Milan Scheidegger is one of the most interesting young researchers in psychedelics, because he integrates several different perspectives. He’s a clinical psychiatrist at the University of Zurich, who’s spent a decade studying the effect of psychedelics on subjects in a … Continue reading
This essay is a personal opinion and may contain misunderstandings of my own. I’d be interested to hear from others with more knowledge and experience of ayahuasca, including indigenous healers or those who work closely with them. In the last … Continue reading
There’s a new book out later this month on the psychology of ecstatic experiences, and why they’re good for us. It’s called Stealing Fire, by two performance coaches, Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal. It might be disconcerting to have another … Continue reading
Two new studies just published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology showed that a single dose of psilocybin (the psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms) significantly reduces anxiety and depression in people with terminal cancer. You can read them for free … Continue reading
Here’s the first episode of our new Living with Feeling podcast – an interview with my favourite living writer, Geoff Dyer, about the theme of peak experiences in his writing. Dyer is the author of two novels and several non-fiction … Continue reading
Last Sunday I finished a 10-day Vipassana retreat, at a monastery in Sweden. This was my third attempt to do a monastic retreat – I’d done a runner from both previous efforts, from a Rusian monastery in Lent 2006 (the … Continue reading
I’m researching the history of ecstasy and ecstatic experiences in modern western culture, how spiritual ecstasy got pathologised from the Enlightenment to the present day, and how people found new ways to get out of their heads. An important part … Continue reading
John-Henry Carter is the most successful captain of Oxford rugby team ever, the only captain to lead the team to three successive victories in the Varsity match. The former flanker attributes that success not to his speed or his 6ft … Continue reading
I was reading Evelyn Underhill’s wonderful chapter on ecstasy and rapture, from her book Mysticism, and it made me want to listen to Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ (Underhill always has this effect on me). So I watched the video on YouTube, and … Continue reading
Is it taboo for academics to talk about their spiritual experiences? What can the humanities bring to the study of such experiences? Can we steer between the Scylla of religious dogmatism and the Charybidis of materialist reductionism when interpreting such experiences? I … Continue reading