psychedelics

Content tagged with psychedelics

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How Psychedelic Science Invented a History of Religion

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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...

Video: Global Ayahuasca: A Book Talk with Anthropologist Alex Gearin

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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...

Video: Transcendence, Transformation, and Trans-Psychedelia with Hil Malatino and Susan Stryker

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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.”...

Raving, Recreation, & Religion with Michelle Lhooq and Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta

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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...

Center for the Study of World Religions Brings Psychedelic Chaplaincy to the Forefront

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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...

Resacralizing Contemporary Psychedelic Practice: Reflections on Tending the Spiritual in Psychedelic Care for Community Settings

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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...

Center for the Study of World Religions Releases Report on Psychedelic Facilitation Training

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The Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) at Harvard Divinity School has released “Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training in the US: A Landscape Analysis,” an assessment of the current state of psychedelic facilitation training programs across the...

With Best Intention: Psychedelic Intention-Setting Rituals as Rites of Sacralization

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This essay assesses the ritual function of psychedelic intention-setting ceremonies, using ethnographic data from Burning Man 2023. The piece argues that intention settings are rites of separation that symbolically sacralize the trip for participants.

Psychedelic Atmospherics

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The spaces where psychedelic experiences unfold are never neutral. Whether in dense forests, urban retreats, or clinical settings, these environments shape how psychedelic senses and emotions are experienced. Psychedelic atmospherics offers a lens for...

God’s Pharmacy: On the Use of Entheogens in Jewish Mystical Traditions

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Building on Derrida’s essay Plato’s Pharmacy, the current article examines sacred versus profane illuminations within the spiritual realm of Judaism. As exemplified by the marking nut (balādhur), the author surveys exoteric-curative and esoteric-altered...