Michael Clegg, also known as Satyam Nadeen, is an American former seminarian and entrepreneur who manufactured and distributed MDMA in the 1980s and 1990s.[1][2][3] His business, known as The Texas Group, has been described as almost certainly the largest MDMA producer in the world from the early 1980s to the early 1990s.[1][2][4] Clegg is credited with popularizing MDMA as a recreational drug.[1][2][5][6]
Early life
Clegg was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.[3] He went into the Catholic seminary with the aim of becoming a priest but dropped out at the age of 26 in 1965.[1][2][3][7][8][4]
MDMA business
Clegg tried MDMA for the first time in Cancun, Mexico in 1978 when he was 40 years old.[1][2][8] He began to distribute MDMA in Dallas, Texas in 1979.[8] A few years later, in 1983, he met an associate named Bob McMillen and began efforts to produce and sell MDMA on a larger scale.[1][2][7] Clegg coined the name "Therapy" as a marketing name for MDMA.[1][2][7] However, McMillen is said to have rejected this name, and instead proposed the name "Ecstasy", which the pair ultimately agreed upon.[1][2][7] According to other reports however, the name "Ecstasy" emerged in 1980 or 1981, prior to when Clegg is said to have met McMillen.[9][10]
They sold MDMA by phone and mail and their business selling the drug quickly exploded.[1][2][11] In 1984, they were making 1 million tablets per month and still were not meeting demand.[4] The group even had the number 1-800-ECSTASY for taking orders.[1][2][3] They also specifically introduced MDMA to clubs.[1][2] The Filipino–American chemist Carina Leveriza (later Carina Leveriza-Franz), who left her job at Intel, worked overseeing the industrial-scale production of MDMA for Clegg.[1][2][3][5]
Clegg once donated and sold Rick Doblin almost 40,000 MDMA tablets in 1985, which Doblin then re-sold to his contacts, for instance in the MDMA-assisted therapy community.[1][2] Doblin used the proceeds to help fund research into MDMA, for instance at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) founded in 1986.[1][2]
Clegg claims that he wished to change the world with MDMA.[1][2][8] However, McMillen has said that Clegg's only motivation was money.[1][2]
MDMA became a Schedule I controlled substance in mid-1985.[1][2] Despite this, Clegg and The Texas Group continued producing and selling MDMA.[1][2] They also tried to market MDEA as a replacement for MDMA, but this was unsuccessful.[8] Although MDMA was scheduled, it nonetheless flourished in popularity and became emblematic of the rave and club scenes of the late 1980s and 1990s.[6][10]
Prison and subsequent life
Clegg, along with several of his associates, was eventually arrested in 1992 or 1993 and was tried and convicted for producing and selling MDMA, serving years in prison.[1][2][3][4]
During his time in prison, Clegg had a spiritual awakening, wrote a book, and assumed the new name Satyam Nadeen.[1][2][3][4] As part of his transformation into a guru, Clegg denounced drugs as a "false path".[1][2][4] Clegg eventually began running yoga retreats in Costa Rica and Georgia.[1][2][3]
Popular media
A television series about Clegg was underway in 2019.[12] Clegg was covered in Rachel Nuwer's 2023 book I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World.[1][2] A 2026 documentary film called Prophet of Ecstasy was made about Clegg.[3][11]
Publications
Books
- Nadeen, Satyam (1996). From Onions to Pearls: A Journal of Awakening and Deliverance. New Freedom Press. ISBN 978-0-9653850-0-8. Retrieved 19 August 2026.
References
- 1.[1.2][1.3][1.4][1.5][1.6][1.7][1.8][1.9][1.10][1.11][1.12][1.13][1.14][1.15][1.16][1.17][1.18][1.19][1.20][1.21][1.22][1.23]Nuwer, R. (2023). I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-63557-957-4. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
- 2.[2.2][2.3][2.4][2.5][2.6][2.7][2.8][2.9][2.10][2.11][2.12][2.13][2.14][2.15][2.16][2.17][2.18][2.19][2.20][2.21][2.22][2.23]Nuwer, Rachel (4 June 2023). "How MDMA Became the Club Drug of the Century". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
- 3.[3.2][3.3][3.4][3.5][3.6][3.7][3.8][3.9]Freeman, Lucas (17 June 2026). "Ecstasy's origin story: How a would-be priest introduced MDMA to the world". CBC. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
- 4.[4.2][4.3][4.4][4.5][4.6]"PURE ECSTASY". Playboy. 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2026.
- 5.[5.2]Demopoulos, Alaina (27 June 2023). "CIA experiments, Mormon ravers and reformed racists: the untold history of MDMA". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
- 6.[6.2]O'Brien S, Nutt D (January 2025). "MDMA-assisted therapy: challenges, clinical trials, and the future of MDMA in treating behavioral disorders". CNS Spectr. 30 (1): e15. doi:10.1017/S1092852925000057. PMC 13064729. PMID 39882724. MDMA's rise was catalyzed in the early 1980s when Michael Clegg, a former Catholic priest, introduced it to the Dallas club scene under the name "Therapy." Its success there led Clegg to former marijuana distributor Bob McMillen, proposing to sell the drug on the West Coast. After McMillen sampled MDMA's euphoric effects, he agreed—insisting on rebranding from the "corny" "Therapy" to "Ecstasy", the name of the album he listened to during his first experience. Within 4 days, McMillen had sold 5000 units of rebranded Ecstasy.5 McMillen's large-scale distribution marked MDMA's transition from a therapeutic tool to a recreational drug, rapidly spreading through underground networks. Despite its 1985 criminalization, Ecstasy flourished in the rave/club scenes of the late 1980s and 1990s, becoming emblematic of the era's dance culture.
- 7.[7.2][7.3][7.4]Riederer, Rachel (13 July 2023). "The Rebranding of MDMA". The New Yorker. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
- 8.[8.2][8.3][8.4][8.5]Passie, Torsten (31 May 2023). The History of MDMA. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-263727-7. Retrieved 19 August 2026.
- 9.Passie T, Benzenhöfer U (2016). "The History of MDMA as an Underground Drug in the United States, 1960-1979". J Psychoactive Drugs. 48 (2): 67–75. doi:10.1080/02791072.2015.1128580. PMID 26940772.
- 10.[10.2]Stratton, Jon (2022). "Learning to Rave: The Construction of Rave in the UK in the 1980s". Spectacle, Fashion and the Dancing Experience in Britain, 1960-1990. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 187–223. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-09012-7_7. ISBN 978-3-031-09011-0. Retrieved 19 August 2026. Ecstasy was a key element in this rapid spread of acid house and the transformation into rave culture. An American manufacturer called Michael Clegg claims to have given MDMA the name Ecstasy around 1980: 'I had to convince people who didn't do drugs to try one no one had heard of. I was telling people it would let them see God. Then it came to me: It was pure ecstasy' (Simek 2015).
- 11.[11.2]Dart, Chris (16 June 2026). "How a former seminarian sold so much MDMA, they had to make it illegal". CBC. Retrieved 19 August 2026.
- 12.Hipes, Patrick (20 February 2019). "Life Of Priest-Turned-Ecstasy Kingpin Michael Clegg In Works As Limited Series At OBB & 3 Arts". Deadline. Retrieved 18 August 2026.