Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group One

The Harvard Psychedelics Project, a student organization at Harvard Divinity School, held a conference to bring together faculty, researchers, and students from various departments and schools across Harvard University. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the diverse and interdisciplinary research on psychedelics, and speakers were invited from different units and departments such as the Harvard Business School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center.

The event was inaugurated with talks by several speakers, including Charles Stang, Natalia Schwien, Rachael Petersen, Andrea Lerner, Ned Hall, Justin Williams, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith.

Summary of Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research

The interdisciplinary psychedelic research conference held at Harvard University focused on showcasing the work of 17 researchers across Harvard and featured a keynote panel discussing regulation and law. The speakers reiterated the importance of recognizing and paying respect to indigenous peoples and their knowledge, especially given that some psychedelic substances used in research today were acquired through cultural theft from these groups. The conference emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of psychedelic research as breaking down the barriers between departments and fostering collaboration. Speakers shared their interest in the therapeutic and mystical potential of psychedelics, especially psilocybin, and how it relates to their work on the emergence of mysticism in early Christianity. They also discussed the role of psychedelics in spiritual and religious practices, questioned the colonization of non-entheogenic plants, and highlighted the need for spiritual caregivers and chaplains in psychedelic research and practice. There was also a discussion about the potential risks of psychedelic exceptionalism, the major gap in research of post-traumatic stress disorder, and the importance of interpersonal connections in healing.

The video explores different perspectives and approaches towards interdisciplinary psychedelic research. It emphasizes the need for affordable and accessible psychedelic therapies and the potential of psychedelic experiences to reveal something about reality beyond the subject. The role of evolutionary biology in understanding and cultivating sacred plants like ayahuasca is also discussed, as well as the importance of conducting spiritual assessments on patients before administering psychedelics. The speakers touch on issues of commodification, genetic modification, and the potential for collaborative partnerships with indigenous communities. They also highlight the importance of expanding our understanding of who is qualified to administer psychedelic therapies and the need to consider religious contexts in psychedelic research. Finally, the speakers discuss the upcoming qualitative analysis of a clinical refresh of the Good Friday experiment and the need for rigorous and responsible psychedelic research.

• 00:00:00 In this section, the speakers introduce the interdisciplinary psychedelic research conference held at Harvard University. They begin by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and paying respect to indigenous peoples and their knowledge, especially given that many psychedelic substances used in research today were acquired through cultural theft from these groups. The conference aims to showcase the diverse work of 17 researchers across Harvard and features a keynote panel discussing regulation and law. The speakers believe that the psychedelic research community must confront and learn from both the positive and negative aspects of its past and present. They also see the interdisciplinary nature of psychedelic research as breaking down the barriers between departments and fostering collaboration towards knowledge and Truth. Finally, the speakers acknowledge the support of many individuals in organizing this conference and ensuring its accessibility.
• 00:05:00 In this section of the transcript, the speaker Paul Ogilvie Smith, a grad student at Harvard Divinity School, thanks all those who made the event possible, including the director of student life at HGS and the staff at CSWR. He explains that the goal of the conference is to begin interdisciplinary encounters and collaboration in psychedelic research and highlights the need for future conferences. The first presenter, Dr. Charles Stang, who specializes in early Christian thought and is the director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, talks about his interest in the therapeutic and mystical potential of psychedelics, especially psilocybin, and how it relates to his work on the emergence of mysticism in early Christianity.
• 00:10:00 In this section, the speaker discusses how he became interested in interdisciplinary psychedelic research through three different sources: the public discourse on science, spirituality, and mysticism; Brian Moresco’s book, “The Immortality Key,” which explores psychedelics in the ancient Mediterranean world; and the anthropology of Amazonia and its use of plant medicines, particularly Ayahuasca. These interests led him to launch a series called “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” that explores the intersection of psychedelic research, religion, and spirituality with an open mind and open heart, while also maintaining rigor and responsibility. The speaker acknowledges that there is often a lot of noise surrounding the contemporary enthusiasm for psychedelics, but firmly believes that there is something crucially important coming to the surface in this cultural moment.
