Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Conversation begins at 10:10
With DEATH TRIP: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir (Spiral Collective Press, bookshop.org/a/4669/9798218320232), Seth Lorinczi (https://www.sethlorinczi.com) explores how trauma can be transmitted over generations, and how an ancient (& new) form of treatment can help overcome it. We talk about finding his family's story of the Holocaust, trying to understand why so much of it stayed hidden, how badly it warped his life, and how he & his wife found answers in psychedelic medicine (MDMA, ayahuasca, toad (!)). We get into the long-term damage of unmetabolized trauma and untouched grief, how psychedelics allowed him to recognize patterns in his life, family history, and the universe, the challenges of researching his family's Holocaust experience in Hungary, how his experiences led to a memoir (& a saved marriage), why Death Trip is a series of surrenders, how his close and distant relatives responded to the book, and why he thinks I should leapfrog therapy and try psychedelics first. We also discuss growing up in the punk scene of Washington, DC (and writing his next book about that), how coincidence becomes important after psychedelic experiences, how some married couples take up salsa dancing but he & his wife took up ayahuasca, how his daughter responded to all this, whether a person can change, how once you get the message you should put down the phone, and a lot more. Follow Seth on Instagram (instagram.com/sethlorinczi/) and subscribe to his Dispatches From The Fringe newsletter (https://www.sethlorinczi.com) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-627-seth-lorinczi • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
Conversation begins at 10:10
With DEATH TRIP: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir (Spiral Collective Press, bookshop.org/a/4669/9798218320232), Seth Lorinczi (https://www.sethlorinczi.com) explores how trauma can be transmitted over generations, and how an ancient (& new) form of treatment can help overcome it. We talk about finding his family's story of the Holocaust, trying to understand why so much of it stayed hidden, how badly it warped his life, and how he & his wife found answers in psychedelic medicine (MDMA, ayahuasca, toad (!)). We get into the long-term damage of unmetabolized trauma and untouched grief, how psychedelics allowed him to recognize patterns in his life, family history, and the universe, the challenges of researching his family's Holocaust experience in Hungary, how his experiences led to a memoir (& a saved marriage), why Death Trip is a series of surrenders, how his close and distant relatives responded to the book, and why he thinks I should leapfrog therapy and try psychedelics first. We also discuss growing up in the punk scene of Washington, DC (and writing his next book about that), how coincidence becomes important after psychedelic experiences, how some married couples take up salsa dancing but he & his wife took up ayahuasca, how his daughter responded to all this, whether a person can change, how once you get the message you should put down the phone, and a lot more. Follow Seth on Instagram (instagram.com/sethlorinczi/) and subscribe to his Dispatches From The Fringe newsletter (https://www.sethlorinczi.com) • More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-627-seth-lorinczi • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
