Auto-SummaryAbbie Rosner, a late baby boomer and author of "Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging," delivered the keynote speech at the sixth-annual Entheofest in Ann Arbor, Michigan, emphasizing that aging can be a fulfilling and joyful experience. Rosner shared her personal journey of rediscovering psychedelics later in life, including her experiences with psilocybin mushrooms and cannabis, which she credits with helping her gain new perspectives and connect with her authentic self. She highlighted stories from other older adults who found healing, spiritual connection, and self-exploration through psychedelics, arguing that these experiences can be transformative at any age. The event, held on the University of Michigan campus, featured discussions on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and included a talk by a shaman and a standup comedian, while campus police reminded attendees of the legal restrictions on illegal substances.
Ann Arbor psychedelic fest keynote speaker: Getting old doesn’t have to be horrible
September 20, 2025 - MSN
 ANN ARBOR, MI — Abbie Rosner came to Ann Arbor’s Entheofest to impart some wisdom as someone in her late 60s who has rediscovered psychedelics later in life.
“Getting old does not have to be a horrible and terrible thing,” she told a crowd Sunday, Sept. 20. “Take that in.”
It can be the most wonderful, amazing, fulfilling and joyful time of life, she said, speaking from experience.
Rosner, author of “Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging,” was the keynote speaker for the sixth-annual celebration of psychedelic plants and mushrooms on the University of Michigan Diag. The peaceful gathering of mind explorers and curious minds took place in the rain for the second year in a row and was sparsely attended by everyone from UM students to senior citizens.
“Rain and all, I’m ecstatic to be here. It’s just really great to be with my tribe,” Rosner said.
A late-end baby boomer, Rosner said she came of age in the 1970s.
“Like the people of my generation, we smoked a lot of weed, dropped acid, did all kinds of stuff,” she said.
When she went to the University of California in Berkeley and was in her early 20s, she did magic mushrooms, she said.
“And I saw the life energy flowing through a tree,” she said. “And when I close my eyes, I can still conjure that.”
She eventually got married, had children and stopped using psychedelics for decades, she said. Then when she was in her 50s and her marriage was ending and she was an empty nester, she made a new friend who had marijuana, she said.
“I hadn’t smoked cannabis for decades, and it used to make me kind of edgy and paranoid,” she said, explaining she used to do it socially because it’s what people did.
When she tried it again in her 50s, it was a different experience and quite wonderful, she said. She wondered whether it was just that she was different or the pot was different.
“I realized that, for one thing, I had decades of life experience, so I was much more mature,” she said. “But I also had done countless hours of therapy, and I had a longtime meditation practice, so I was very comfortable inside my head.”
So, when she got “enhanced with cannabis,” she said, it gave her a whole new perspective on life. And it sent her on a journalistic journey to talk to others and write about it.
“I thought to myself, can I be the only older adult here that’s like, rediscovering cannabis in a really different way?” she said.
She landed a gig writing about it for Forbes and talked to older adults who were finding ways to enhance their aging with cannabis, including sleeping better and managing pain, she said.
On her 60th birthday in 2018, Rosner said she received a copy of Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.”
She read about clinical trials with cancer patients who received psilocybin mushrooms with therapy to deal with end-of-life distress and were having incredible outcomes, she said.
Rosner said she thought to herself: Everybody has a terminal diagnosis, life comes with it, so why wait until being at death’s door to have the benefits of those psychedelic experiences?
When she turned 60, living in Philadelphia, she had no idea where to find psilocybin, she said, but she ended up growing her own shrooms and had a beautiful experience in a friend’s backyard.
She eventually interviewed dozens of older adults from their 50s into their 80s, all across the country. She found some, like her, had done psychedelics in the past and had a long hiatus, some never stopped, and some were new to it, she said.
She found some people were using psychedelics for healing and a lot of them were dealing with significant trauma, including childhood wounds and later trauma, she said. Others were doing it for spiritual connection and self exploration.
Their stories were very different, Rosner said, but what she heard over and over again from people was that it was hands down the happiest, most meaningful and fulfilling time of their life.
“It was just the most remarkable phenomenon,” she said.
The different themes that emerged from those interviews became the different chapters of her book, she said.
Later in life, people may start to question who they really are, if they have lived an authentic life, or how much they contorted themselves to satisfy others, Rosner said.
“In that space, the mushrooms or the medicine comes in and helps you to understand who really am I?” she said.
“And so I was hearing these beautiful stories over and over again, people that were connecting to their authentic selves, experiencing love and forgiveness,” she said. “Imagine being 70 years old and for the first time in your life knowing what it feels like to be held in unconditional love. Very, very, very powerful. You can never be too old for these kinds of experiences.”
Rosner said she’s hoping her generation, as conscious elders, can help change the conversation around aging and dying. Reading from her book, she issued a call to action to organize and lift each other up instead of allowing themselves to be divided.
“We may have deep body memories from our days as protesters, activists and hippies during and after the Summer of Love. And like a bad dream, once again we’re facing the most toxic and divisive powers of authority trying to deny our shared humanity and crush our collective spirit,” she said. “Lest we forget, we are stardust.”
Sincere Seven of the Psychonaut Academy of Detroit, a self-described shaman, also spoke at Sunday’s festival, which featured various informational booths. He talked about “sacred animal venoms,” including snake and scorpion venom, and using ayahuasca to help people with PTSD.
As a military veteran, he used cannabis as a pacifier for his own PTSD when he came home, but it wasn’t until he tripped on shrooms that his PTSD was cured, he said.
Local standup comedian Zach Martina served as emcee and host for Sunday’s event sponsored by a University of Michigan student group known as the Lookout Project.
"The point of today is momentum,” he said. “It’s moving forward and teaching people how to heal themselves so they can turn around and heal somebody else.”
Campus police stood watch over the crowd and warned this past week any use, possession or sales of illegal substances like psilocybin wasn’t allowed on university property. Even though Ann Arbor decriminalized entheogenic plants and fungi at the city level in 2020, recognizing their potential for therapeutic and medicinal uses, that doesn’t change state or federal law, UM cautioned, saying officers were prepared to respond to unlawful activity.
A campus police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether there were any arrests.
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