17 March 2023, 3:30 – 5:30
Rachael Sumner & Luis Eduardo LunaRachael Sumner
Research Fellow. Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Pharmacy, University of Auckland, New Zealand.Acute mood-elevating and pro-social properties of microdosed LSD in healthy volunteers: a home-administered randomised controlled trial.
Abstract:
Microdosing psychedelic drugs is a widespread social phenomenon with diverse claims of benefits to mood and cognition. Randomised controlled trials have failed to support these claims, but the laboratory-based dosing in trials to date may have limited ecological validity. In this study healthy male volunteers were randomised into Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (n = 40) and placebo (n = 40) groups and received 14 doses of either 10 μg LSD or an inactive placebo every three days for six weeks. First doses were given under supervision in a laboratory setting, with other doses self-administered at home. I will present on the MDLSD study early results including those that demonstrate that microdosing elicited increases in scales associated with mood and prosocial effects. I will include discussion on future directions for microdosing and where our research is heading next.Bio:
I am a research fellow at the School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland. My research focusses on using electroencephalography (EEG) and computational modelling to provide a mechanistic understanding of how drugs and disorder affect the brain. I have worked with ketamine, scopolamine, LSD in the context of understanding novel treatments for depression. From my doctoral work I have a particular passion for women’s health and menstrual cycle related disorders. I am currently leading a clinical study on catamenial epilepsy.Auckland profile: https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/r-sumner/publications
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Luis Eduardo Luna
Director of Wasiwaska, Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art, and Consciousness. Florianópolis, Brazil. Honorary Research Fellow Exeter University.The Ayahuasca Visions of Peruvian Painter Pablo Amaringo and The Usko-Ayar Amazonian School of Painting. A chronicle (1985-1994).
Abstract:
In 1985, while I was doing research on the use of sacred plants among the mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon, I met Pablo Amaringo, a former vegetalista, a term that refers to practitioners specialized in the use of ayahuasca and other plants often psychoactive. Occasionally he painted Amazonian landscapes, exhibiting admirable eidetic memory. I asked whether he remembered the visions he had while taking ayahuasca. This resulted in the publication of a book and a ten-year collaboration. In 1988 we created the Usko-Ayar Amazonian School of Painting, totally free of charge, which had around 300 students when I left the project in 1994. Pucallpa became a center of visionary art, closely linked to what has been called “ayahuasca tourism”. I will present here a chronicle of this collaboration, with its many facets, and some contemporary consequences, as former students now exhibiting their work in several countries, and replicating the original project.Bio:
Luis Eduardo Luna was born in Florencia, Caquetá, in the Colombian Amazon. After studies of philosophy and theology with the Piarist Fathers in Bogotá and Spain, he left the order to study Latin American Literature at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In 1971 he met Terence McKenna with whom he took yajé, a psychoactive preparation used by several indigenous ethnic groups of the Amazon. He obtained an interdisciplinary M.A. and then a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion and taught Latin American literature at Oslo University. His dissertation examined the use of “plant teachers” such as ayahuasca, among the mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon. Luis Luna was named 2002 Doctor of Humane Letters by St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. He has published several books and numerous papers on shamanism in the Amazon. In 2011 he retired from the Hanken School of Management in Helsinki and founded the Wasiwaska Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art, and Consciousness, Florianópolis, Brazil (www.wasiwaska.org).–––
3 March 2023, 3:30– 5:00Marta SantuccioPresenting Contemplative EmbodimentAbstract: Contemplative embodiment is a practice that blends experience in natural non-ordinary and embodied states with metaphysics enquiry, designed to guide practitioners to explore reality ‘beyond the visible’, from the shadow-self to the mystery of the cosmos. This is particularly useful for the preparation and integration of psychedelics states and mystical experiences, but can also constitute a a useful tool to be incorporated into a metaphysician’s research kit.In this talk I introduce contemplative embodiment and retrace how I came to develop it during my PhD and while undergoing a deep healing process. I focus specifically on how metaphysics and journeys in non-ordinary states can impact and transform our conceptions of what we are and what reality is like, how contemplating metaphysical questions can support our journeys in non-ordinary states, preparing us and helping in the integration process, and how profound embodiment experiences can guide the philosopher when thinking about ontology, thereby constituting a powerful research tool that helps us explore new possibilities for thinking about ontology.
