Psi, Psychedelics and Nature | David Luke

Dr. David Luke is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, London, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Studies, Imperial College London. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently “Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience” (2nd ed., 2019). When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans, he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness.

The use of psychedelics by indigenous peoples all over the world over for shamanic purposes has likely continued for thousands of years and is still widely practiced today. Classically, shamanism involves intentionally going into an altered state of consciousness to communicate with the spirits of nature and transcend time and space and bring back useful information for one’s community.

The practice of psychedelically inducing psi is therefore embedded within a nature-based eco-spiritual epistemology and is difficult to disentangle as a web of interconnected relations, much like the mycelia connecting trees and the magic mushrooms that grow from them. This talk will explore the shamanic use of psychedelics in relation to psi and the biophilocentric effects of psychedelic use.

Presented at the online PA Symposium “Ecology, Nature and Parapsychology” on November 21, 2020; program chaired by Renaud Evrard, President of the Parapsychological Association. Download the Abstracts at https://www.parapsych.org/articles/37/525/ecology_nature_and.aspx

The Parapsychological Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The primary objective of the PA is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences.

A longer version of this convention video, including the Q&A period, is available to PA members-only at parapsych.org. There is a level of PA membership for everyone interested in the scientific and scholarly advancement of parapsychology. Learn more at: https://www.parapsych.org/join_the_pa.aspx

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Published on May 21, 2021

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