Apple Pioneer Bill Atkinson Was a Secret Evangelist of the ‘God Molecule’

Bill Atkinson was a computing pioneer who, in the 1980s, effectively made Apple computers usable for everyday people by transforming code into windows, menus, and graphics.

But few people know that later in life he was a secret advocate of what’s widely considered the world’s most potent psychedelic: 5-MeO-DMT.

The hallucinogen, also called “the God molecule,” is a compound found in the venomous secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad named Incilius alvarius (it’s commonly called Bufo alvarius) and is known to bring about ego death, a total dissolution of the senses, and a euphoric feeling of existential connectedness, all in a roughly 20-minute trip. Atkinson, who died from pancreatic cancer on June 5 at the age of 74, was a member of a close-knit, private online community of 5-MeO-DMT enthusiasts called OneLight, where he went by the alias “Grace Within.”

Several of Atkinson’s friends and fellow ...