Sciencing the mystical: the trickery of the psychedelic trip report
New Writing April 9, 2019 DOI: 10.1080/14790726.2019.1566375 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 3 |
| Key points | Argues that the significance of psychedelic mystical experiences lies in the apophatic narratives of doubt and contradiction in trip reports, not in their point-like efficacy in transforming the subject. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT Science has caught wind of mysticism once again. Operationalising metrics from the writings of perennial philosophers, psychopharmacologists are using psychedelics in a laboratory context to reliably induce ‘mystical experiences’. These experiences are scored along such dimensions as unity, noesis, transcendence of space–time and ineffability. How are we to read this moment? I draw on data from an ethnography of psychedelic science and take cue from Walter Benjamin's treatment of the threshold in Convolute O of The Arcades Project, to identify apophatic narratives of trickery that contrast with the positive knowledge prominent in the sciencing of the mystical experience. Read as apophatic labour, psychedelic trip reports reveal how the significance of the mystical encounter lies not in its point-like efficacy in transforming the subject, but in precisely the doubts, contradictions and aporias involved in the writing out of their experiences.