# Psychedelics and Spirituality Reading Groups and Workshops ## expand\_more ## **Previous Offerings:** ### **(AY 2025-2026) Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics Reading Group** Led by Paula Ortiz, Lila Rimalovski, Emily Alice Lippold-Cheney The Psychedelics Beyond Psychedelics Reading Group invites participants to explore expansive understandings of transcendence, healing, consciousness, and connection that extend beyond the use of psychedelic substances. Through rigorous interdisciplinary inquiry engaging themes such as shamanism, ecological kinship, sound, and childbirth, we will interrogate and reimagine what constitutes the “psychedelic.” Rooted in queer, feminist, ecological, and decolonial efforts, this group offers a collaborative space for exploration and critical questioning. We aim to affirm multiple ways of knowing, deepen our ethical and relational practices, and collectively contribute to defining the evolving field of the Psychedelic Humanities. ### **Tending the Spiritual in Psychedelic Care** #### Clinical Settings Workshop (September 19-21, 2025) #### Community Settings Workshop (December 5-7, 2025) These workshops provided attendees with a broad overview of approaches to spiritually responsive care tailored to clinical psychedelic settings. This workshop series is a collaborative effort between the CSWR and [Roman Palitsky, MDiv, PhD](https://spiritualhealth.emory.edu/about-us/bios/palitsky-roman.html) and [Caroline Peacock, LCSW, DMin](https://winshipcancer.emory.edu/profiles/peacock-caroline.php) (both at Emory University). Roman and Caroline will lead the workshop along with guest lecturers. A preliminary schedule is below, and a complete program, schedule, and instructor list will be available later this summer. Clinical Settings Topics Covered: - Overview of Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological (SERT) domains in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT), and approaches to engaging SERT domains from chaplaincy and spiritually integrated psychotherapy (Roman Palitsky, Sarah Crabtree) - Overview of Spiritual Health Practitioner (SHP) Competencies in PAT (Caroline Peacock, Steve Lewis) - Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy Approaches (Sarah Crabtree) - Expanded states of consciousness and psychedelic care (Susana Bustos) - Complementing biomedical perspectives with other models of caring and knowing (Bob Jesse) - Spiritual Health competencies in action (Caroline Peacock, Tara Deonauth) - Clinical applications and advocacy: ketamine-assisted therapy, clinical trials, palliative care (Tara Deonauth, Steve Lewis, Caroline Peacock) Community Settings Topics Covered: - Overview of Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological (SERT) domains (Roman Palitsky) - Spiritual care in communal and plant medicine work: trauma-informed and decolonial approaches (Belinda Eriacho) - Spiritual care in Novel Psychedelic Spiritual Communities (Jeffrey Breau) - Navigating law and practice in psychedelic spiritual communities (Jay Michaelson) - Navigating spiritual difference in psychedelic experience from a spiritual care framework (Daan Keiman, Caroline Peacock) - Community ownership and co-design to support spiritually responsive plant medicine work in the community (Belinda Eriacho) - Weaving worldviews: psychedelic chaplaincy as bridgework (Daan Keiman) ### **(AY 2024-2025) Psychedelics & Aesthetics Reading Group** How does psychedelic experience influence the perception of art and beauty? What role does aesthetics play in the psychedelic experience, and how does it impact ethical considerations? This reading and learning group, led by Tristan Angieri (MTS '25), will explore these questions and more, focusing on the relationship between psychedelics, aesthetics, and ethics. We will examine psychedelic practices in various contexts, including clinical, underground, Indigenous, and other cultural settings. Topics will include the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences, the role of the ludic and creativity in psychedelic experiences, and the influence of religion, spirituality, and culture on taste-making in psychedelics. Each session will focus on one or more specific psychedelics and companion works of art or rituals, using diverse readings for analysis. Participants will engage in text-based discussions and optional experiential activities like art exhibitions and/or film screenings. Guest speakers, including artists and scholars, will share insights on psychedelics and aesthetics. This is an opportunity for individuals interested in exploring the profound connections between psychedelics, art, ethics, and aesthetics through an engaging and thought-provoking format. ### **(Fall 2024 Workshop) A Decolonial Lens to Psychedelic Ethics** This series of six workshops, led by Christine Hauskeller, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Exeter, explores