Essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, from Breaking Convention 2017.

Psychedelicacies offers twenty-two essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, based on talks given at Breaking Convention 2017, the largest symposium of its kind. Occurring biennially and featuring more than 120 academic presentations, Breaking Convention is widely regarded as the foremost global platform for serious research into psychedelic science and culture.

Within these pages are essays on philosophy (including Aristotle, Plato and Nietzsche) and epistemology; ways of learning; systemic hierarchy; the development of comedy, counterculture, and postmodernism in the twentieth century; and psychedelic literature. There are accounts of ketamine clinics, dreaming, days spent in total darkness, and the effects of a room devoid of sound; and discussions of poetry: Ginsberg, Blake, and Wordsworth; the history of metaphorical speaking; and the way poetic speech changes consciousness. Other chapters cover the shadow side of ayahuasca retreats, the useful role of ceremonial practices, how psychedelics are being used in end-of-life therapy, and the concept of the imaginal.

Contributors

Tim Hardwick, Matthew Clark, Christopher Letheby, Lindsay Jordan, Nadia VE, Niklas Serning, Oli Genn-Bash, Eli Lee and Nina Lyon, Luke Goaman-Dodson, Michael Montagne, Tharcila Chaves, Josie Malinowski et al, Regina Hess, David Luke et al, George Erving, Luke Walker, Sam Knot, Eric Maddern, Elizabeth Joyce, Julian Vayne, Sam Gandy, William Rowlandson