culture
Burning Shore
Welcome to Burning Shore.I am Erik Davis (www.techgnosis.com), an author, scholar, award-winning journalist, podcaster, and professional talker. My wide-ranging work dances around the intersection of alternative religion, media, the popular imagination, and the cultural history of California. Burning Shore will continue to rove through this wide field, as I think about now and then, culture and catastrophe, through the lens of what I call “California consciousness.”
UC Berkeley and Harvard Jointly Launch Study of Psychedelics’ Influence on Art, History and Human Existence
Among the questions the initiative will explore: What might psychedelics reveal about how societies change? How have they shaped music, history and art? Can they shed new light on age-old questions about what it means to be human, to think and to exist?
On November 15, the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University announced a new, collaborative initiative that will expand psychedelic research across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Called “Psychedelics in Society and Culture,” the joint effort between the nation’s foremost public and private universities will foster new ways of thinking and partnering to answer some of the most pressing and intriguing questions surrounding psychedelics and society.
While much research to date has centered on the important potential of therapeutic applications of psychedelics, this groundbreaking collaboration is one of the first comprehensive programs dedicated to exploring the cultural, humanistic and societal significance of psychedelics.
Through generous philanthropy, the initiative aims to advance interdisciplinary research in these under-explored domains, providing students and faculty researchers grants of up to $100,000 for creative and innovative projects both within and between the two universities. This collaborative venture, funded by different donors at each institution, is a testament to the current momentum propelling the expansion of psychedelic research within the nascent field.
Renowned author Michael Pollan, who co-founded the BCSP and is well-known for his book How to Change Your Mind, plays an important role at both universities and has long advocated for expanding psychedelic research into the humanities.
“This new initiative of UC Berkeley and Harvard will delve into new areas of essential psychedelic inquiry,” Pollan said. “How might psychedelics affect our relationship with death or the natural world or our understanding of consciousness? What roles have psychedelics historically played in social change or religion? The possibilities for research and collaboration are endless, exciting, and will have the potential to shed fresh light on these questions and so many others.”
Led by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP), the Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (CICI), and Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center (MHC), this collaborative effort promises to produce invaluable contributions to both institutions’ burgeoning psychedelics programs.
The Psychedelics in Society and Culture program encourages research into the multifaceted role of psychedelics across diverse histories, cultures and geographies. Potential research topics could range from Indigenous communities’ contemporary use of psychedelics to ethical considerations surrounding patenting to the interplay of psychedelics with philosophical questions around the nature of reality, consciousness, religion and the human experience.
Flourish Trust — an organization committed to catalyzing the healing and regeneration of humanity and the planet — has generously donated $1 million to fund the UC Berkeley grants over three years.
“The enormous potential of psychedelics for healing isn’t limited to their biological effects,” said Flourish Trust director Christiana Musk. “For millennia, natural psychedelic plants have played a significant role in cultural development and meaning-making. This program will open doors of understanding into how these compounds have helped shape society and how we might navigate them to the benefit of humanity.”
Meet the Academic Centers Leading the Initiative
CICI is a gathering place for critical and creative inquiry aimed at addressing the key political, social, religious and cultural issues facing society through collaboration. “Literature and the arts have a longstanding historical relationship with altered states of perception and consciousness that yield new visions of what it means to be in the world,” said center faculty director Debarati Sanyal. “The Psychedelics in Society and Culture collaboration between Berkeley and Harvard aims to explore the role that psychedelics continue to play in that story and to support creative and critical inquiry into what is now a burgeoning interdisciplinary field.”
“The resurgence of interest in psychedelics provokes many questions about our relationship with these substances, the role they play in our society, and what they reveal about human nature,” said Imran Khan, executive director of BCSP, the interdisciplinary center at Berkeley focused on psychedelics research, public education and training. “This new joint psychedelics research program between UC Berkeley and Harvard will help answer some of those questions – and hopefully reveal just as many new ones.”