the intersection of decolonial theory and psychedelic ethics. Participants will examine power dynamics within the evolving field of psychedelic studies, focusing on conflicts between diverse knowledge systems and practices. Beginning with an overview of decolonial concepts, students will progress through critical analyses of clinical research, aesthetic representations, and the commodification of psychedelic experiences. The final sessions will focus on those objectified by colonizing practices in the psychedelic space, namely plants and animals, indigenous groups, and underground practitioners. ### **(AY 2023-2024) Psychedelics, Sacred, Subversive: A Reading and Learning Group Exploring the Altering of Religion** Are psychedelics going to save religion? What ethical and moral questions surround psychedelic use, especially for substances which have roots in ancient or indigenous traditions? Who gets to decide what is real vs. hallucination—and how do psychedelics challenge our answers? This year-long reading and learning group, led by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith, will address these and many other questions shaping the study of psychedelic spirituality—questions that are increasingly urgent for religious scholars, practitioners, and policy makers as we enter new legal landscapes. Through text-based weeks and experiential field trips, participants will explore diverse topics including the psychedelic underground, indigenous traditions using psychedelics, cults, metaphysics, and decolonization. This group will be working in concert with a spring CSWR psychedelics conference and participants will be able to collaborate on that event. ## Psychedelic Reading Group Syllabi Review the catalog of reading lists from past psychedelics reading groups, from 2023 to 2026. Open all sections Close all sections ### Fall 2023 | Psychedelics: Sacred and Subversive expand\_more *Are psychedelics going to save religion? What ethical and moral questions surround psychedelic use, especially for substances which have roots in ancient or indigenous traditions? Who gets to decide what is real vs. hallucination—and how do psychedelics challenge our answers?* ### 1) Introduction to “Psychedelics: Sacred and Subversive” Christopher Partridge, “Technologies of Transcendence,” in *High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World* (Oxford, 2018). Nese Devenot et. al., [“Dark Side of the Shroom: Erasing Indigenous and Counterculture Wisdoms with Psychedelic Capitalism, and the Open Source Alternative,”](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anoc.12154) *Anthropology of Consciousness* 33, no. 2 (2022): 476-505. Ron Cole-Turner, [“Psychedelic Mystical Experience: A New Agenda for Theology,”](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/5/385) *Religions* 13, no. 5 (2022): 385. *Optional:* - Partridge, “Revolution in the Head,” in *High Culture.* - Mat Keel, [“Neuro-plastic Shamanism? Towards a Political Ontology of Whiteness and the Psychedelic Zeitgeist,”](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/anoc.12159) *Anthropology of Consciousness* 33, no. 2 (2022): 412-442. ### 2) Psychedelic Underground: New Religious Movement? Damon R. Bach, “Vibrations across the Nation: The Expansion of the Counterculture, 1967 to 1970,” in *The American Counterculture: A History of Hippies and Cultural Dissidents* (University Press of Kansas, 2020). Amanda Lucia, “Introduction,” in *White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals* (University of California Press, 2020). Arun Saldanha, “Freaking Whiteness, The Molecular Revolution,” in *Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race* (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). *Optional:* - Mike Marinacci, “Native American Church: Trouble and Triumph on the Long Peyote Road,” “Psychedelic Venus Church: Sex, Drugs, and the Goddess of Ecstasy,” in *Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches: LSD, Cannabis, and Spiritual Sacraments in Underground America* (Park Street Press, 2023). - Bach, “Introduction,“ in *The American Counterculture*. - Graham St. John, *Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance* (Equinox, 2012). ### 3) Psychedelics and metaphysics Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, [“On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research,”](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1128589/full) *Frontiers in Psychiatry* 14 (2023). Sjöstedt-Hughes, “White Sun of Substance: Spinozism and the Psychedelic *amor dei intellectualis,*” in *Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience* ed. Christine Hauskeller and Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes (Bloomsbury, 2022). Michael Halewood, “Making Your Soul Visible,” *Philosophy and Psychedelics.