86th year, he remains active and has been instrumental in the establishment of the “microdosing institute” which educates and offers counseling or coaching for people seeking the benefits of microdosing. A wealth of information, including several videos of Jim speaking are fea