The paper examines the ideological embeddedness of different modes of knowledge transmission through the conflict between psychoactive plants and experts (psychologists), focusing on subjective, visionary experience. Plants do not speak as 'experts' in a scientific discourse based on facts and data; they are visionary plants, so the stake is the status of feeling and vision as knowledge, directly linked to whether these plants are accepted as agents. To unpack this conflict, a framing analysis is conducted on a mass-media article about ayahuasca (a DMT-containing psychoactive plant brew). The conclusion is that the analyzed article does not transmit knowledge but reinforces a given world order and the status of experts, and this moralizing frame fills the lack of legitimacy derived from science.
Visionary art, influenced by a shift toward (hyper)spatial perspectives, breaks from postmodernism by creating portals to other ontological realms and non-human visual paradigms rather than remixing cultural symbols. This paper proposes a methodology for analyzing visionary images from N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) use and Artificial Intelligence (AI) generation, focusing on the agency of non-human entities and dimensions. It shifts analysis from semiotics and representation to the topology of non-human spaces, examining how the constellation of agency between humans and non-humans is changing. The paper advocates for visual studies to accommodate these new epistemics and take such images seriously.