• 00:15:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the role of psychedelics in spiritual and religious practices. The speaker is interested in the transcendence and transformation of the individual, group, and society through various practices of ecstatic experience, including psychedelics. Rather than viewing psychedelics as a golden road to spiritual experience, the speaker sees them as one among many means of exploring transcendence. The speaker also emphasizes the need to put interdisciplinary psychedelic research into a larger frame, attending to traditions and practices that have been excluded, including indigenous and so-called pagan traditions. The goal is to explore the ways in which these traditions and practices can be studied and used as resources for contemporary religion and spirituality, while also acknowledging the thorny issues of cultural appropriation that arise when borrowing from these traditions. Finally, the speaker lingers over the Latin preposition “trans” as in transcendence, transformation, and transgression, emphasizing the movement across boundaries that is implied in these concepts.
• 00:20:00 In this section, Natalia Schwein, a PhD candidate in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, talks about her research on expanded ontologies of personhood and her interest in post-human ethics. She also provides a land acknowledgment and a brief introduction to herself as an associate director of the program for the evolution of spirituality at Harvard Divinity School. Schwein delivers a quick plug for the upcoming conference for the program in April, which will be discussing alternative spiritualities and uses and abuses of power.
• 00:25:00 In this section of the video, a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation apprentice talks about their engagement with non-humans as persons and the deep complication of the word person. They caution against the appropriation and commodification of indigenous life ways that can occur in this work with entheogenic plants. They suggest that language is essential to building respectful relationships with the plants, and we need to acknowledge their ancestry and communities who have been the traditional keepers of those plants. They also express concern about disassociating the experience of working with entheogenic plants from the living earth and engaged practice and the potential for bad trips and the weight of human trauma on the shoulders of those processing trauma.
• 00:30:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the abundance of plant medicines around us and how it’s important to consider the relationship we have with these different plants, not just entheogenic ones. She questions if we are unintentionally upholding colonization and distancing the connection between culture and nature. The speaker suggests that there is potential for the study and practice of religion to influence our understanding of psychedelics and vice versa, but currently, this potential is far from being realized. She notes that the humanities are often defending their relevance in a cultural landscape that prioritizes neuroscience, psychology, and chemistry over religious studies.
• 00:35:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the absence of religious scholarship in mainstream psychedelic conversation and the importance of spiritual caregivers and chaplains in psychedelic research and practice. The speaker shares a true story of a young anxious Christian woman attending a psychedelic retreat and encountering demons, revealing the need for deeper care and sophistication in treating religious and spiritual issues in psychedelic therapy. The speaker advocates for the greater involvement of spiritual caregivers and chaplains in psychedelic training, research, and practice for harm reduction and navigating transcendence and transformation. The speaker also shares the story of a young woman who underwent a conversion experience during a clinical trial for psilocybin to treat major depression, highlighting the profundity of non-ordinary experiences and the potential for psychedelic therapy to minister to souls beyond administering drugs to minds.
• 00:40:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the need for more research into the area of bad trips or challenging experiences with psychedelics. She argues that the current focus on medicalizing psychedelics ignores the importance of the harrowing experiences and their potential for wisdom. She suggests that scholars of religion need to ask more interesting questions around what can be learned from bad trips, such as how they shift one’s understanding of the potentiality of the mind. The speaker also discusses the potential for psychedelics and plant medicines to awaken people to the aliveness and agency of the more than human world, and suggests that indigenous and folk traditions provide valuable knowledge that has been safeguarded for many years.
• 00:45:00 In this section, two speakers discuss the potential risks of psychedelics being treated as sacred, exceptional plants. The speakers suggest that while they can offer a way to explore the mind, provide spiritual experiences, and facilitate trauma recovery, they should not be treated as an end-all-be-all. The first speaker indicates that psychedelic exceptionalism could lead to overlooking the many other plants that could be explored, while the second speaker sees psychedelics as a way to create new systems of governance, medicine, and education in societies suffering from economic collapse and facing the effects of climate change.