Bruno Carvalho, interim director of the center convening the initiative at Harvard — the MHC — said, “We now have unprecedented support to think carefully and imaginatively about the histories and implications of psychedelics to the human experience. Humanistic inquiry on this topic is vital. We look forward to learning from and collaborating with both seasoned experts and newcomers to the field. Our partnership with UC Berkeley is at the heart of that.”
Grants for eligible projects are open to groups or individuals at the level of undergraduate, graduate students, or faculty at all levels. Psychedelics in Society and Culture will welcome a wide range of proposals, including original scholarship and research projects, public events, dissemination of specialized knowledge, arts programming, fellowship programs,and travel grants.
Applications will open at UC Berkeley and Harvard on December 15, 2023. For more information about the program mission and how to apply, visit the Psychedelics in Society and Culture program page.
Bicycle Day and other Psychedelic Essays
“What are the roots of psychedelic culture? Why are psychedelics seen as transgressive? How was Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD’s effects entwined with a world at war? In Bicycle Day and other Psychedelic Essays, Alan Piper explores the often forgotten or ignored early histories of psychoactive drugs that helped shape psychedelia.
Falling between the eighteenth century, the Club des Hashischins and the psychedelic sixties, the less explored interwar period has a surprisingly rich culture of drug-induced mind states, which are intimately connected with the birth of modernism. From the literature of Hope Mirrlees, David Lindsay and Ernst Jünger, to Harvard peyote experiments, Hofmann’s occultic network and the relationship of Sandoz pharmaceuticals with Nazi Germany, Alan Piper’s collection is a rich tapestry of literary and social drug history.”
Strychnine and other enduring myths: Expert and user folklore surrounding LSD
A particularly noteworthy aspect of LSD mythology is its existence among both users of the drug and experts in the substance abuse field. Among professionals, some of these myths are pervasive enough to have received mention as “facts” in prominent professional publications.
Psychiatric Research With Hallucinogens: What Have We Learned?
After a twenty-five year period of virtual prohibition, formal psychiatric research with hallucinogenic drugs has resumed. This article reviews the process by which hallucinogens came to be viewed as beyond the pale of respected and sanctioned clinical investigation, and directs attention to the importance of fully understanding the lessons of the past so as to avoid a similar fate for recently approved research endeavors. The shamanistic use of hallucinogenic plants as agents designed to facilitate healing, acquire knowledge and enhance societal cohesion were brutally repressed in both the Old and New Worlds by the progenitors of our own contemporary Euro-American culture, often with complicity of the medical professions. Knowledge of the properties and potentials of these consciousness altering plants was forgotten or driven deeply underground for centuries. It was not until the late 1800s that German pharmaceutical researchers investigating the properties of peyote re-discovered the profound and highly unusual effects of these substances. A dispute anticipating the virulent controversies of the 1960s ensued, however, pitting proponents of this new model of consciousness exploration against those who questioned the propriety of their colleagues’ enthusiasm for self experimentation and penchant for sweeping proclamations. The history of hallucinogen research in the 20th century has revolved around this regrettable polarization, and as such has impeded the evolution of the field.
Developments in the second half of the 20th century were catalyzed by the remarkable discoveries of the Swiss research chemist, ALBERT HOFMANN. In the wake of his synthesis of the extraordinarily potent psychoactive substance, Iysergic acid diethylamide, a period of active investigation ensued. Notable gains were accomplished utilizing the psychotomimetic model for understanding mental illness and the low dose psycholytic approach for the treatment of a variety of psychiatric conditions. However, it soon became apparent that these models possessed inherent limitations when applied to the orthodox psychiatric constructs then in vogue. The implementation of the high dose psychedelic model, in spite of its apparent utility in treating resistant conditions such as refractory alcoholism, presented even greater difficulties in conforming to the boundaries of conventional theory and practice. Acceptance of hallucinogens as reputable tools for investigation and agents for treatment were dealt a further and near fatal blow when they became embroiled in the cultural wars of the 1960s. Together with revelations of unethical activities of psychiatric researchers under contract to military intelligence and the CIA, the highly publicized and controversial behaviors of hallucinogen enthusiasts led to the repression of efforts to formally investigate these substances. For the next twenty-five years research with hallucinogens assumed pariah status within academic psychiatry, virtually putting an end to formal dialogue and debate.
