Tag: Psychedelics
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Entheogens and Cosmos, the sequel [a lecture for ERIE @ CIIS this Sunday on psychedelics and the extended mind thesis]
The Entheogenic Research, Integration, and Education student group at the California Institute of Integral Studies has invited me to speak again about the philosophical, cosmological, and psychological significance of psychedelics. In case you missed it, here is my first talk for ERIE back in September called “The Psychedelic Eucharist–toward a pharmacological philosophy of religion”: I attempted to link Plato…
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Dr. Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, on Stan Grof’s Contributions to MDMA Research
A lecture given as part of a conference hosted by the Center for the Study of Psychedelic Therapy at CIIS in October to celebrate the work of Stan Grof. MAPS is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
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Video of “The Psychedelic Eucharist: Toward a Pharmacological Philosophy of Religion”
A lecture I delivered yesterday (Sept. 29th, 2014) at CIIS for ERIE. Lecture notes
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Lecture: “The Psychedelic Eucharist: Towards a Pharmacological Philosophy of Religion” at CIIS this Monday (9/29) from 6-9pm
I’m giving another talk on Monday (9/29) on psychedelics (the last one was at Burning Man) as part of a panel discussion for the Entheogenic Research, Integration, and Education (ERIE) student group at CIIS. This one will focus on the psychedelic roots of philosophy, particularly as they relate to the Eleusinian mystery rites. I’ll paste…
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Reflections on an experience during a recent medicine circle
I wanted to post a transcription of some reflections I shared during a medicine circle I participated in this past summer. Some of what came to me has had a big impact on my conceptualization of my dissertation thesis regarding the etheric (or plant-like) nature of Imagination. It is such a privilege to speak later in the…
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The Psychedelic Eucharist: Is there an Alchemical Solution to the Ecological Crisis?
Some notes toward a talk I’m giving at Burning Man next week. I’ll be at camp Cosmicopia (located at 3:45 and Ephesus). The talk is on Wednesday at 4pm. http://playaevents.burningman.com/playa_event/13197/ …………………… The word “psychedelic” was coined in the 1950s by the British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in a letter exchanged with the famed author and philosopher…
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Psychedelics and Religious Experience (essay by Benjamin Cain)
After commenting on his guest post over on Three Pound Brain, I decided to spend some time on Benjamin Cain’s blog Rants Within the Undead God. I really like the way his mind works, even if I’m a bit more philosophically skeptical of scientistic claims to total knowledge of matter (whether “dead” or “alive”). I…
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This Must Be Heaven : Sam Harris responds to Eben Alexander’s NDE
This Must Be Heaven : Sam Harris responds to Eben Alexander’s near death experience. I must admit that I was deeply moved the first time I heard Alexander recount his seizure and ensuing comma. His description of his NDE–a hyperreal encounter with numinous beings from another world lying in wait beneath the phenomenal space and time of our…
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Margulis and the Psychedelic Eucharist
Here is Prof. Corey Anton lecturing on the recently deceased Lynn Margulis’ bio-philosophy. Towards the end of her book (co-authored with Dorian Sagan) What Is Life?, Margulis offers an analysis of the role of psilocybin in the evolution of mammalian consciousness. She brings up the usage of psychedelic fungi in ancient mystery cults just after sharing Socrates’…
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Participatory Psychedelia: Transpersonal Theory, Religious Studies, and Chemically-Altered (Alchemical) Consciousness [final draft]
Participatory Psychedelia: Transpersonal Theory, Religious Studies, and Chemically- Altered (Alchemical) Consciousness Photo: Tree of Life by Ron Barnett Preface: Take it and eat it. Walking alone on a quiet beach at dawn, I found an old, leather-bound book half buried in the sand whose title, once stamped with golden letters, was now too worn to…
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Whitehead and the Role of Ideas in the Universe: A Psychedelic Experiment
“[In the philosophy of organism], the actualities constituting the process of the world are conceived as exemplifying the ingression (or ‘participation’) of other things which constitute the potentialities of definiteness for any actual existence. The things which are temporal arise by their participation in the things which are eternal. The two sets are mediated by…
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Michael Persinger and the Extended Mind
I’d like to follow up on my recent post about Michael Persinger’s research on the non-local electromagnetic aspects of consciousness. There is a growing contingent of cognitive scientists taking what has come to be called the “extended mind” theory quite seriously. Andy Clark is most associated with the idea, but Levi Bryant has been blogging…