Bio:
Marta Santuccio is an expanded consciousness and embodiment facilitator, PhD in philosophy on the metaphysics of consciousness (Central European University, Vienna) and Holotropic Breathwork facilitator. She leads journeys that blend metaphysics enquiry with experience in natural non-ordinary and embodied states to offer a unique process of self-transformation, preparation and integration of psychedelics states and mystical experiences.Accepted in the first MA in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins (London) cohort, she developed her research and practice creating immersive experiences for subjective exploration, including collaborations with British Library and Oxford University Neuropharmacology Dpt. She has also trained as a Holotropic Breathwork (GTT) facilitator and apprenticed with a Quechua Shaman, adding an extra layer to her understanding of contemplative and embodiment practices A desire to deepen the theoretical aspect of her research has then led her to a fully funded PhD fellowship at CEU (Vienna), supervised by Philip Goff and Kati Farkas. Her doctoral research develops a non-physicalist ontology that places embodiment at the core of its explanation of the nature of consciousness.
—24 February 2023, 3:30–5:00
Adrian Harris
Ecotherapy for Psychedelic IntegrationAbstract:Although nature connection is widely recommended for psychedelic preparation and integration, the current approach is piecemeal and fairly superficial: The potential power of nature connection is yet to be realised. The key to this potential lies in the parallels between the altered states facilitated by nature and the psychedelic experience. I consider these parallels using my experiential iceberg model and propose a process that underpins both states (Harris, 2016). While there’s been limited application of ecotherapy to psychedelic integration so far, I’ll outline related work we’ve done at Synthesis Retreats. Both psychedelic experience and nature connection can catalyse feelings of awe and a sense of deeper connection (Hendricks; Anderson et al.). Greenway found that extended time in nature can engender altered states that “closely parallel” psychedelic experience (Greenway). These can include feelings of connection (Greenway) and mystical experiences (Stace). Even simple practices like expanding sensory awareness, mindfulness, a nature-based awe walk or attending to peripheral vision can induce significantly altered states. The parallels between altered states facilitated by nature and psychedelic experience mean that ecopsychology exercises are ideal for preparation and integration. In the preparation phase, such exercises could introduce the participant to altered states within a psychologically supportive natural space. During integration, such altered states could provide an experiential echo of the psychedelic experience within a supportive environment. The nature-based integration process I propose would work on three levels: It would allow participants to access an altered state which parallels the psychedelic experience; this experience would be held within a context that heightens cognitive capacity, thus facilitating sense-making and engendering mental well-being.Bio:Adrian Harris MSc, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice. He became Director of Ecopsychology at Synthesis Insitute in 2020 and subsequently transferred to the Retreat Team where he currently works as a Co-Lead Psychedelic Facilitator. He is Lead Editor of The European Journal of Ecopsychology.(video)———20 January 2023, 3.30–5pm (in person, WS Room 105)
Alexander Beiner, Breaking Convention director, Strange Drugs for Strange Times: How psychedelics can change societyAbstract:
Can psychedelics help us tackle the biggest problems we face as a species? That’s the question at the heart of Alexander Beiner’s new book ‘The Bigger Picture’, coming out in June 2023. In this talk, he’ll explore how psychedelic experiences can help us access the ways of seeing and being that could help us find a way through ‘the Big Crisis’: the overlapping existential risks of climate change, geopolitical instability, cultural polarisation and our seeming inability to co-ordinate at scale to meet these problems.But, like any trip, the road through it isn’t likely to be easy. Drawing on cognitive science, pop culture sociology, metaphysics and the latest psychedelic science, Alexander will explore how the psychedelic experience can help us make sense of the times we live in, and maybe even change them for the better.Bio:
Aleander Beiner is a writer and podcaster. He’s one of the executive directors of Breaking Convention, and the author of the upcoming book The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics can Help us Make Sense of the World, published by Hay House in June 2023.
