The University of Exeter, UK, has launched the world’s first post-graduate course on psychedelics. We speak to Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes about what the course involves and the significance of psychedelics entering mainstream academia.
The University of Exeter’s postgraduate course, the online PgCert in ‘Psychedelics: Mind, Medicine and Culture’ is currently taking on applicants for 2024.
Professor Celia Morgan, Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes, Dr Leor Roseman, Professor Christine Hauskeller, and Dr Andy Letcher will be teaching the course along with many international guest lectures from leading minds in the field.
The course is run jointly with the University’s psychology department, home to ketamine expert and Professor of Psychology, Celia Morgan, and is supported by numerous contemporary and classic writings, including the edited volume published by Bloomsbury, Philosophy and Psychedelics, written by 15 authors from around the world.
The course will look at psychedelic research through both the sciences and the humanities—classes include topics such as contemporary protocols of psychedelic therapy, set and setting, the metaphysics of mind, mysticism, causal mechanisms of psychedelic therapy, Native American metaphysics, Vedanta, psychopharmacology, neuroscience, ethical problems with medicalization, ecological ethics, nihilism, cognitive liberty and prohibition.
“We introduced this course because it didn’t exist. For the last 50 years, we’ve had propaganda against psychedelics. Much of that turns out to be false,” commented Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes.
With regard to the philosophical parts of the course, Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes says: “Philosophy has avoided psychedelics for reasons of illegality and propaganda, but it also avoids them because Philosophy of Mind was very reductive in the mid-20th century. Many philosophers didn’t really believe in consciousness. It was like an illusion. Only in the late 20th century did many philosophers and scientists accept the view that there is such a thing as consciousness.
“So, at that time when psychedelics were important, the 60s, philosophy was sort of dismissive of any kind of consciousness, let alone psychedelic consciousness.”
Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes, who recently published the paper ‘On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research’ in Frontiers in Psychology, will be specialising in metaphysics on the course looking at the thought of figures such as Baruch Spinoza, Alfred North Whitehead and William James.
Sjöstedt-Hughes explained: “If you feel at one with the universe, or if you feel like time stops, for example, that’s metaphysics—one of the main branches of philosophy—we’ve spoken about that for thousands of years.
“So, it’s very interesting that psychedelics allow one to have a direct experience of what’s otherwise a philosophical theory.”
Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes adds: “For a Russell Group University to endorse this course, and to have research in two departments, is mainstream acceptance, which is important. … It’s important for two reasons. Firstly, to show that this is a legitimate intellectual pursuit.
“Before this subject was perceived as recreational and criminal, nothing to do with University and academic life from the 60s and 70s. But before that, there was an intellectual pursuit with people such as William James, Humphry Davy and HH Price.
“Secondly, 10 years ago, this was a career killer. But now, with this Psychedelic Renaissance, it’s streamlined through the medical framework. With that framework, there comes many ethical questions—and ethics, of course, is the purview of philosophy. So, it’s important to have a critical analysis of what’s going on from an academic point of view.”
Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes highlights that historically, psychedelics may have had an impact on philosophical thought. So could the resurgence of interest in psychedelics have an impact on current philosophical thought?
“I think it can because one of the main things in philosophy is the mind-matter relationship, the hard problem of consciousness. We’ve only looked at normal forms of consciousness, which might even be a little bit limited by Western languages, and ways of thought,” said Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes.
“Psychedelics burst open the mind for new ways of thought and give people reason to look at certain old theories such as Pantheism, for example—that the universe is God—or Idealism: that everything is consciousness. They open up the mind to these large, philosophical questions about the nature of reality. They can certainly trigger a lot of people who take psychedelics to get into philosophy for that reason.
“I don’t think they necessarily prove anything philosophically, psychedelics, except that the mind is much more powerful than one can imagine.
“I think psychedelics will aid philosophy in terms of a catalyst and that philosophy in turn can aid psychedelic research in terms of being a helpful integrator.”
Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes emphasised that philosophy plays a part in the course, but one that is integrated into learning about current clinical trials, current legislation, neuropharmacological advances, as well as historical and trans-clinical uses of psychedelics.
To find out more about Exeter University’s course on psychedelics and philosophy, please visit: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/online/courses/pgcert-psychedelics/
