Psychedelics are having somewhat of a revival in the modern culture. If you’re switched on to the right channels you will see academics of all schools touting the potential and the positives of various psychedelic substances the world over. To name a few, Michael Pollan recently explored the science and the psychology of psychedelics in his book How to Change your mind; Paul Stamets[1] has done valuable work on mycology, and mushrooms of all kind, including the potential of psilocybin mushrooms as therapy and mind openers; Brian Muraresku, a scholar of classics and ancient language, has explored the potential influence of psychedelics on historic religious movements and cultures including ancient Greece, not unlike the work of people like John M Allegro and Terrence McKenna.
These scholars are not ‘wooks’ or hippies (McKenna could be disputed on this part, but his brilliance is undisputed in this man’s mind) – though they share a common place in the culture, and have appeared on similar platforms, not all of which unfortunately garner proper respect and serious discussion, they are serious men with serious research and ideas, and their ideas deserve respect. And I am happy to say that the culture is turning in this direction – the ‘war on drugs’ in the west, most prominently in the USA, is now being seen as the policy nightmare it is, ineffectual and dangerous. We are beginning to realise that ‘drugs’ are not a monolith, not a single beast that must simply be slain, but rather a spectrum of substances, all of which need to be treated differently, used differently, and ultimately legislated on differently. We already distinguish between legal and illegal drugs, but no serious thinker considers legality to be a cut-and-dry conclusion of a normative question: should people use drugs )or should people develop a different relationship with certain substances to make the case more specific)? I believe the answer is, yes: caffeine, tobacco, alcohol (and arguably cannabis) hold key places in many cultures, and they are respectively used in different ways and for different purposes, sometimes used recreationally, sometimes ritualistically, and with some people swearing off them altogether, as an informed, individual adult choice. If we are able to distinguish in this way between the legal, socially acceptable substances, why are we not trusted to do so with the ‘illegal’ substances?
This said, I am not here to argue for legislative change around ‘drugs’ – whilst I do support a harm reduction approach to ‘hard drugs’ in the vein of Switzerland and Portugal, and I do support a legalisation of substances such as cannabis and, more importantly, psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, Ayahuasca, Peyote etc, this is not the conversation I am here to have. These arguments are well trodden, easily researched, and I am happy to say growing in popularity, and I genuinely believe that these legislative changes will be seen in the coming decades. Instead, I want to argue for a potential use for psychedelics that I believe hasn’t been seriously discussed in the same way that the potential for psychedelics to be used in therapy or healthcare has been, a use that could further support the legalisation of said substances (although some may argue may actually be a reason that would push the government to not legalise these substances). I believe psychedelics can be used to expand the boundaries of our philosophical understanding and argumentation, and make us question long accepted philosophical conclusions, or even give new evidence to classic problems or theories of philosophy.
Using psychedelics as a philosophical aid will without doubt raise some immediate questions. Most pressing I would think would be – how can a disordered mind, a mind under the influence as it were, think in the systematic logical way that philosophy requires? I have a few contentions to this assumed point. Firstly, the argument that psychedelics disorder the mind is in question – one could argue that the mind state brought about by psychedelics isn’t a disordered one, rather a new realm of order, a different way of thinking, akin to the discovery of formal logic when one first begins serious philosophical study. It is belittling towards the states of altered consciousness to call them ‘disordered’, rather, they could be thought of as simply differently-ordered.
Secondly, the use of substances when doing serious philosophical investigation is not unheard of, rather it is prolific: at the familiar end, how many philosophical academics take caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis? How many of them contend that some of the aforementioned substances ‘help them think’? Indeed, the aforementioned Michael Pollan describes the influence of caffeine on world cultures and its potentially significant role in bringing about the Arab-Islamic Golden Age and the Enlightenment/industrial revolution. On the less familiar end, famed philosophers from history have been thought to have imbibed substances like psychedelics and been inspired to write their famous works: Muraresku mentioned above describes the Eleusian Mysteries attended by Greeks such as Plato, which was a ceremony where a drink called kykeon was drank and is thought to have included a psychedelic alkaloid from the ergot fungus, the same fungus used by Albert Hoffman to synthesise LSD. Other philosophers have historically been known to ingest drugs to help their philosophical pursuits: Nietzsche was known to take Opium and this could have inspired key ideas of his; Schopenhauer was known to have used Nitrous Oxide, as was Humphry Davy and William James. The list goes on. My point here is not that we should all be using Opium, Nitrous Oxide and Kykeon before writing our ideas – rather, that the use of substances that alter the mind in both subtle and explicit ways to help with philosophical endeavours is a well established practise, both in ancient and modern times. Why should the philosophical world not take advantage of the psychedelic renaissance in the same way that the worlds of science, medicine, psychology and art have? My contention here is it must – we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This small piece of prose is meant as an introduction to the potential of psychedelics as philosophically significant. In future pieces I intend to explore specific philosophical questions and specific philosophers, and the potential that psychedelics have to influence our positions on these theories, questions and thinkers. Perhaps they will show the falsehood of these positions, perhaps they could show us new evidence and new theories in support of established philosophies, perhaps it could be of no use whatsoever. But I believe if there is a mass cultural movement towards using these substances, their use in philosophy simply must be explored.
[1] Though I begrudgingly admit that Stamets lacks ‘proper’ qualifications in biology or the so-called hard sciences, his research and work is valuable nonetheless.
Psychedelia Philosophica 