In 2018, he co-founded Rebel Wisdom, an alternative media and events platform that grew to a quarter of a million subscribers, and became an influential node in the systems change, personal growth and sense-making communities. His work explores how psychedelics can be used to elicit sustainable cultural change, the complexities of psychedelic capitalism and mainstreaming, and how differing beliefs and value systems affect psychedelic culture.———Dr David Yaden, Johns Hopkins UniversityFriday 2nd December 2022 [speaking online]Understanding, Quantifying, and Addressing Belief Change in the Context of Psychedelic Treatments.AbstractPsychedelic experiences in clinical settings can involve attributions related to various metaphysical belief systems and can sometimes result in changes to one’s personal belief system. How prevalent are metaphysical belief changes from psychedelic experiences and how they should be handled in clinical settings? I review recent clinical and cross-sectional evidence on the prevalence, magnitude, and types of metaphysical attributions and belief changes related to psychedelic experiences. I find moderate evidence for some metaphysical attributions and beliefs changed from psychedelic experiences in some settings. Drawing on historical and contemporary philosophical work ranging from William James to Chris Letheby, I argue for adopting an agnostic frame regarding metaphysical claims in research and clinical settings and provide relevant guidelines from the clinical literature.BioDavid is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. He completed his Doctoral training in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania where he conducted research using psychometrics, computational linguistic analysis, virtual reality, and non-invasive brain stimulation. His research focus is on the psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopharmacology of spiritual, self-transcendent, and positively transformative experiences triggered with psychedelic substances and through other means. Specifically, he is interested in understanding how these experiences can result in long-term changes to well-being and how they temporarily alter fundamental faculties of consciousness, such as the sense of time, space, and self. He is the author of a forthcoming book called The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences: Twenty-First Century Research and Perspectives.———Prof. Em. Wayne HallFriday 18th November 2022The 21st Century Revival of Therapeutic Research on Classic Psychedelic Drugs: Antecedents, Evidence and Potential Future Medical and other UsesAbstract:Clinical research on classic psychedelic drugs in psychiatry has undergone a revival over the past decade and a half. An increasing number of clinical trials of psilocybin and MDMA and other psychedelic drugs have been or are being conducted on their use in treating depression, anxiety and addictions. This paper describes the European discovery of the psychedelic effects of plant-based drugs from the Americas, the synthesis of LSD and psilocybin in the 1940s and 1950s, clinical research on the therapeutic uses of LSD in the 1950s and 1960s, and the reasons for the abandonment of psychedelic research in North America in the 1970s. It addresses the following questions: What factors have contributed to renewed research interest in psychedelic drugs? How does the recent psychedelic research relate to earlier research? What types of research studies have been done and what have they shown? If approved, how should we regulate the clinical use of psychedelic drugs to treat addiction and mental disorders? Should governments allow the nonmedical use ofpsychedelic drugs by adults?Bio:
Wayne Hall is an Emeritus Professor at the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences. He was: a Professor at the National Addiction Centre, Kings College London (2014-2019); Director of Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research (2014-2016), NHMRC Australia Fellow, the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (2009-2014), Professor of Public Health Policy, School of Population Health (2005-2009), Director of the Office of Public Policy and Ethics, Institute for Molecular Bioscience (2001-2005) and Executive Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (1994-2001). He has advised the World Health Organization on the health effects of cannabis use; the effectiveness of drug substitution treatment; the contribution of illicit drug use to the global burden of disease; and the ethical implications of genetic and neuroscience research on addiction.– – –Dr Yogi Hendlin
Friday 4th November 2022
Taking the Tripping out of Psychedelic Medicine is a MistakeAbstract:A recent article in Nature proclaims the promise of “Taking the tripping out of psychedelic medicine: Drugs under development offer the mental-health benefits of psilocybin and similar substances without inducing strong hallucinatory effects.” There are many reasons why the current medical establishment would wish to take the trip out of tripping. Viewed as next generation SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), engineered psychedelics are positioned to be the next big pharmaceutical breakthrough. Designer psychedelics (based on tryptamines or psilocybin, for example) may allow for shorter experiences, requiring less therapist time, or less hallucinatory experiences for those who fear them. However, the most parsimonious explanation for engineering psychedelics to be ‘safer’ for pharmaceutical companies is proprietary ownership over substances that otherwise are part of the global commons. By tweaking these substances, companies can control and manipulate the substances, and in so doing, patent them and create monopolies (which as Peter Thiel reminds us, is really a ‘good’ thing). In the end, one could say, it is all about money.But is this conclusion too simple? Premature? This talk will describe how substance essentialism takes the ‘set-and-setting’ of global capitalism and its discontents out of the equation. Whereas a biopsychosocial model of health and illness takes into account how social forces cause disease, the aim of current pharmaceuticalized psychedelics research acts as a support for unsustainable social and environmental conditions. The turn to psychedelics as a last resort to keep people from shorting out from unbearable life conditions of domination, oppression, and ecological destruction, is accompanied by a movement to delete their emancipatory potential. The current financial-pharmaceutical nexus of interest in psychedelics, I argue, is largely aimed at sustaining unsustainable social structures (such as economic and social inequity and iniquity), rather than embracing psychedelics traditional purpose and social role as being socially, politically, and only concomitantly psychologically transformative. The final section of this essay brings in the Buddhist concept of Triple Gem: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to emphasize the social role of transformation and liberation inherent in psychedelics; aspects of experience that cannot and should not be engineered out, without consequence.
