A Portrait of an Autistic Anon

Joe, not his real name, has High Functioning Autism, also known as Asperger's Syndrome. Joe is a member of Anonymous. Anyone who joins up with Anonymous is called an Anon. Joe started using psychedelic drugs to try to give some meaning to his otherwise empty existence. Joe loves to vaporize DMT; that is his favorite psychedelic drug. Here is Joe's story.

Joe wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and standing in the woods near his group home. The Guy Fawkes mask is a symbol of Anonymous and worn by most Anons to mask their identity. (Photo: Michael Israel)

Joe only would agree to be interviewed if he were allowed to wear a Guy Fawkes mask to disguise his identity. Disclosing their actual identity to reporters or anyone else for that matter is anathema to all Anons. It is very hard to interview an Anon because no Anon will speak to anyone who is not also an Anon. Anons do not trust people who are not Anons to respect their privacy requests, or to understand the reasons why they are making the requests in the first place. Other Anons understand why the requests were made; it is just one of the mores of the group Anonymous, something that its members understand but the outside world tends to gloss over as paranoia. It is more of a method of protecting the members of the group then just paranoia. The intense need to maintain privacy is the one major thing that differentiates an Anon from a member of any other political group; it is a way of taking a stance against the overly invasive government Snowden warned people about. Joe decided to join up with Anonymous because when he was younger, he helped the Christic Institute expose CIA corruption. When the Christic Institute got shut down by the government, Joe moved on with his life. After Joe had learned about WikiLeaks, his interest in helping to expose governmental corruption was rekindled. As soon as Joe realized that WikiLeaks was threatened because of the actions of various payment processors acting as agents of the government and Anonymous was fighting back, he decided to join the fight. Joe became an Anon. An Anon is a person who uses hacking skills to help support social or political causes; An Anon is an in real life personification of Mr. Robot. To help out with the protest Joe and other Anons downloaded a computer programmed called the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) and started to DDOS the sites of the payment processors that refused to process donations people were making to help support WikiLeaks. To DDOS a website is the digital equivalent of a 60's style sit-in. The only difference being is that when you DDOS a site, it's packets, not people are that are blocking access to the site. Joe and other Anons also helped by teaching people who wanted to donate to WikiLeaks how to obtain bitcoins and use the darknet to send the bitcoins to WikiLeaks without needing to go through any payment processor. When Joe was in high school he became interested in psychedelic drugs after reading Aldous Huxley and poets from the 1960s, namely Alan Ginsberg, who used psychedelic drugs; however, because of his autism, Joe did not know how to go about and obtain those drugs. It was only after going to jail because he engaged in protests and other acts of civil disobedience as an Anon that Joe discovered a way to have any psychedelic drug he wanted, delivered to him. Joe stated: "the only valuable skill I've learned when I was in jail was how to buy psychedelic drugs off of the Internet." He had always felt apathy about life, existential angst, a void that could never be filled. Joe hoped that psychedelics would fill that void. Joe already had the skill set needed to buy the drug off the Internet. He learned how to use the darknet because he downloaded the LOIC off of the darknet. Joe learned from other Anons how to use proxies to mask his computer's location when he went onto the darknet. He also knew how to get bitcoins, the special currency that was used on the darknet to buy drugs. He had used bitcoins in the past to help fund WikiLeaks after the payment processors stopped allowing people to donate to WikiLeaks. As an Anon, Joe taught people who wanted to donate to Wikileaks how they could obtain and use bitcoins.

A screen shot of one of the many sites on the darknet where Joe and other people buy drugs. This site and others like it are how Joe gets access to psychedelic drugs. (Photo: Michael Israel)

When asked how hard it was for someone to order drugs of the darknet, Joe said: "It's not that hard at all, all you need to do is download a program called Tor, and go to a special type of site called an onion site." Getting the bitcoins is a little trickier, "you used to be able to mine for them, but now you need to go to a broker such as CoinBase. It also helps if you don't directly transfer the coins from CoinBase to the drug marketplace but send them to your computer first." The first psychedelic that Joe decided to try was MDMA. He had read an article on the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelics Studies (MAPS) website about a scientific study that tested if MDMA could help autistic people overcome social anxiety, but Joe didn't like it that much because it didn't have the visual effects he was seeking out. According to Joe, "MDMA helped improve his eye contact and his social skills, but he was looking more for a spiritual or unique mystical experience and not just another psychiatric cure."

A close up picture of two MDMA pills that Joe has. MDMA was the first psychedelic that Joe tried after reading about a scientist who used MDMA to help autistic people socialize. (Photo: Michael Israel)

The next drug Joe tried was LSD. Joe loved LSD, but it was still not the intense experience he wanted. He did not know it was not what he wanted, until after he tried DMT.  "I loved the unique introspective thoughts that LSD gave me, but the visuals were just size distortions and not the amazing kaleidoscope of colors, the intensely visual psychedelic experiences that were described by the poets in the 60s, that I wanted to experience. I still love LSD for helping me think outside of the box and still use LSD a lot. I stopped using MDMA because MDMA was way too neurotoxic for my tastes."

A picture of Joe taking LSD out of a vial while wearing his "I Have Autism" bracelet. (Photo: Michael Israel)

A bottle of liquid LSD. This bottle contains enough LSD for 50 to 100 full blown acid trips. (Photo: Michael Israel)

The thing about LSD that Joe likes the best is the price of LSD on the darknet, for about $250-$450 you could buy enough LSD for over 100 trips. One thing that Joe dreams of doing is a thumbprint. A thumbprint is when one takes 10 milligrams or more of pure crystal LSD. A thumbprint would be the equivalent taking over ten-thousand micrograms, enough for over nine-thousand intense LSD trips. Joe is, understandably, nervous about doing something this intense. Joe says: "I'll probably never do this. It's too risky for me. I don't know if it is safe. I don't know if the stories I heard in jail about people from various acid families doing this are real or just urban legends. I don't want to risk my life over legendary tales about acid that I heard in jail. I'll stick to mushrooms and DMT; they give me the intense trips I want without any significant and largely unknown risks."

