Breaking Convention - A Seismic Shift In Psychedelia

 BREAKING CONVENTION -

A SEISMIC SHIFT IN PSYCHEDELIA

And there was I thinking nobody takes drugs seriously these days and that it was all now purely recreational. That all the psychonauts of old have been there and back again, up the hills and down the valleys, through the avenues and alleyways of your mind, my mind and out of their minds. Where the likes of Timothy Leary have been in, out, shaken it all about and done the Hokey Cokey just to find that actually that's what it's all about.

Well, it seems I was wrong and the Breaking Convention symposiums are the proof positive of this, these being biennial events where presentations are given by people of an academic bent in regard to research into psychedelic science and culture. After each symposium a book is then published of essays based on talks given by their authors, Breaking Convention - A Seismic Shift In Psychedelia being one of them.

So what do we have? Well, there are eleven essays here in total, all acting almost as teasers in regard to the specific subject each is alighting on. Acting as precursors to further discussion, consideration and exploration. Adding fuel to the fire and greasing the wheels to keep the train rolling and the party rocking.

As might be expected, the subjects are varied though still all falling under the psychedelia umbrella. Have you ever heard of Psychedelic Feminism? Me neither, but it's a thing and actually it's pretty interesting, the essay here covering Charlotte Bronte, Maria Sabina, and Anais Nin - psychedelic feminists all.

Not so good is the essay regarding the approximation of the near death experience via the consumption of magic mushrooms, it being the ultimate ego death. You might well indeed come out of such an experience a better person but it's still a bum trip, man.

And then there's one about the decline in the growth of peyote as demand outstrips supply, that kind of links to another essay about how psychedelics might help in tackling climate change and other earth crises. If the root cause of the world's environmental crisis is arguably consumer capitalism held in place by the 'reality principle', the suggested solution would be if a total shift to a new reality principle was to happen, brought about through drugs. In essence, to save the world we need to blow our minds.

This all leads on to what is one of the best essays in the book where the author considers the so-called psychedelic community itself, in particular its social make-up:

'Much of the psychedelic community identifies as spiritual but not necessarily political. Politics is simply the organization and structuring of power within a society. When we belittle the importance of recognizing those power structures, they don't go away - they simply become invisible to us. It is particularly easy to ignore them when many of us in the community don't feel negatively impacted by them - often because we sit at the intersections of multiple forms of privilege, whether it be race, class, education, physical ability, gender identity and more.

Yet one only has to look around the room at a 'psychedelic' event to see the dynamics at play. Who is in the room and who isn't? Who has the mic and who doesn't? Who is facilitating the research study? Who is more often criminalised for engaging with these substances? Who has the disposable income to attend an ayahuasca retreat? Whose cultural traditions of knowledge are recognised and valued and whose aren't?' 

Of that last line I would humbly include myself, as in being among those whose cultural traditions of knowledge are not recognised nor valued. I have no academic background in the slightest so who am I to pass comment upon those who have? Who am I to criticise? Criticise, however, I will because I have now read this book although it's not so much criticism I give but reflection.

Are the Breaking Convention symposiums and the publication of this book an indication of a seismic shift in psychedelia? Personally I think not. It is, rather, a coalescing of elements within academia who share a common interest but a shared interest does not a seismic shift make. If anything it's more an affinity group, although that's no bad thing and I don't say this to belittle it.

Can drugs change the world? They can certainly change a person's perception of the world but that doesn't necessarily mean in a good way. There is no tipping point as in if enough people turn on then the world will become a better place. There is, however, such a thing as tilting at windmills. In fact, tilting at windmills is what the world and everyone in it does. I do it, you do it, the academics involved with Breaking Convention do it.

Drugs are all things to all people. They can be good, bad, happy, sad, positive, negative or even all these things all at the same time. For some, drugs can be food for thought, even. And that is what we have got here with this book: food for thought. To bring ethnobotanist Terence McKenna into the conversation, it's food for thought in regard to the food of the gods, and seriously so in the way that academics always try to be. And again, that's no bad thing at all.

John Serpico