Abstract: Background and aims: As contributions to this special issue attest, psychedelic integration is currently garnering much scholarly attention. However, given that most agree the focus on integration is recent, this paper asks why integration is being given such an emphasis now. What has changed in Western cultures of psychedelicisms, once preoccupied with just ‘set and setting’, that...
In a landmark paper from 2019, Robin Carhart-Harris and Karl Friston lay out their theory for what happens to the human brain under the influence of psychedelics: their so-called REBUS (RElaxed Bra...
This paper addresses the question of what happens to consciousness under the influence of psychedelic drugs—specifically of psilocybin, or “magic” mushrooms— and performs a Foucauldian discourse analysis upon the answers that have been variously proposed. Predominant societally legitimated answers (the pathological, psychological, and prohibition discourses) are those that, in Foucault's sense,...