* ### 4) Psychedelic Spirituality as Drug Spirituality Mike Jay, “Twice Born” and “Epilogue: After Drugs,” in *Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind* (Yale, 2023). Carl Hart, “Psychedelics: We are One,” in *Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear* (Penguin Random House, 2022). *Optional:* - Elizabeth Kelly Gray, “Federal Regulation Begins, 1875-1914,” in *Habit Forming: Drug Addiction in America, 1776-1914* (Oxford, 2022). - Chris Elcock, “Building Utopia: Nina Graboi, the East Village, and the Psychedelic Counterculture,” in *Psychedelic New York: A History of LSD in the City* (McGill Queen's University Press, 2023). - [“Talking to PCP Advocate Timothy Wyllie,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehUKmZjlZOY) *Hamilton's Pharmacopeia* (Vice, 2016). ### 5) Psychedelics and Healing Hil Malatino, “After Negativity: On Whiteness and Healing,” in *Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad* (University of Minnesota Press, 2022). Christine Hauskeller, “Individualization and Alienation in Psychedelic Psychotherapy,” in *Philosophy and Psychedelics.* Nicolas Langlitz et al, [“Moral psychopharmacology needs moral inquiry: the case of psychedelics,”](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.680064/full) *Frontiers in Psychiatry* 12 (2021). ### 6) Global Histories [*Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics*](https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5697/Expanding-MindscapesA-Global-History-of) ed. Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock (MIT Press, 2023), pick any chapter! ### Spring 2024 | Psychedelics: Sacred and Subversive expand\_more *For this semester, readings were provided as "choose your own adventure." Discussion was based on the theme of the week and informed by the material selected by participants.* ### 1) Decolonizing psychedelic research and practice Christine Hauskeller et al, [“Decolonization is a metaphor towards a different ethic. The case from psychedelic studies,”](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03080188.2022.2122788) *Interdisciplinary Science Reviews* 48, no. 5 (2023). Yuria Celidwen et al, [“Ethical principles of traditional Indigenous medicine to guide western psychedelic research and practice,”](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00227-7/fulltext) *The Lancet Regional Health* 18 (2023). Timothy Vilgiate, [“From Rubber Adulterant to Ceremonial Psychedelic: Voacanga Africana in the transnational imagination, 1894-2018,”](https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5697/Expanding-MindscapesA-Global-History-of) in *Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics* ed. Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock (MIT Press, 2024). Keith Williams et al, [“Indigenous Philosophies and the ‘Psychedelic Renaissance,’”](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anoc.12161) *Anthropology of Consciousness* 33, no. 2 (2022): 506-527. ### 2) God dons a labcoat: measuring mysticism, quantifying the divine, and the "problem" of subjective experience in clinical research Yvan Beaussant and Kabir Nigam, [“Expanding Perspectives on the Potential for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies to Improve the Experience of Aging,”](https://www.ajgponline.org/article/S1064-7481(22)00527-9/fulltext) *The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry* 31, no. 1 (2023): 54-57. William Richards, “Introduction,” in *Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences* (Columbia University Press, 2016). Rick Strassman, [“The psychedelic religion of mystical consciousness \[book review of *Sacred Knowledge\]*,”](https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/2/1/article-p1.xml) *Journal of Psychedelic Studies* 2, no. 1 (2018). Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith, [“Psychometric Brahman, Psychedelic Science: Walter Stace, transnational Vedanta, and the Mystical Experience Questionnaire,”](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03080188.2023.2266322) *Interdisciplinary Science Reviews* 48 (2023). ### 3) Whither integration? What are we integrating, where did this post-experience category come from, and how are we even supposed to do it? Janis Phelps, [“Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022167817711304) *Journal of Humanistic Psychology* 57, no. 5 (2017). Alex Belser et al, [“Patient Experiences of Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022167817706884) *Journal of Humanistic Psychology* 57, no. 4 (2017). Rachel Harris, “What the hell is integration anyway?” in *Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground* (New World Library, 2023). Oregon Health Authority, [“333-333-3050: Psilocybin Training Program Core Requirements,”](https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=7102) along with any mention of *integration* on this page (of which there are 38). ### 4) What to do about