Professor Charles Stang, CSWR Director, delivered a lecture entitled, “The Call of the Ancient: Psychedelic Pasts and Futures” at the "Archives of the Impossible" Conference at Rice University on May 13, 2023.
What is at stake in our knowing whether and how psychedelics were used in the ancient world? Why do we feel compelled to call up, and call upon, “The Ancient,” an imaginal reality I wish to distinguish from “the ancients” or indeed from “antiquity”? Or is it rather that “The Ancient” is calling on us, and if so, why? This lecture will explore some recent scholarship on psychedelics in the ancient world, in the spirit of appreciation and critique, all with the aim of proposing how the contemporary interest for psychedelics should heed the call of “The Ancient,” of discerning a way forward.