n aeon ago, at the start of my adult life, I dropped out of the science–law degree that I had chosen for no better reason than “having the marks” and entered a tumultuous period of existential and spiritual seeking. I had emerged from a miserable adolescence in the Australian public school system with a broken self-esteem and little sense of who I was or what I wanted in life. A series of magic mushroom trips catapulted me out of the chrysalis of my teenage self into a new world of psychological and spiritual possibilities, but the truths revealed in those partly-ecstatic, partly-nightmarish experiences left me disoriented and caught between fevers of spiritual inflation and crushing bouts of depression that were the legacy of years of high school bullying. I travelled to India for a six-month sojourn that remains the greatest adventure of my life. On a shoestring budget of $1500 for the entire trip, I traversed the subcontinent from one flea-bitten backpackers to another, delirious with freedom, and spent nights on the top of a
