NATURALIZING PSYCHEDELIC SPIRITUALITY

A pressing philosophical problem is how to respond to the existential, anxiety and disenchantment resulting from a naturalistic worldview that eschews transcendent foundations for meaning and value. This problem is becoming more urgent as the popularization of neuroscientific findings renders a disenchanted conception of human beings ever more vivid, compelling, and widespread. I argue that the study of transformative experiences occasioned by classic psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin may reveal the nature of a viable practical solution to this problem. Despite the apparent centrality of nonnaturalistic metaphysical apprehensions to psychedelic transformation, findings from psychedelic research suggest that key elements of psychedelic or “entheogenic” spirituality are consistent with naturalism. These include disruption to neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning the sense of self, and consequent experiences of self‐transcendence and of the decoupling of attention from personal concerns. This liberation of attention can result in the availability of broader perspectives and the development of wonder and appreciation for life.     

Debunking Antipsychiatry: Laing,Law, and Largactil

The term “psychiatry” refers to two radically different ideas and practices: curing–healing “souls” and coercing–controlling persons. It is important that critics of psychiatry clarify whether they object to the former or the latter or both, and why. Because I believe coerced psychiatric relations are like coerced labor relations called “slavery,” and like coerced sexual relations called “rape,” I spent the better part of my professional life criticizing involuntary-institutional psychiatry and the insanity defense. In 1967, my effort to undermine the medical-political legitimacy of the term “mental illness” and the moral-legal legitimacy of depriving individuals of liberty by means of psychiatric rationalizations suffered a serious blow: the creation of the antipsychiatry movement. Despite their claims, “antipsychiatrists” rejected neither the idea of mental illness nor coercion practiced in the name of “treating” mental illness. Sensational claims about managing “schizophrenia” and pretentious pseudophilosophical pronouncements diverted attention from the crucial role of the psychiatrist as an agent of the state and as an adversary of the denominated patient. The legacy of the antipsychiatry movement is the creation of a catchall term used to delegitimize and dismiss critics of psychiatric fraud and force by labeling them “antipsychiatrists.”

A psychobiographical analysis of Brian Douglas Wilson: Creativity, drugs, and models of schizophrenic and affective disorders

The suggestion of a relationship between creativity and mental disorder has existed for centuries, and has been advocated by many psychological researchers. The present analysis offers a consideration of the nature of mental disorder present in Brian Wilson, an individual recognised as one of the most creative figures in 20th century popular music. Using converging biographical evidence, and the diagnostic program Opcrit, Wilson’s diagnosis is concluded to be schizoaffective. Employing details of his drug abuse, various models of schizoaffective spectra are examined, in particular a reconsideration of the LSD model of schizophrenia. The model is shown to be useful for positive schizophrenic symptoms including overinclusion, a potentially key element of creativity. In doing so, this psychobiographical analysis allows examination of potential relationships between mental disorder and creativity, the effects of various narcotics on creativity and various elements of mental disorder, the efficacy of various drug models of psychotic disorders, and the overlap between psychotic and affective disorders.     

The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states

One recent development in epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, is the notion of ‘epistemic innocence’ introduced by Bortolotti and colleagues. This concept expresses the idea that certain suboptimal cognitive processes may nonetheless have epistemic (knowledge-related) benefits. The idea that delusion or confabulation may have psychological benefits is familiar enough. What is novel and interesting is the idea that such conditions may also yield significant and otherwise unavailable epistemic benefits. I apply the notion of epistemic innocence to research on the transformative potential of psychedelic drugs. The popular epithet ‘hallucinogen’ exemplifies a view of these substances as fundamentally epistemically detrimental. I argue that the picture is more complicated and that some psychedelic states can be epistemically innocent. This conclusion is highly relevant to policy debates about psychedelic therapy. Moreover, analysing the case of psychedelics can shed further light on the concept of epistemic innocence itself.     

The entropic tongue: Disorganization of natural language under LSD

Serotonergic psychedelics have been suggested to mirror certain aspects of psychosis, and, more generally, elicit a state of consciousness underpinned by increased entropy of on-going neural activity. We investigated the hypothesis that language produced under the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) should exhibit increased entropy and reduced semantic coherence. Computational analysis of interviews conducted at two different time points after 75 μg of intravenous LSD verified this prediction. Non-semantic analysis of speech organization revealed increased verbosity and a reduced lexicon, changes that are more similar to those observed during manic psychoses than in schizophrenia, which was confirmed by direct comparison with reference samples. Importantly, features related to language organization allowed machine learning classifiers to identify speech under LSD with accuracy comparable to that obtained by examining semantic content. These results constitute a quantitative and objective characterization of disorganized natural speech as a landmark feature of the psychedelic state.