ayahuasca: some questions about the South American brew(s) Frédérique Apffel-Marglin and Randy Chung-Gonzales, "Part 2," in *Initiated by the Spirits: Healing the Ills of Modernity through Shamanism, Psychedelics and the Power of the Sacred* (Green Fire Press, 2022). André van der Braak, “Introduction” and “Religiosity as Engaging with Beings of Religion,” in *Ayahuasca as Liquid Divinity: An Ontological Approach* (Lexington Books, 2023). ### 5) Psychedelics and creativity Emily Lordi, “[The Radical Experimentation of Black Psychedelia](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/t-magazine/black-psychedelia.html),” *The New York Times Style Magazine,* February 10, 2022. Sam Gandy et al, [“Psychedelics as potential catalysts of scientific creativity and insight,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20503245221097649) *Drug Science, Policy and Law* 8 (2022). Nese Devenot and George Erving, [“Psychedelic literary studies and the poetics of disruption,”](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1155908/full) *Frontiers in Psychology* 14 (2023). ### 6) Psychedelics and epistemic justice: a debate Eduardo Schenberg and Konstantin Gerber, [“Overcoming epistemic injustices in the biomedical study of ayahuasca: Towards ethical and sustainable regulation,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634615211062962) *Transcultural Psychiatry* 59, no. 5 (2022). Beatriz Labate et al, [“On epistemic injustices, biomedical research with Indigenous people, and the legal regulation of ayahuasca in Brazil: The production of new injustices?”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634615221120869) *Transcultural Psychiatry* 59, no. 5 (2022). Eduardo Schenberg and Konstantin Gerber, [“Epistemic losses, cultural exclusions, and the risk of biopiracy in the globalization of ayahuasca: A reply to Labate et al,”](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634615221131597) *Transcultural Psychiatry* 59, no. 5 (2022). ### Fall 2024 | Psychedelics and Aesthetics expand\_more ### 1) Representing extraordinary perceptions SortArtistic subjectState alteration focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachMusic video, [“Zodiac Sh\*t,” ](https://www.lilfuchs.com/Flying-Lotus-zodiac-shit)Flying Lotus, video by lilfuchs (2010). Music video, [“Remind U,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrpOugAwHc4) Flying Lotus, video by Winston Hacking (2019). [Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD.shtml) [4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2C-B)](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_2CB.shtml) Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vazquez, [”Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healings,”](https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/decolonial-aesthesis-colonial-woundsdecolonial-healings/) *Social Text* (2013). Marine Schütz, [“Decolonial aesthetics,”](https://keywordsechoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Keywords-Echoes-Marine-Schu%CC%88tz-Decolonial-Aesthetics-2018.pdf) ECHOES: European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities (2018). ### 2) Clinical mind games SortArtistic subjectState alteration focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachVideo game, [“Mind Mirror,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOL4QiPLJo&ab_channel=Squakenet) Timothy Leary (1986). [Ketamine](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ketamine.shtml) Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproduction,” (1936). Susan Buck-Morss, [“Aesthetics and Anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin's Artwork Essay Reconsidered,”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/778700.pdf) *October* 62 (Autumn 1992): 3-41. ### 3) Passing hash SortArtistic subjectState alteration focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachThéophile Gautier, [“Le Club Des Hashischins: Treadmill,”](https://hex.ooo/library/haschischins.html) *Revue des Deux Mondes* (1846). Fitz Hugh Ludlow, “The Kingdom of the Dream,” in *The Hasheesh Eater* (1857). [Marijuana/Cannabis](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Cannabis.shtml) Walter Benjamin, “From ‘Surrealism’,” “From *The Arcades Project*,” in *On Hashish* ed. Howard Eiland (Belknap, 2006). ### 4) What makes the mushrooms speak? SortArtistic subjectState alteration focus via ErowidTheoretical Approach“The Folkways Chant (Chjon Nka),” in *Maria Sabina: Selections* ed. Jerome Rothenberg (University of California Press, 2003). María Sabina, [“Chjon Nka,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsolGtuwvYU&list=OLAK5uy_kk6lSn7SejgbkX5OoY5Dc3x1gzj-uLGXU) *Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico,* Folkways Records, 1957. [Psilocybin (magic mushrooms)](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms.shtml) Henry Munn, “The Uniqueness of Maria Sabina,” *Maria Sabina: Selections.