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UC Berkeley and Harvard Jointly Launch Study of Psychedelics’ Influence on Art, History and Human Existence

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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? 

Imran Khan, executive director of BCSP, speaks about the launch of the Psychedelics in Society and Culture humanities program.

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.”

Michael Pollan, co-founder of BCSP, in conversation about Psychedelics in Society and Culture at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University.

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.”

Kahpi: Ayahuasca Information Hub

While ayahuasca has become something of a celebrity around the world recently, there are many misleading understandings about ayahuasca circulating the web.

From unreasonable fears about the dangers of the brew to sensationalist ideas about its benefits, the need for a mature discussion about ayahuasca has never been more important. We bring together ayahuasca experts from science and medicine, anthropology and ethnobotany, and shamanism and alternative healing networks.

A Psychedelic Renaissance: Historical Reflections on the Future

In February 2014 Scientific American shocked readers with an editorial that called for an end to the ban on psychedelic drug research.1 The article criticized the mental health treatment industry for failing to advance therapies beyond the golden era of the 1950s, and lambasted drug regulators for prohibiting psychedelic drugs, including LSD, ecstasy (MDMA), and psilocybin; drugs, which had historically held clinical promise but were “designated as drugs of abuse.”2 As the editors pointed out, the situation has created a paradox: “these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned….The decades-long research hiatus has taken its toll.”3 Lest there be any confusion as to where the editors stood on the issue, they continued with explicit instructions: “This is a shame. The US government should move these drugs to the less strict Schedule II classification…it would make it much easier for clinical researchers to study their effects.”4 The article brought public and scientific attention to a growing contention amongst researchers, and even some regulators, that the clinical potential among psychedelic drugs had been dismissed due to a moral panic about drug abuse.

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.

Racism and the Discrimination Against Cannabis by Ayahuasca Users in Brazil

Foreigners, and even Brazilians, often feel confused by the fierce accusations leveled by the members of different Brazilian ayahuasca religions against each other. Matters become especially fierce in the case of attacks, often seeming to verge on a desire to ban the brew entirely, made against members of CEFLURIS or ICEFLU, followers of the late Santo Daime leader Padrinho Sebastião. This is allegedly due to their acceptance of the sacramental use, in certain of their rituals, of cannabis with ayahuasca. Another point of discord is their acceptance of possession trances alongside the shamanic flight more common among indigenous ayahuasca users. However, if one looks a little further into the history of Amazonian Indian and mestizo shamanism, one will find many different plant species being used in conjunction with ayahuasca; some of them with considerable psychoactive properties. Similarly, in Rio Branco, one will find followers of the Barquinha religion who reserve a special place in their rituals for mediumship and for possession trances and do not receive the criticisms leveled at CEFLURIS or ICEFLU.

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