Abstract
Recent media advocacy for the nascent psychedelic medicine industry has emphasized the potential for psychedelics to improve society, pointing to research studies that have linked psychedelics to increased environmental concern and liberal politics. However, research supporting the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a shift in political beliefs must address the many historical and contemporary cases of psychedelic users who remained authoritarian in their views after taking psychedelics or became radicalized after extensive experience with them. We propose that the common anecdotal accounts of psychedelics precipitating radical shifts in political or religious beliefs result from the contextual factors of set and setting, and have no particular directional basis on the axes of conservatism-liberalism or authoritarianism-egalitarianism. Instead, we argue that any experience which challenges a person's fundamental worldview—including a psychedelic experience—can precipitate shifts in any direction of political belief. We suggest that the historical record supports the concept of psychedelics as “politically pluripotent,” non-specific amplifiers of the political set and setting. Contrary to recent assertions, we show that conservative, hierarchy-based ideologies are able to assimilate psychedelic experiences of interconnection, as expressed by thought leaders like Jordan Peterson, corporadelic actors, and members of several neo-Nazi organizations.
Highlights
The notion that psychedelic experiences can result in individual dispositional change has its roots in their association with the cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960’s and 1970’s
We suggest that the historical and cross-cultural records support the concept of psychedelics as “politically pluripotent,” non-specific amplifiers of the political set and setting (Lonergan, 2021)
Ideologies have imposed meaning on both self and world, changing the relationship people have toward historically entrenched hierarchies, such as the divine right of kings during the feudal period
Summary
The notion that psychedelic experiences can result in individual dispositional change has its roots in their association with the cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960’s and 1970’s. After, Lyons and Carhart-Harris (2018) addressed authoritarianism as an adjunct to an open-label psilocybinassisted treatment-resistant depression therapy experiment, but with a much smaller sample size (n = 14), concluding that the seven participants who had psilocybin therapy reported lower authoritarian beliefs than before treatment or compared to the non-psilocybin control group. Results from these two studies constitute the only peer-reviewed evidence for the psychedelic experience predicting more liberal and less authoritarian values (see the recent n = 1 observational correspondence by de Wit et al, 2021). Elements of authoritarianism are organizing principles in military, penal, business, health, scholastic, and religious institutions (Foucault, 1995) and remain essential features of all political systems exercising state control
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