When former Buffalo Bill Jordan Poyer heard New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers extol the benefits of ayahuasca on The Pat McAfee Show in 2023, he was suspicious — but intrigued. Poyer had been struggling with his marriage and his recovery from alcoholism, and after hearing Rodgers discuss “plant medicine” — as the psychoactive brew is commonly described among acolytes — he decided to give it a try, to apparently life-changing results. Poyer relays all this in the recent Netflix documentary Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, which looks at the mystery of the possibly retiring Super Bowl champion.

Rodgers isn’t just any athlete partaking in psychedelics and inspiring others to do the same. He seems to be drawn to fringe concepts: He’s expressed anti-vax views and is a good friend of public health conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He’s reportedly shown interest in 9/11 and Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, the latter of which he has denied. He believes that HIV/AIDS was invented by the government. Yet the 41-year-old self-professed perfectionist’s enthusiasm for ayahuasca, in particular, feels predictable for an increasingly mainstream category of men he represents: wealthy dudes who are obsessed with self-improvement and rely on their own “research” to an often troubling degree.

Likewise, a growing number of tech CEOs, like OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have raved about the “transformative” experience of taking ayahuasca, which has supposedly increased their productivity, creativity, and leadership skills. Controversial bro-science guys like spiritual wellness advocate Aubrey Marcus (also in Rodgers’s documentary) have expressed similar enthusiasm. Marcus, who wrote the self-help books Own the Day, Own Your Life and Master Your Mind, Master Your Life, recently made a film about the psychedelic ritual. Elon Musk and controversial computer scientist Lex Fridman took it together. Definitive “podcast bro” Joe Rogan has been an advocate of ayahuasca for years.

Still, the drug seems to have reached some kind of cultural tipping........

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