RELS 200 Psychedelics and Religion
We are currently in the midst of a "psychedelic renaissance." Over the past two decades, university-backed research institutes, non-profit organizations, and capitalist entrepreneurs around the world have celebrated drugs like psilocybin and LSD as powerful therapeutic tools capable of helping people work through trauma and improve well-being. And according to some prominent researchers, the "mystical experience"--or a feeling of union with the divine--produced from these drugs is key to their therapeutic efficacy. But is this claim valid? And why would scientists make such a claim in the first place? In this course, we will answer these and related questions by exploring the global cultural history of psychedelics from the early twentieth century to the present. With special attention to the relationship between psychedelics and religion, we will examine everything from these substances' ritual consumption in indigenous communities and in pre-modern Europe, to scholars' and researchers' use of religious texts to explain psychedelic experiences, to legal issues surrounding psychedelic use and religious freedom.