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Through a philosophical lens, this book explores the powerful educational capabilities of classic psychedelics.
Finalist for the 2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Education category
In both clinical and informal settings, psychedelics users often report they have undergone something profound and even life-altering. Yet there persists a confounding inability to articulate just what has been imparted. Informed by multidisciplinary emerging research, this book provides an account of the specifically educational aspects of psychedelics and how they can render us ready to learn. Drawing from indigenous peoples worldwide who typically revere these substances as "plant teachers" and from canonical thinkers in the western tradition such as Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Heidegger, the author proposes an original set of categories through which to understand the educational capabilities of "entheogens" (psychedelics with visionary qualities). It emerges that entheogens' real power lies not in destabilizing and decentering-"turning on and dropping out"-but as powerful aids in restoring and reenchanting our shared worlds.
"Deeper Learning with Psychedelics is a powerful critique of the instrumentalization of psychedelics and indeed, of education itself and Blacker is not so much of a psychedelic scold that he dismisses the value of psychedelic experiences in and of themselves. Some of the most beautiful passages in the book speak to the capacity of psychedelics to offer participants access to worlds within the world that they might otherwise miss." — Education Review
"Blacker is known for highly original thinking in the field of philosophy of education. … The book [is] a model of educational thinking, but … the audience for the book is much more expansive, in keeping with the nascent field of psychedelic studies itself. … The book also speaks powerfully to considerations of deeper learning in general." — Natasha Levinson, Kent State University
"A terrific new contribution to our field. The educational potential of psychedelic drugs is a surprisingly interesting topic, but … it has been completely ignored.... The topic may seem to some to be fringe and/or taboo, but this conclusion is incorrect (as Blacker demonstrates)." — David Waddington, Concordia University
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Psychedelia's Third Wave
1. Overview
2. Epistemic Loosening
3. Hypertrophic Identification
4. Psychedelic Envelopment
5. Doxastic Enhancement
Conclusion: Some Parting Thoughts
Notes
References
Index