* Roger K. Green, “Maria Sabina,” in *A Transatlantic Political Theology of Psychedelic Aesthetics* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). ### 5) Who needs drugs? SortArtistic subjectState alteration focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachHoward Charing et al, “Biography of Pablo Amaringo,” “The Visions: Part 1, Plant-Teachers and Shamanic Powers,” in *The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo* (Inner Traditions, 2011). [Ayahuasca](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ayahuasca.shtml) Don José Campos, “Introduction” through “Ceremony” (p. XIII-57), “Death” through “A Plant that Unties Knots” (p. 82-109), and “Glossary” (p. 130-138), in *The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms* trans. Alberto Roman, ed. Geraldine Overton (Divine Arts, 2011). Roger K. Green, “The Return to 'Nature' and the Problem of the Perennial,” in *A Transatlantic Political Theology of Psychedelic Aesthetics* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). ### Spring 2025 | Psychedelics and Aesthetics expand\_more ### 1) Soma in the Rig Veda SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical Approach“IX Mandala,” in *The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India,* vol. 3, trans*.* Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton (Oxford, 2014): read introduction and 2 or more hymns. “Soma,” in *The Rig Veda, An Anthology: One Hundred and Eighty Hymns* ed. Wendy Doniger (Penguin, 1981). [DMT](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_DMT.shtml) Thomas Oberlies, “The Cult of the Rigvedic Religion,” in *The Religion of the Rigveda* (Oxford, 2024). *Optional/exploratory:* - Frits Staal, [“How a Psychoactive Substance Becomes a Ritual: The Case of Soma,”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971910?seq=1) *Social Research* 68, no. 3 (2001): 745–78. - Matthew Clark, [“Soma and Haoma: Ayahuasca analogues from the Late Bronze Age,”](https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/3/2/article-p104.xml) *Journal of Psychedelic Studies* 3, no. 2 (2019): 104-116. ### 2) Flowers and Toads in the Archaeological Record SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachNative American Datura art and Olmec toad iconography [Datura](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml) [Toad Venom](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Toad_Venom.shtml) Christine S. VanPool et al, [“Datura, the Mimbres Flower World, and Ideational Cognition,”](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41984/chapter/406551207) in *Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology*, ed. Thomas Wynn, Karenleigh A. Overmann, and Frederick L. Coolidge (Oxford, 2024). Alison Bailey Kennedy, [“Ecce Bufo: The Toad in Nature and in Olmec Iconography,”](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2742313) *Current Anthropology* 23, no. 3 (1982): 273–90. *Optional/exploratory:* - Klaus Wellmann, [“North American Indian rock art and hallucinogenic drugs,”](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/359273) *JAMA* 239, no. 15 (1978): 1524-7. - Elisa Guerra-Doce, [“Psychoactive Substances in Prehistoric Times: Examining the Archaeological Evidence,”](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1751696X.2014.993244) *Time and Mind* 8, no. 1 (2015): 91–112. - Giorgio Samorini, [“The Oldest Archeological Data Evidencing the Relationship of Homo Sapiens with Psychoactive Plants: A Worldwide Overview,”](https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/3/2/article-p63.xml) *Journal of Psychedelic Studies* 3, no. 2 (2019). - D.W. Robinson et al, [“Datura quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, provide unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site,”](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2014529117) *PNAS* 117, no. 49 (2020). ### 3) Altered States and Aleister Crowley's Occultism SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachOliver Haddo \[Aleister Crowley\], “The Herb Dangerous Part II: The Psychology of Hashish,” *The Equinox*, 1, no. 2 (1909). [Cannabis- hash](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Cannabis_Hash.shtml) [The preparation of charas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfC-mVNzbG0) Wouter Hanegraaff, “Occult/Occultism,” in *Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism* ed. Wouter Hanegraaff (Brill, 2006). Keith Cantú and Lennert Gesterkamp, [”Converging Cosmologies: Esoteric Practices of Buddhism, Hindu Yoga, and Daoism in Aleister Crowley's Thelema,”](https://cas-e.de/2025/06/12/comparing-esoteric-practices-from-a-global-perspective-experiments-in-collaborative-authorship/) in *Comparing Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective: Experiments in Collaborative Authorship* (Brill, forthcoming). *Optional/exploratory:* - Per