Commentary to Piers Eaton, “Mind, Matter, and Mushroom.”
Kate Maddalena
Spontaneous Generations A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science April 8, 2025 DOI: 10.4245/sponge.v12i1.24242 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Eaton argues that the current psilocybin renaissance is market-driven and that Mazatec/Zapotec medicine is being appropriated by mainstream psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, and wellness cultures rather than a 1960s counter-culture fringe. Eaton proposes that these groups divide over whether the trip itself or a chemical property of psilocybin produces therapeutic outcomes. |
Abstract
Be sure to read this paper to the end, because that's where the good stuff is.By laying out some of the stakes of the "question of psychedelics" in mainstream, primarily white North American, medical and para-medical knowledge-making, Eaton is able to critique the market-driven nature of the current psilocybin popular culture renaissance.This time around, the Mazatecs/Zapotecs medicine is being appropriated not by a counter-culture fringe (which Eaton calls "religious-idealist") as it was in the 1960s, but by a more normy-friendly psychiatric and psychotherapeutic culture that includes, according to Eaton's analysis, "secular materialists" and a hybridized group that blends idealism and materialism.This last group includes wellness practitioners and self-proclaimed gurus on the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline (Belew, 2022) like Moms on Mushrooms, as well as others in larger, more nebulous umbrellas like Reddit psychonauts and readers of Michael Pollan.The epistemological question that divides these groups, says Eaton, is whether the trip itself or some chemical property leads to therapeutic outcomes.But Eaton (2025) offers us another important epistemological provocation: " [can]