Bio:
Dr Yogi Hale Hendlin is Sustainability Lead in the Design, Impact and Technology (DIT) platform, core faculty of the Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity Initiative, and assistant professor in the Erasmus School of Philosophy, at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Yogi also serves as Research Associate in the Environmental Health Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco. As Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary philosophy of biology journal Biosemiotics, which focuses on meaning-making in more-than-human organisms based on the work of C.S. Peirce, Jakob von Uexküll, and Gregory Bateson, Yogi thrives learning about the insane complexity of life, agency, consciousness, and interspeciality.Yogi’s futurist visions have been profiled in Happinez magazine (NL) and at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Yogi’s extensive and diverse research of industrial epidemics – how the industrial model’s goods now come with disproportionate bads, undermining our environment and threatening our democracies and health – has been reported on by the BBC, The Guardian, National Geographic, TIME, and hundreds of other news outlets.
———Dr Dennis McKenna
Friday 21st October 2022Psilocybin and the Origin of Consciousness – A re-examination of the ‘Stoned Ape’ HypothesisAbstract:Dennis McKenna presents an exclusive lecture discussing brand new reflections, theories, and findings on the so-called ‘stoned ape’ hypothesis. The theory was first proposed in 1992 by Dennis’ late brother Terence McKenna, 20th century ethnobotanist and psychedelic bard (1946-2000) in his 1992 book Food of the Gods. Emerging from conversations between the two brothers, the theory proposes that the consumption of psilocybian fungi played a crucial role in the evolution of consciousness and the development of the human mind, self-reflection, language, and culture, catalyzing the rapid evolution of early hominid species into modern Homo sapiens over a relatively short evolutionary span of some two million years. This accelerated evolution was characterized by an exponential expansion in the size and complexity of the human brain, and this is reflected in the fossil record. This has been characterized as the ‘stoned ape hypothesis’ by its critics but the hypothesis is deserving of a somewhat more considered examination, particularly in light of new data that were unknown to science in 1992 when the hypothesis was first proposed.
With the re-emergence of psychedelics in mainstream culture and the wider dissemination of the theory into the social media meme sphere, how does it stand 30 years on? What new hypotheses and perspectives have developed from the theory with the increase of psilocybin research? And with the rise of psychedelic research and interest, are we any closer to solving the ‘hard problem of consciousness’?Bio:Dennis McKenna, brother of Terence McKenna, is a true psychedelic elder. Among his many engagements and accomplishments, he has conducted research in ethnopharmacology for over 40 years, is a founding board member of the Heffler Research Institute, and was a key investigator on the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. Since 2019, he has been working with colleagues to manifest a long-term dream: the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy (https://mckenna .academy) dedicated to the study of plant medicines, consciousness , preservation of indigenous knowledge, and a re-visioning of humanity’s relationship with Nature. Dr. McKenna is author or co-author of 6 books and over 50 scientific papers in peer¬ reviewed journals. He emigrated to Canada in the spring of 2019 together with his wife Sheila, and now resides in Abbotsford , BC.
