Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use.

In this chapter, Dass (then still Richard Alpert) describes the height of his worldly success in 1961: he was a respected Harvard professor with multiple appointments, substantial research funding, and a lavish lifestyle that included multiple vehicles, a private airplane, and vacations in the Caribbean. Despite fulfilling every material criterion of success, he admits to feeling restless and disillusioned with the narrow scope of academic psychology. He realized that theories of human behavior, though endlessly discussed, failed to address the deeper questions of meaning and self-understanding that nagged at him. Dass also recalls how his first therapy patient introduced him to marijuana and later, how his experience with psychedelics (psilocybin) challenged the limitations of his Western intellectual framework. By detailing the disconnect between his external achievements and his internal unease, he underscores the fundamental gap he sensed between following a traditional academic career and seeking true wisdom.

Dass (still in his Alpert identity) voices growing disillusionment with academia and his role as a social scientist. Despite his success—multiple appointments, prestigious grants, and a top-tier academic reputation—he feels a disconnect between the theories he teaches and the “real” questions of human life.