Abstract
The effects of so-called "psychedelic" or "hallucinogenic" substances are known for their strong conditionality on context. While the so-called culturalist approach to the study of hallucinations has won the favor of anthropologists, the vectors by which the features of visual and auditory imagery are structured by social context have been so far little explored. Using ethnographic data collected in a shamanic center of the Peruvian Amazon and an anthropological approach dialoguing with phenomenology and recent models of social cognition of Bayesian inspiration, I aim to shed light on the nature of these dynamics through an approach I call the "socialization of hallucinations." Distinguishing two levels of socialization of hallucinations, I argue that cultural background and social interactions organize the relationship not only to the hallucinogenic experience, but also to its very phenomenological content. I account for the underpinnings of the socialization of hallucinations proposing such candidate factors as the education of attention, the categorization of perceptions, and the shaping of emotions and expectations. Considering psychedelic experiences in the light of their noetic properties and cognitive penetrability debates, I show that they are powerful vectors of cultural transmission. I question the ethical stakes of this claim, at a time when the use of psychedelics is becoming increasingly popular in the global North. I finally emphasize the importance of better understanding the extrapharmacological factors of the psychedelic experience and its subjective implications, and sketch out the basis for an interdisciplinary methodology in order to do so.
Highlights
Identifying the underpinnings of the effects of so-called “psychedelic” or “hallucinogenic” substances under experimental conditions has historically been deemed a great challenge, as these substances are known for their strong conditionality on cultural context (Langlitz, 2012)
Like many ceremonial practices that mobilize the use of psychedelic substances, the hallucinogenic experience in Takiwasi is the object of a narrative elaboration which inscribes it in the “language game” of the social group
We argued here that these narrative reconstructions and the social interactions that frame the hallucinogenic experience, by educating the participant’s attention and affecting the categorization procedures of perceptions, further structure the way of organizing and interpreting the hallucinations
Summary
Identifying the underpinnings of the effects of so-called “psychedelic” or “hallucinogenic” substances under experimental conditions has historically been deemed a great challenge, as these substances are known for their strong conditionality on cultural context (Langlitz, 2012). Comparative ethnographic observations I have carried out over the past decade in various institutions offering ritual uses of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in the Upper Peruvian Amazon suggest that cultural and symbolic elements (such as cosmological and etiological theories) as well as the characteristics of the ritual devices specific to these institutions strongly influence the formal characteristics of the hallucinations (i.e., visual and auditory imagery locally labelled as “visions” and “voices”) perceived by the participants These observations suggest that the vectors of socialization of hallucinations are likely to be understood through the consideration of the symbolic background and the social interactions surrounding the use of psychedelics. I emphasize the importance of better understanding the extrapharmacological factors of the psychedelic experience and its subjective implications and sketch out the basis for an interdisciplinary methodology in order to do so
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