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Dr Luis Eduardo LunaFriday 8th July 2022, 5pm WS105The Wasiwaska Ethnobotanical Garden in Southern Brazil: A ChronicleBio: Luis Eduardo Luna was born in Florencia, Caquetá, in the Colombian Amazon. After studies of philosophy and theology with the Piarist Fathers in Bogotá and Spain, he left the order to study Latin American Literature at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In 1971 he met Terence McKenna with whom he took yajé, a psychoactive preparation used by several indigenous ethnic groups of the Amazon. He obtained an interdisciplinary M.A. and then a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion and taught Latin American literature at Oslo University. His dissertation examined the use of “plant teachers” such as ayahuasca, among the mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon. Luis Luna was named 2002 Doctor of Humane Letters by St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. He has published several books and numerous papers on shamanism in the Amazon. In 2011 he retired from the Hanken School of Management in Helsinki and founded the Wasiwaska Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art, and Consciousness, Florianópolis, Brazil (www.wasiwaska.org).———Dr Matthew Watkins10 June 2022Faces in things? Psychedelic visuals, Pareidolia and AIAbstract:Increased facial pareidolia, the tendency for the human mind to see faces where there aren’t any, is a common feature in accounts of psychedelic experiences. Recently, researchers developing and experimenting with AI facial recognition systems have encountered a phenomenon analogous to facial pareidolia occuring with their algorithms. Harnessing this type of phenomenon, creative adaptation of such algorithms can be used to create convincing (to many) recreations of the visual component of psychedelic experience This goes back to Google DeepDream in 2015, and has since evolved considerably. Having recently been exploring the mysterious internal workings of Artificial Neural Network visual systems, another source of profoundly psychedelic imagery, I will explore what this unexpected crossover between technology and psychedelia might mean.BIO:Matthew Watkins is a mathematician, author, broadcaster, DJ and generalist thinker. In the world of psychedelic research, he’s best known for a 1996 critique of Terence McKenna’s notorious Timewave theory (announced by McKenna to his audience as “The Watkins Objection”). His most recent publication was an experimental cosmic/local history book (You Are Here: The Biography of a Moment, 2017). Lately, he’s reluctantly become involved with AI safety research.———Modelling Psychedelic Metaphysics(27th May 2022)Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes and Dr Rennie JosephThis two-part presentation will discuss aspects of a project that combines the metaphysics studied in Philosophy with the quantitative methodologies used in Psychology. We endeavour to create a clearer and more comprehensive set of tools for establishing a variety of metaphysical positions that can be used in both research and clinical settings – especially those relating to psychedelic experiences. We have developed a set of survey items that will be given to over 400 participants, along with additional pre-existing survey items and open-text response questions. The results are to be analysed using several different modelling approaches, ranging from long-established methods such as factor-analysis, to more cutting-edge methods involving natural-language-processing and machine learning. There are two main aims of the study: 1) establish a refined set of survey items that best represent a range of metaphysical positions; 2) establish whether the metaphysical beliefs held by individuals are predictive of their language use in open text responses.
———Psychedelic neuroscience and its implications for psychiatry, psychology and philosophyProf. David Nutt
Psychedelics that act at the 5-HT2A receptor such as psilocybin LSD and DMT work by producing a profound disruption of ongoing oscillatory activity in the brain. This then disrupts the segregation of key brain networks and leads to increased crosstalk between them. in this state of increased disorder [entropy] abnormal thinking processes such as rumination that underpin disorders such as depression and addiction become temporally disrupted allowing the patient to “escape” from them. also the increased connectivity allows the person to discover new insights in their past and develop new thoughts about the future which can endure well after the trip is over. This prolonged benefit can be accentuated by psychotherapy and also by the 5-HT2A receptor stimulation that in rodent models can be shown to increase dendrite growth and synaptogenesis. Our recent neuroimaging studies of depressed patients recovering after psilocybin treatment reveals that the increased connectivity seen during the trip persists for weeks afterwards and is associated with increased flexibility of brain function, an outcome not seen with an SSRI. We think this increased flexibility may explain the experiences of increased connectedness with the world that patients often report and the improved wellbeing scores they register.
———DMT: Indigenous gateway to the soul and endogenous reality thermostat?(30 March 2022)Dr David LukeAbstract:DMT: Indigenous gateway to the soul and endogenous reality thermostat?
