It was a lovely June evening back in 2016, warm with not a single sign of gloom in sight. Paul Simon was onstage at the Santa Barbara Bowl, his sold-out crowd hanging onto every word and greatest hit.
As the last notes of “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” floated in the air, the pint-sized troubadour began waxing poetic about a recent psychedelic experience he had had with a shaman. Simon was palpably giddy as he detailed his inner voyage while using ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic vine from the Amazon. He even wrote a song about it, “Spirit Voices,” which he was about to play.
The crowd, made up mostly of more-than-middle-aged baby boomers drinking wine, went nuts. They seemed to know all about ayahuasca and the mind-expanding spiritual renewal that Simon was celebrating.