Faxneld, [“Exchanging Apples: Leonora Carrington and the Pro-Mythical Turn in Post-War Feminism,”](https://correspondencesjournal.com/ojs/ojs/index.php/home/article/view/184) *Correspondences* 11, no. 2 (2023). ### 4) Deleuzian Psychedelic Sobriety SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachMescaline drawings by Henri Michaux Henri Michaux, “From 'Misérable Miracle,'” *The Paris Review*, no. 15 (Winter 1956): 84-105, and accompanying drawings. [Cannabis- hash](https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Cannabis_Hash.shtml) [The preparation of charas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfC-mVNzbG0) Henri Michaux, “Chapter 1: Foreword“ and “Characteristics of Mescaline,“ in *Miserable Miracle* trans. Louise Varèse (City Lights Books, 1972), 5-7 and 29-44. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, “Memories of a Molecule,“ in *A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia* trans. Brian Massumi (University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 272-286. Deleuze and Guattari, “November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?“ in *A Thousand Plateaus,* 149-66. ### 5) Raving, Dancing, Trancing SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachDocumentary, *If It Were Love,* dir. Patric Chiha (BBC, 2020). *Optional/exploratory:* - Datura, [*Eternity*](https://www.discogs.com/release/106189-Datura-Eternity?srsltid=AfmBOoqyQ15TJFVbN7IJLVu7ktsd-V8nlWZLU_gF-Z_L_dixH6PlkpFO) (album), TRANCE Records, 1993. [MDMA/Ecstasy](https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_MDMA.shtml) Emma Warren, “Smoke and Strobes,” in *Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dancefloor* (Faber, 2024). Luis Manuel García-Mispireta, “The Sweetness of Coming Undone,” in *Together, Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor* (Duke University Press. 2023). *Optional/exploratory:* - Luke Turner, [“The Academisation of Rave: Is Everyone Talking About Dancing, Rather Than Doing It?”](https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/clubbing-dancefloor-utopia-raving-academia/) *The Quietus*, October 17, 2024. - Sarah Raine, [“An Old School Stomper: Reflections on Place, Identity, and Drugs and the Fluctuating Roles of the Participating Ethnographer,”](https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/1284) *Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture* 16, no. 1 (2024). - Jakub R. Matyja, [“Embodied Music Cognition: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind,”](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01891/full) *Frontiers in Psychology* 7 (2016). - Olivia Miller, [“Study with Ravers Suggests Psychedelics Linked to Social Bonding and Prosocial Behaviours,”](https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/society/29791/study-with-ravers-suggests-psychedelics-linked-to-social-bonding-and-prosocial-behaviours) *News Centre*, University of Kent, September 27, 2021. - Thomas Schäfer and Patricia Kreuzburg, [“The Effects of Dancing to Electronic Music and the Additional Intake of Psychoactive Drugs on the Experience of Trance,”](https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/10.1024/2673-8627/a000033) *European Journal of Psychology Open* 81, no. 4 (2023). ### 6) Pranayama, Breathwork, CO2 SortArtistic SubjectState Alteration Focus via ErowidTheoretical ApproachB. K. S. Iyengar, *Light on Prāṇāyāma: The Yogic Art of Breathing* (Crossroad, 1981). Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof, *Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy* (State University of New York Press, 2010). [Carbogen](https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Carbogen.shtml) [CO2](https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Carbon_Dioxide.shtml) L. Nivethitha et al, [“Cerebrovascular Hemodynamics during Pranayama Techniques,”](https://doi.org/10.4103/0976-3147.193532) *Journal of Neurosciences in Rural Practice* 8, no. 1 (2017): 60–63. *Optional/exploratory:* - Guy W. Fincham et al, [“High ventilation breathwork practices: An overview of their effects, mechanisms, and considerations for clinical applications,”](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105453) *Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews* 155 (2023). - Yafit Kedar et al, [“Hypoxia in Paleolithic Decorated Caves: The Use of Artificial Light in Deep Caves Reduces Oxygen Concentration and Induces Altered States of Consciousness,”](https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2021.1903177) *Time and Mind* 14, no. 2 (April 3, 2021): 181–216. - Richard P. Brown and Patricia L. Gerbarg, [“Sudarshan Kriya Yogic Breathing in the Treatment of Stress, Anxiety, and Depression: Part II—Clinical Applications and Guidelines,”](//doi.org/10.1089/acm.2005.11.711) *The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine* 11, no. 4 (August 2005): 711–17.