N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), dubbed the ‘spirit molecule,’ is an extremely potent short acting psychedelic substance found endogenously in the human organism and occurring widely (possibly ubiquitously in many kingdoms) in nature, and has been theorised to account for numerous spontaneous exceptional experiences such as those occurring near or at death. The traditional indigenous use of DMT in the Amazonian visionary decoction, ayahuasca, known as the ‘vine of the dead,’ has a long history of shamanic use to transcend time and space and communicate with the spirits of nature. Most people experiencing a breakthrough dose of DMT report encounters with seemingly sentient, intelligent and independent entities, which typically convey a convincing sense of their reality, such that a recent survey found that of those having such encounters who reported being atheist before their experience, more than half reported that they were no longer atheist afterwards. This talk explores the intersection between the scientific, therapeutic, psychonautic, and shamanic exploration of the DMT realm and attempts to fuse these disparate and yet overlapping cosmologies.
Bio:
– Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Greenwich
– Honorary Senior Lecturer, Imperial College London
– Lecturer, Alef TrustDr David Luke is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK, where he has been teaching an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience since 2009, and he is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, and Lecturer on the MSc Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology for Alef Trust and Liverpool John Moores University. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including eleven books, most recently DMT Entity Encounters (2021). When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon, and is a cofounder and ex-chair of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness. He has given nearly 400 invited public lectures and conference presentations; won teaching, research and writing awards; organised numerous festivals, conferences, symposia, seminars, retreats, expeditions, pagan cabarets and pilgrimages; and has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Sussex.
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The Revelatory Event: Alain Badiou’s politicized philosophy as a framework to understand psychedelic insights. Case studies from Ayahuasca rituals of Palestinians and Israelis.
(2 March 2022)
Leor Roseman
Imperial College London
Abstract
The ritualistic use of ayahuasca can induce a feeling of unity, harmony, and ‘oneness’ among group members. Used in groups of Israelis with a Palestinian minority, harmony is associated with ayahuasca’s potential for promoting peace. However, such ‘apolitical’ harmony is also in service of the status-quo by marginalizing Palestinian national identity, which is conflictual and disharmonic with the Israeli ritual structure. Yet, politics found its way in, and a few participants had ayahuasca-induced revelatory events with historical and political content related to the injustice Jewish Israelis had inflicted upon Palestinians. These events were painful, and the emotions accompanying them were conflict, anger, and resistance towards the hegemonic ritual structure. The events were followed by an urge to deliver an emancipatory “truth” to the rest of the group through a song. Participants developed loyalty to these events long after they occurred. Such fidelity to the events – which is counterhegemonic to the Israeli ritual structure – supported the diversification and diffusion of ayahuasca practices to Palestinians. Badiou’s theory of ‘Being and Event’ is applied here to analyze the relations between the Israeli ritual structure, the Palestinian revelatory event, and the emancipatory fidelity that follows the event. Badiou’s theory elucidates the egalitarian revolutionary potential, which is part of the sociopsychopharmacology of psychedelics, but also how psychedelic practices can oppose such potential and preserve harmony over liberation. Furthermore, Badiou’s theory can be applied to other psychedelic insights like those that occur in the realm of politics, science, art, and love. Understanding psychedelic revelations through Badiou’s framework clarifies the connection between insight and action.
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Putting Psychedelics in Perspective
Michiel van Elk
Leiden University – Cognitive Psychology
Abstract
In this talk I will present new research plans for the NWO funded VIDI project ‘Putting Psychedelics in Perspective’. The last decade we have witnessed a psychedelic revival, reflected in an increased societal interest, a flurry of clinical applications and a boost of scientific research. At the same time, both the popular and the scientific debates about psychedelics are highly polarized. Proponents argue that psychedelics, such as LSD and psilocybin, can induce mystical experiences with a profound impact on people’s lives and a strong therapeutic potential for biomedical disorders. Skeptics point out the potential dangers of recreational and semi-therapeutic psychedelic drug use – especially in light of the absence of clear guidelines and best practices. Currently there is a lack of integration between these two perspectives. The aim of this project is to fill this gap, by setting up a research program to study the psychological and neurocognitive mechanisms underlying psychedelically induced mystical experiences. I present the research proposal for four different inter-related quantitative high-powered studies, which will focus on (1) neurocognitive and bodily effects of psychedelics, (2) how prior expectations (i.e., often referred to as ‘set’) shape psychedelic experiences, and (3) the efficacy of psychedelics compared to other techniques to induce mystical experiences. An integral part of the project is to replicate key findings from the scientific literature through the use of Open Science Practices and Bayesian statistics.
