Neuro-plastic Shamanism? Towards a Political Ontology of Whiteness and the Psychedelic Zeitgeist
Mat Keel
Anthropology of Consciousness September 1, 2022 DOI: 10.1111/anoc.12159 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Longitudinal Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key points | Argues that clinical psychedelic medicine sustains the reproduction of modern colonial whiteness and that psychedelic studies must engage with decoloniality and political ontology. |
Abstract
Abstract This paper argues for reorienting our investigation of the psychedelic zeitgeist towards the longitudinal history of psychedelia with a committed attention to its relationship to colonialism. It demonstrates that clinical psychedelic medicine appears to sustain the reproduction of modern colonial whiteness in line with Elizabeth Povinelli’s theorization of late liberalism. It also challenges the notion of a restricted or segregated academic area for psychedelic studies. Instead, it is imperative to place discussions of contemporary plant medicine in line with broader contemporary discussions in cultural anthropology around political ontology and decoloniality. This paper attempts to demonstrate that doing so may challenge our understanding of whiteness—reinterpreting it—by recourse to the history of the psychedelic counterculture, as a form of complex trauma, and thus potentially demonstrating new implications for decoloniality and its praxis.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 7
- Altered States of Consciousness Archives of General Psychiatry September 1, 1966
- Current perspectives on psychedelic therapy: use of serotonergic hallucinogens in clinical interventions International Review of Psychiatry July 4, 2018
- Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects. Journal of Psychopharmacology September 1, 2020
- An ontology of psychedelic entity experiences in evolutionary psychology and neurophenomenology Journal of Psychedelic Studies March 26, 2018
- Psychedelic Epistemology: William James and the “Noetic Quality” of Mystical Experience Religions November 29, 2021
and 2 more in the library