• 00:50:00 In this section, a speaker discusses the major gap in both treatment and research of post-traumatic stress disorder and the lack of research on women and female survivors of sexualized violence. The speaker offers two tenets, embodiment and relationship, that are often lost in Western treatments but are necessary for empowering and effective trauma treatment. They present an integrative psilocybin PTSD treatment program that uses somatic trauma education, narrative reframing, and coaching instead of psychotherapy. The program centers on the body as a source of healing and wisdom and emphasizes enabling individuals to acquire new tools for self-regulation and co-regulation imperative to healing. The speaker also emphasizes using safe, healing, consensual embodied touch that comes from real love, compassion, and real presence because survivors of physical or sexual violence often experience neglect and violence to the body.
• 00:55:00 In this section of the video, the speaker discusses the importance of interpersonal connections in healing and how it can help reprogram the nervous system and psyche. The speaker acknowledges the need to rebuild cultures of care in both an individual and communal way through the use of psychedelics. Additionally, the speaker shares their vision for building an interdisciplinary Center for psychedelics and human development at Harvard. The next speaker, Emma Beck, shares her perspective on how businesses can approach the challenges and opportunities in the psychedelic space, split into legalization and medicalization camps. Beck discusses her work with Papaya Therapeutics, a digital therapeutics company, that creates companion products for ketamine and psychedelic medicines.
• 01:00:00 In this section of the video, the speaker discusses how successful companies will focus on promoting access and affordability of psychedelics. Legalization involves pursuing legal pathways for general access to psychedelics, and medicalization involves clinical application. Although people are excited about states like Oregon and Colorado that have legalized psychedelic use, logistical hurdles need to be overcome before these programs can be successful. Challenges in the legal space include investments in infrastructure and the cost of therapies, which can amount to one to three thousand dollars for treatment. Medicalization involves drug development, and affordable and cost-effective therapies may be developed by removing the hallucinogenic properties from psychedelic compounds. Successful clinics in the space will drive value-oriented outcomes-based care at scale.
• 01:05:00 In this section, the speaker discusses a digital therapeutics platform called Papaya, which provides companion products and FDA-regulated apps for academia and psychedelic therapies. The goal is to help lower costs for patients and drive towards insurance reimbursement, making treatments more accessible and affordable. The speaker emphasizes the importance of accessibility and affordability in building successful businesses in the field of psychedelics, and acknowledges the hard work of those who have laid the foundation for this research. The next speaker introduces a distinction between two orientations towards inquiry into psychedelics, one treating the human subject and their experiences as the object of study, and the other taking a more unconventional approach.
• 01:10:00 In this section, the speaker introduces two orientations towards psychedelic research. The first sees the human subject only as a source of information about the internal state of the subject. The second, which the speaker believes to be more ambitious, views the subject and their response to psychedelics as a potential source of information about the reality we collectively inhabit. The speaker cites Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind” to illustrate the “veridical” quality of mystical psychedelic experiences. Such experiences are different from intense or pleasurable experiences like drunkenness or being stoned, as they purport to present reality to the subject in a unique way. The speaker invites listeners to be open to the possibility that such experiences may be responsive to something independent of oneself.
• 01:15:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the “Prima facial objectivity” of conscious experiences and how it relates to psychedelic experiences. They note that psychedelic experiences have a disclosive quality that presents itself as revealing something about reality, which is independent of the experiencer. Although these experiences may not necessarily be accurate, they should not be dismissed as mere hallucinations. The speaker also challenges the presumption of scientific materialism which assumes that matter is the fundamental substance of the world and that everything can be explained through physical laws. They suggest that there are other options to consider, such as claims about meaning, value, and purpose, and that psychedelic research could be a catalyst for inviting us to explore these alternatives.
• 01:20:00 In this section, Justin Williams, a PhD student, discusses his research in the department of organismic and evolutionary biology, which aims to unravel the origins, domestication history, and sustainable cultivation of the sacred plant Banisteriopsis caapi. Williams compares Banisteriopsis caapi to another magical plant, the miracle berry from tropical western Africa, explaining that although the latter is not considered a psychedelic, it alters sensory perception. Williams suggests using evolutionary biology to remove the stigma from psychedelic plants and redefine humanity’s relationships with these sacred plants.
