Skip to content
  • About
  • Events
  • Content
    • Talks
    • Podcasts
    • Blog
  • Members Area
  • Log In
Menu
  • About
  • Events
  • Content
    • Talks
    • Podcasts
    • Blog
  • Members Area
  • Log In
Loading...

The Science of Psychedelics & Nature Connectedness

Play Video

The traditional use of psychoactive plants and fungi for spiritual and shamanic purposes has occurred for thousands of years, whereas the Western scientific research of these substances has only been explored in the last 100 years or so, and prohibition stalled 50 years of this. Now that scientific research is resuming, what do psychedelics tell us about the stranger and more exotic side of human consciousness and its connection with the natural world, and what can be learned from the traditional shamanic practices with these substances?

Exploring the nature-connectedness, interspecies interactions and eco-consciousness arising from the use of psychedelics this talk considers what can be learned from animism and shamanism in informing both psychology and ecology. Fusing research from parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, ecopsychology, ethnobotany and the scientific investigation of psychedelics a perspective of transpersonal ecopsychology views plant/fungus-human interactions as meaningful, potentially transformative and sorely needed given the current rate of manmade species extinction on Earth.

Reading Recommendations:

  • Psychedelics and ecology (assorted essays)
  • Ecopsychology and the psychedelic experience (journal special issue)
  • From egoism to ecoism: Psychedelics and nature relatedness (research article)

About the Speaker:

Dr David Luke - The Weekend University
Dr David Luke, PhD

Dr David Luke is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience (2nd ed., 2019).

When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics, London, and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness. He has given over 300 invited public lectures and conference presentations; won teaching, research and writing awards; organised numerous festivals, conferences, symposia, seminars, retreats, expeditions, pagan cabarets and pilgrimages; and has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Sussex.

Subscribe to the Podcast

Next Event:

A Day on Parts

  • University of Greenwich, London
  • 18/12/2022
A Day on Parts - The Weekend University
Read more about our next event
Read more about our next event

Early Access List

Get early access to events, and our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox.
Get early access

Making Psychology Accessible.

2023 © TWU - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy

  • About
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Affiliates
  • Contact
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Preferences
{title} {title} {title}