We now have before us the opportunity to resurrect the long dormant field of hallucinogen research. However, if we are to avoid replicating the debacle of the past it is imperative that we learn from the lessons of prior generations of researchers who saw their hopes and accomplishments dissipate under the pressures of cultural apprehension and the threat of professional ostracism. It is essential that we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We are now beginning to take definitive steps to end the protracted period of silence and inactivity, but we must be ever mindful to do so tactfully and with respect for the anxieties that will inevitably be provoked in our colleagues. We must strive to facilitate dialogue and even active collaboration with those who in the past may have been loathe to even acknowledge that this might be a field worthy of study. We must also adhere to current and accepted models of research design, for to disregard the state of contemporary scientific investigation would ultimately undermine our goals of fully exploring the rich potentials of these substances. It will also be critical to learn from the wisdom accrued over the ages by the aboriginal practitioners of shamanic healing, for therein lies the benefits of thousands of years of experience with hallucinogenic plants. For more than two decades now the topic of hallucinogens as tools of clinical investigation and models for healing within has been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Bob Jesse: Psychedelics – Uncertain Paths From Re-Emergence To Renaissances.
Bob Jesse – “Psychedelics: The Uncertain Paths from Re-emergence to Renaissance.” Presented at Psychedelic Science 2017: A six-day global gathering of the international scientific community in Oakland, California to explore new research into the benefits and risks of MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, ketamine, ibogaine, medical marijuana, and more.
Why Is Psychedelic Culture Dominated by Privileged White Men?
A recent study of users of novel psychedelic substances found, probably to no-one’s surprise, that they are more likely than average to be male, white and college-educated. This has been the public face of psychedelic culture ever since it emerged more than half a century ago. All of its figureheads, from Aldous Huxley to Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna and Hamilton Morris have been drawn from this limited demographic. But as the use of psychedelics expands, evolves and becomes more diverse, its longstanding biases of gender and ethnicity are becoming more conspicuous. If these substances are a portal to ultimate reality, as their advocates claim, why do they appear to be the preserve of such a narrow segment of humanity?
The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll.
In the mid-1960s, artists, activists, writers, and musicians converged on Haight-Ashbury with hopes of creating a new social paradigm. In the summer of 1967, this small portion of the city would attract as many as 100,000 young people from all over the nation. The neighborhood became ground zero for their activities, and nearby Golden Gate Park their playground. This exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of that legendary summer.
Psychedelic Resource List
The Psychedelic Resource List (PRL) was born in 1994 as a subscription-based newsletter. In 1996, everything that had previously been published, along with a bounty of new material, was updated and compiled into a book. From 1996 until 2004, several new editions of the book were produced. With each new version, a decrease in font size correlated to an increase in information. The task of revising the book grew continually larger. Two attempts to create an updated fifth edition both fizzled out. I finally accepted that keeping on top of all of the new books, businesses, and organizations, had become a more formidable challenge than I wished to take on. In any case, these days folks can find much of what they are looking for by simply using an Internet search engine.
Even though much of the PRL is now extremely dated, it occurred to me that there are two reasons why making it available on the web might be of value. First, despite the fact that a good deal of the book’s content describes things that are no longer extant, certainly some of the content relates to writings that are still available and businesses or organizations that are still in operation. The opinions expressed regarding such literature and groups may remain helpful for those who are attempting to navigate the field for solid resources, or who need some guidance regarding what’s best to avoid. Second, the book acts as a snapshot of underground culture at a particular point in history. As such, it may be found to be an enjoyable glimpse of the psychedelic scene during the late 1990s and early 2000s.