Neuropsychedelia
Subtitle: the revival of hallucinogen research since the decade of the brain
By: Nicolas Langlitz
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Berkeley
Language: eng
Number of pages: 316
ISBN-13: 9780520274815; 9780520274822
Subjects: Neuropsychopharmacology; Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience; Hallucinogenic drugs; Research
Description: Neuropsychedelia examines the revival of psychedelic science since the "Decade of the Brain." After the breakdown of this previously prospering area of psychopharmacology, and in the wake of clashes between counterculture and establishment in the late 1960s, a new generation of hallucinogen researchers used the hype around the neurosciences in the 1990s to bring psychedelics back into the mainstream of science and society. This book is based on anthropological fieldwork and philosophical reflections on life and work in two laboratories that have played key roles in this development: a human lab in Switzerland and an animal lab in California. It sheds light on the central transnational axis of the resurgence connecting American psychedelic culture with the home country of LSD. In the borderland of science and religion, Neuropsychedelia explores the tensions between the use of hallucinogens to model psychoses and to evoke spiritual experiences in laboratory settings. Its protagonists, including the anthropologist himself, struggle to find a place for the mystical under conditions of late-modern materialism.--Publisher website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: neuropsychopharmacology as spiritual technology; title: Psychedelic revival; title: Swiss psilocybin and US dollars; title: The varieties of psychedelic lab experience; title: Enacting experimental psychoses; title: Between animality and divinity; title: Mystic materialism; title: Conclusion: fieldwork in perennial philosophy.