Hallucinating the End of History: Nishida, Zen, and the Psychedelic Eschaton by Cunningham, Eric
The journal of Japanese philosophy/Journal of Japanese philosophy January 1, 2015 Steve Odin
A book review describes Eric Cunningham's argument that the modern Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō's eschatological view of history—in which the historical world moves toward an overcoming of modernity through a dissolution of subject and object in pure experience, realized in Zen nothingness—can be illuminated by comparing it with Terence McKenna's psychedelic paradigm based on visionary hallucinogenic plant shamanism. Cunningham contends that existing interpretations of Nishida's later historical philosophy have been inadequate, and that viewing it through its eschatological dimension and the lens of psychedelic experience reveals its long-range significance, despite controversy over Nishida's associations with ultranationalism and imperial ideology.