Historian & Author, Thomas Hatsis
Thomas Hatsis is a historian, public speaker, community organizer, host of the Psychedelic Historian YouTube channel, and author of five books in the field of psychedelic history and practice, The Witches Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (2015), Psychedelic Mystery Traditions: Spirit Plants, Magical Practices, Ecstatic States, (2018), Microdosing Magic: A Psychedelic Spellbook (2018), LSD: The Wonderchild: The Golden Age of Psychedelic Research in the 1950s (2021), and Psychedelic Injustice: How Identity Politics Poisons the Psychedelic Renaissance (2025). Since 2015, Hatsis has gone on several countrywide book tours, spoken at a number of conferences, and appeared on three GaiamTV shows. During that time, he also co-founded a vibrant psychedelic society, Psanctum, in Portland, Oregon. Through Psanctum, he hosts a weekly open mic, a monthly integration circle, a monthly Psychedelic Speaker Series, the bimonthly Psychedelic History series, organized two psychedelic conferences, and opened a thrift store, Psanctum Thrift—the first store to raise funds for folks who seek psychedelic-assisted therapy (now legal in Oregon) but have financial barriers. In 2023, Hatsis had the honor of receiving the last thirty-four boxes of the Timothy Leary archive to catalogue, digitize, and preserve.
Available for preorder now!
Psychedelic Injustice brings two once-separate culture wars— critical social justice and mainstreaming psychedelia— into focus and explores how the rhetoric of the former hinders the promise of the latter. Much as we see in the larger mainstream culture, the impact of critical social justice within psychedelia has resulted in falling academic standards, name-calling, bullying, and ostracizing anyone who does not submit to “ approved” critical social justice rhetoric. Dealing with three broad social topics (decolonization, race, and gender), Psychedelic Injustice questions the very institutions (within and without psychedelia) that push divisive narratives while also imploring a message of hope and unity in the psychedelic Renaissance. Psychedelic Injustice is not a “ call out” — rather, it is a call to unity. Through personal experiences, rigorous scholarship, and an eye for nuance, Psychedelic Injustice serves as a much-needed and long-overdue counterpoint to the highly questionable, disunifying narratives found throughout modern psychedelia.
Books
The Witches' Ointment (Buy Here)
Translating medical, inquisitorial, and demonological treatises from the original Latin and archaic romance languages, Hatsis brings the untold story of medieval psychedelia among wise-women alive. Using psychoactive ointments to achieve otherworldly states, while not common in the early modern era (c. 1400 - 1700), were nonetheless used to fall into trances, divine, and perform other kinds of local magic. Hatsis demonstrates how theological prejudices, folklore, and phytochemistry created the so-called "witches' ointment" in popular culture, showing how zealous theologians turned entheogenic experiences into "trips" to the devil.
Psychedelic Mystery Traditions (Buy Here)
Hatsis's prequel to The Witches' Ointment, wherein he explores the ancient mystery religions and psychedelic practices of wandering wonderworkers, cult initiates, witches, alchemists, and magicians throughout the centuries. Beginning with the earliest signs of entheogenic practices among the Minoans, early Greeks, Sumerians, and Romans, Hatsis shows how these practices were later employed by Hebrews and Christians alike.
Microdosing Magic: A Psychedelic Spellbook (Buy Here)
Putting history aside for a moment, Hatsis offers us a fun and highly entertaining book showing how to get the most out of microdosing practices. Filled with wit, history, philosophy, and ritual, Microdosing Magic is intended as a primer for those interested in psychedelia who are just looking to get their toes wet.
