Global History of Psychedelics: From the Stone Age to Silicon Valley

Since time immemorial, humans across the globe have used a variety of psychedelic substances to access visionary states of consciousness. This vast pharmacopeia includes plants, vines, flowers, cacti, herbs, animal excretions, and more recently, synthetic drugs that isolate the most potent compounds in naturally-occurring materials. This course examines how these psychedelic substances have shaped the human story across time and space. Our investigation begins in the neolithic era (circa 10,000 BCE) before moving into humanity's earliest religious communities, then proceeds to the mystery cults of the ancient world, indigenous cultures of "shamanism," and the world's major religious traditions. Attention is likewise focused on psychedelics in the modern world, specifically the postwar culture of hippies, the global boom in ayahuasca tourism, and the current "Psychedelic Renaissance" within medical research. Alongside this historical survey, the course will explore the heterogeneous uses, protocols, and rituals that structure the extreme alteration of consciousness occasioned by psychedelics including lysergic acid diethylamide ("LSD"), mescaline, psilocybin (the active compound in "magic mushrooms"), and dimethyltryptamine ("DMT"). Moreover, our analysis will also seek to problematize the ways in which prejudices born out of the War on Drugs have skewed how psychedelics have been understood within scholarship and the mainstream public in general. Through a combination of lectures and guided class discussion, students will engage the foundational research and core questions that animate the academic study of psychedelics. N.B.: In accordance with Stanford University policy, neither the instructor, nor the course curriculum endorse the use of illicit or illegal substances. All exploration and analysis of psychedelics in this course is firmly grounded in academic research and critical scholarship