Psychedelics and Spirituality Past Programming
Find Psychedelics and Spirituality event videos and news stories below. Event recordings are also available on the Center's YouTube page.
Psychedelics and Spirituality: Event News and Videos
Video: Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group 3
On April 1, 2023, The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, held the "Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research" conference gathering together faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard...
Video: Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group One
On April 1, 2023, The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, held the "Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research" conference gathering together faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard...
Video: Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group Two
On April 1, 2023, The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, held the "Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research" conference gathering together faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard...
Video: Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Regulation Panel
On April 1, 2023, The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, held the "Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research" conference gathering together faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard...
Video: Liquid Light Book Discussion with Bill Barnard (Psychedelics & the Future of Religion Series)
On March 27, 2023 The Center for the Study of World Religions hosted an author discussion (Psychedelics & the Future of Religion Series) with Professor Bill Barnard. Charles Stang, Director of the CSWR, and Barnard discussed his recent book, Liquid Light...
Video: The Archaeology of Ecstasy: Psychedelics in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Can archaeology help us recover the ecstatic experiences of ancient peoples from the Aegean or Near East? And, if so, what evidence is there that such ecstatic experiences were induced by what we now call “psychedelics”? To what degree was the ancient...
Video: The Native American Church and the Sacrament of Peyote
A conversation with Native American Church leaders Steven Benally and Sandor Iron Rope, who discussed the centuries-old sacramental use of plant medicines such as peyote. They explored the history of the persecution of this plant medicine and the...
Video: Between Sacred & Profane: Psychedelic Culture, Drug Spiritualities, and Contemporary America
As part of the “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” series, Dr. J. Christian Greer hosted a discussion panel with Dr. Erik Davis and Dr. Gary Laderman, focusing on the intersection of psychedelic culture, sacred drugs, and the modern American...
Video: Reasonably Irrational: Theurgy and the Pathologization of Entheogenic Experience
In this lecture, Professor Wouter Hanegraaff from the University of Amsterdam discussed the relevance of entheogens to theurgy and ritual evocation in Roman Egypt, with special attention to the story of Thessalos, the so-called Mithras Liturgy, and the...
Video: Honoring the Indigenous Roots of the Psychedelic Movement
A presentation and discussion on the continuities and discontinuities between the world of sacred plants and that of psychedelic science. This talk focused on what psychedelic therapists and scientists can learn from ayahuasca shamanism, as well as...
Video: What is Psychedelic Chaplaincy?
This panel brought together Daan Keiman, spiritual caregiver and facilitator at a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands, with Jamie Beachy, a MAPS MDMA Therapist and director of the Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy at Naropa University, in dialogue...
Video: Psychedelics: The Ancient Religion with No Name?
The most influential religious historian of the twentieth century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same secret tradition? A...
Video: Medicalizing Mysticism: Religion in Contemporary Psychedelic Trials
Amid the so-called psychedelic “renaissance” in science, researchers at Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and elsewhere report that they can occasion “mystical-type experiences” among trial volunteers being treated for depression, addiction...