Spirituality and Psychedelics

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. It is challenging for me to imagine a time before the concept of “the psychedelic” existed, despite its emergence...

Ayahuasca originated in the Amazon and has long been considered sacred by many Indigenous and mestizo communities across South America. Fueled by the “psychedelic renaissance” and growing interest in its visionary and healing potential, groups serving the...

Public conversations about both psychedelics and gender transition have often been constrained by two parallel limits: a focus on clinical applications and the presumption that those who take psychedelics or change gender do so primarily as “patients.”...

According to the 2024 Global Psychedelic Survey, while personal growth and well-being are common reasons for illicit drug use, recreation—music events, festivals, parties, raves—remains a leading but poorly defined motive. This panel featured Michelle...

Anthropologist Manvir Singh, PhD, joined Professor Charles Stang for a conversation about Singh’s new book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion (Knopf, 2025), which draws on immersive research with shamans in Indonesia and the Colombian Amazon. Singh...

Photos by Jeffrey Blackwell A global resurgence of scientific, medical, and public interest in the therapeutic and transformational potential of psychedelic drugs, plants, and fungi is raising questions about the availability of spiritually responsive...

During the final days of the Fall 2025 semester, I huddled in the conference room at the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) over blueberry muffins while snowflakes dusted the garden outside. I sat in a circle with thirty strangers—clinical...

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. In 2022, a previously unknown European-style manuscript came to light at an auction held in Bogotá, Colombia: “Don...

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey. The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. In my research on novel psychedelic spiritual communities (NPSCs) in North America, my interlocutors regularly...