• 01:25:00 In this section, the video explores the genetic revolution and how it is being used to illuminate previously unknown cryptic species, particularly in the world of psychedelics. Through using evolutionary biology, it is possible to connect genotypic variation to phytochemical patterns to understand the ecological context that preceded human interaction with these plants. Investigations into plants domesticated by humans can inform the historical relationship between humans and plant hallucinogens and also help establish intellectual property rights and protect indigenous traditional knowledge.
• 01:30:00 In this section, the speaker discusses how evolutionary biology can play a role in the understanding and sustainable cultivation of sacred plants like ayahuasca, which can inform breeding efforts and increase yield. The speaker also highlights the synergy between the psychedelic renaissance and the genetic revolution that can illuminate age-old mysteries surrounding these plants. In the Q&A session, the speakers discuss the potential problems with the Western medical model of bringing psychedelics into consciousness and emphasize the need for a deep internal look at what is being done, who is being left out of the conversation, and how to change this for collective healing. They suggest incorporating different methods like embodiment, relationship, ritual, and art, which are already being looked at by some clinical and research practitioners.
• 01:35:00 In this section of the video, the speakers discuss the importance of conducting spiritual assessments on patients before administering psychedelics, as patients may have different views on the experience. They also touch on the communal nature of psychedelic experiences, and how these substances have been used in group settings for religious practices and discernment. The question of using psychedelics to transform communities is brought up, and the speakers reflect on the existing long-standing traditions of using these substances to address issues of oppression and violence. However, they also recognize the issue of commodification in these spaces and questioning who benefits from this. The possibility of exploring the interpersonal therapeutic benefits of psychedelics is also raised as a potential avenue worth considering in light of our increasingly polarized society.
• 01:40:00 In this section, the discussion revolves around the use of psychedelics as a means of enhancing empathy between people, moving away from a purely medicalized model. The issue of genetic modification and its impact on organic quality and ethical considerations are also raised, particularly with plant species. It is suggested that collaboration with indigenous communities is necessary to ensure that projects are initiated with due respect to traditional knowledge and practices. The speakers also highlighted the need to be wary of the influence of capitalism and to proceed cautiously in the area of drug engineering to avoid pursuing unethical purposes.
• 01:45:00 In this section, a question is posed about how to avoid commoditization and ensure true research on the powerful medicines of psychedelic plants. The panelists acknowledge this concern, with one expressing worry about the obsolescence of the underground and the potential for indigenous traditions to be pushed to the margins by the industry. While there may not be a clear answer, the importance of putting patients first is emphasized as a way to drive the largest impact, and companies that prioritize patient wellbeing are believed to be the ones that will make the most positive difference.
• 01:50:00 In this section, the panelists discuss the importance of considering a broad range of perspectives and potential issues in the development of psychedelic therapies. They specifically bring up the need to expand our understanding of who is qualified to administer these therapies and the potential for commodifying traditional knowledge. They also challenge the reductionist approach of isolating single molecules in plant medicine research, arguing that the complex interactions of various compounds in plants may be vital to their therapeutic effects. The panelists briefly touch on the possibility of incorporating religious contexts into psychedelic research, but it is suggested that this area needs further exploration.
• 01:55:00 In this section of the video, the speakers discuss the upcoming qualitative analysis of a clinical refresh of the Good Friday experiment. They administered high dosilocybin to 25 clergy members of different faiths at Johns Hopkins and NYU to explore the effects on their ministry and spiritual cultivation. The speakers also touch on the growth of informal ministerial spaces in more underground community churches and the challenges of using religion as a mask for non-religious communities. They express ambivalence towards the term “psychedelic Renaissance” and how they are making efforts in the university to make psychedelic research illicitly rigorous and responsible. While the university still has a long way to go in recognizing psychedelics as a serious subject, they are proud of their modest achievements over the last five years. The Divinity School has made deliberate steps in the university to normalize psychedelic research and take it seriously.