Joe's glass magic mushroom paperweight and his "I Have Autism" bracelet. (Photo: Michael Israel)

The two psychedelic drugs Joe loves the most the most are mushrooms, and DMT. They are very close to each other on a molecular level. He said, "mushrooms gave me the kaleidoscope of colors I was looking for, and DMT, as well as showing me the kaleidoscope of colors, transported me into alien worlds and sometimes DMT would actually make me look like I was an awesome space alien."

A picture of Joe looking up information about DMT on Erowid. (Photo: Michael Israel)

A picture of Joe looking up information about DMT on Erowid. (Photo: Michael Israel)

According to Joe, "of all the psychedelics I used, DMT was the most difficult one to get high off, but it was also the most rewarding when done right." Joe then proceeded to talk about what a DMT high is like: "The first time I used DMT I was transported into a fractal universe filled with red devil faces. The second time I used it I saw colorful geometric patterns; they looked like chemical diagrams you see in textbooks. The third time I used it, I had the most intense experience I ever had in my life, I thought I was getting eaten by an energy field; this experience made me give up meat and become a vegetarian. I was not even looking to make that change, but I don't mind that it happened." When asked why he liked DMT better than any other psychedelic, Joe said:  "With DMT, unlike with any of the other psychedelics I used, save for high dose mushrooms, I feel like I am returning home to where I belong whenever I properly use DMT. Also high does mushrooms, and DMT makes my clothing turn into something that is alive. Clothing that starts breathing and transforming into a living entity was scary the first time it occurred, but now it is a welcome friend, something I would long for when I start feeling a profound sense of apathy."

The Glass Vapor Genie, a vaporizer that is used by Joe and other people in the psychedelic community to vaporize DMT. (Photo: Michael Israel)

Two bottles. The blue bottle contains DMT, and the red bottle contains changa. Changa is any other herb laced with DMT. While DMT needs to be vaporized to be effective, change can be smoked like cannabis. (Photo: Michael Israel)

According to Joe, "DMT fills the existential void I felt since as far back as I can remember, even before high school, it removes my apathy and shows me the beauty that is part of all existence." The first time Joe tried DMT he didn't realize it was supposed to be a terrifying experience. Joe already used it a lot and loved every experience DMT gave him when he read that the experience has been classified as terrifying by most people who try it. Joe was different than most people, maybe because of his autism, Joe enjoyed and found beauty in the DMT experience. "The colors one sees after vaporizing DMT or smoking Changa are just amazing. It is like you are swimming in an ocean of pastel colors. The waves are ribbons of more colors than I ever knew existed, it's such a beautiful sight. DMT removes my overly critical ego and makes me feel perfect just the way I am." Joe is now considering cutting back on psychedelics and starting to take up Zen Buddhism. According to Rick Strassman, M.D., psychedelic drugs tend to be the gateway drug to Zen Buddhism; they give the user similar benefits to years of meditative practice. Joe states "I don't want to become dependent on having to use psychedelics to feel normal and to feel less apathy about living my life. I'm going to try Zen and see if it fills the need that I was using psychedelics to fill. If it fills that I need, I plan on tapering off of psychedelics. And replace using external chemicals with sitting and practicing Zazen. I need to find an internal way to be happy, and I also need to stop relying on the external as a source of happiness."

Joe wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and standing in the woods near his group home. The Guy Fawkes mask is a symbol of Anonymous and worn by most Anons to mask their identity. (Photo: Michael Israel)

Joe goes back to his group home, his computer, and his apathy-filled existentially unrewarding life. Helping Anonymous defend WikiLeaks gave his life meaning. Psychedelics helped him emerge from his shell. Hopefully, Zen Practice will prevent him from returning to his shell. Only time will tell if Zen practice helps him overcome his intense need for psychedelics to fill the void or hole in his life, which he had felt since even before he started high school; Joe can't remember a time in his life when he didn't feel this way. Only time will tell if Joe can keep the benefits he obtained from experimenting with psychedelics without always having to use them as a crutch. Only time will tell if Joe can live his life fully without returning to using chemicals to experience his emotions. Joe said, "I am now going to switch from working as a nameless Anon and move to helping the Pirate Party. They both want the same goals, but the Pirate Party works within the system to change the system. Anonymous is more of an anarchic group of anonymous actors getting change vigilante actions. I am getting to old to be a vigilante and want to become more open with who I am and what I stand for. I can't do that as an Anon." Only time will tell if moving away from Anonymous and focusing on helping the Pirate Party will prove to be a wise move for Joe and will help to create a more open society, the type of world that Joe wants to live in. Joe realizes that if he wants to live a long life and make a positive change, he needs to move away from being an anonymous consumer of psychedelics and move toward self-actualization by transcending the need for psychedelic drugs. He is now helping to support a political party that stands for what he believes in. That party is the Pirate Party. As Joe so eloquently puts it, "when you are so content with yourself that you no longer need to use psychedelics to feel normal, only then are you truly free. It is only when you can live your life without needing to use drugs as a crutch, that you know you are on the path meant for you to travel upon." While Joe admits he occasionally slips back into psychedelic drug use, he admits that is slowly making progress and that he is starting to walk down the right path.