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From Bwiti to Ibogaine and back: A Transnational History of Tabernanthe iboga

From Bwiti to Ibogaine and Back: A Transnational History of Tabernanthe...

Julien Bonhomme explores how Euro-American psychedelic communities have appropriated Bwiti ibogaine rituals, creating a liminal experience that incorporates from both traditions. For Western practitioners, ibogaine visions allowed individuals to see through themselves and recreate themselves as they desired in order to overcome their existential problems. While the Gabonese practitioners' visions more often reflected the images of mythical ancestors or relatives practicing witchcraft, rather than mirror-images of themselves.
Powick Psychiatric Hospital was at the center of lsd-assisted therapy discourse for a brief time.

Remembering to Forget: How the UK Disappeared from the Psychedelic Map

Between 1952 and 1964, the UK's Powick Psychiatric Hospital served as a center of LSD-assisted therapy. Ronald Sandison stood at the center of this activity, publishing papers in psychiatric journals and presenting at conferences, which temporarily brought the UK to the center of therapeutic LSD use. Wendy Kline explains why things changed in the mid-1960s.
Voacanga africana plays a role in the global history of psychedelics.

From Rubber Adulterant to Ceremonial Psychedelic: Voacanga africana in the Transnational...

Timothy Vilgiate looks at how the story of Voacanga africana is an example of how Western psychedelia co-opts Indigenous culture in order to create fictional "primitive others" that they can utilize for their own agendas. The idea of Voacanga africana as a ceremonial psychedelic ultimately serves less to reflect of African realities, and more to appeal to Western ideas of psychedelics as primordial elements of human mystical experience and spiritual life.
Early Experimental LSD Cultures in the Clinic

Early Experimental LSD Cultures in the Clinic

Magaly Tornay looks at early practices of meaning-making around LSD in the clinic, a crucial site for negotiating the normal & pathological. Tornay argues that the case of Switzerland is particularly notable in the history of LSD because the drug first found its way into psychiatry through personal connections.
psychedelic parenthood

Psychedelic Parenthood: A New Ancestral Way of Raising a Family

From their experience as a psychedelic mother and father, Jacqueline Alves Rodrigues and Glauber Loures de Assis share 10 topics on psychedelic parenthood that deserve more attention. The topics address issues of gender, diversity, and Indigenous traditions. Ultimately, they argue that working to include families in psychedelic spaces will strengthen the psychedelic community.
Is it accurate to label the Sartre mescaline experience a "bad trip"?

Mescaline, Between Psychopathology and Phenomenology: Sartre and Experimentation in 1930s France

Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous bad trip took place in February 1935, but is it accurate to call it a bad trip when this language didn't exist yet? Gautier Dassonneville shows that Sartre's story fits into a distinct moment in French psycho-philosophy.
A global history of psychedelics.

Global History of Psychedelics: A Chacruna Series

Our new Chacruna series will highlight the global history of psychedelics. It will highlight some of the dynamic ways that historic traditions, cultures, and research spaces have contributed to the field of psychedelics, as well as raise questions about whose knowledge and expertise has been centered through time.
A figure representing conspiracy theories.

Conspirituality: The Hidden Face of the Psychedelic Revolution

Glauber Loures de Assis addresses the issue of conspirituality within the psychedelic renaissance and shows how these Western ideas have had an impact on the Global South. He offers ways to move forward that address these issues. He emphasizes the need to counter conspirituality's individualism in order to build a supportive and reciprocal psychedelic community going forward.
old uses for peyote in mexico

Old Uses of Peyote in Traditional Mexican Medicine and its Inclusion...

Starting with Mexico's first National Pharmacopeia in 1846, Nidia Olvera-Hernández traces the long history of peyote in Mexico. She shows how scientific studies throughout the twentieth-century eventually led to prohibition in 1971.
Santo Daime Brazil - feitio ayahuasca ceremony

This is How Ayahuasca is Brewed at a Santo Daime Church...

At a Chacruna retreat in Brazil, Marcelo Leite and other team members took part in a feitio ayahuasca ritual at a Santo Daime church. Leite describes the steps of the ceremony and his experience.
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