Description:

Psychedelics have been an integral part of the counterculture since they burst onto the scene during the revolutionary 1960s. Half a century later, human civilization still finds itself poised on the edge of social and ecological annihilation. The psychedelic experience, like much of the exotic infusions that shaped the consciousness of the 60s, has been all too easily appropriated by consumer capitalism, transformed into just another gimmick to satisfy our addiction to instant gratification. This talk will explore an alternative, alchemical interpretation of such experiences that serves to undermine the sort of ecologically and politically alienated mode of consciousness that continues to perpetuate capitalist social relations. Psychedelics are an invitation to re-imagine what it means to be human beings.