🔗 Share this article

The work is a trip. Notably, it meticulously recounts numerous substances ingested by the US-raised academic specializing in scientific thought has taken. These encompass psychedelic fungi, LSD, weed; quetiapine and Xanax for anxiety; antidepressants, Prozac, Lexapro and older generation drugs; caffeine (“I have drunk caffeine every single day for over three decades”); and, personally speaking, the always disappointing spirits.

The Most Trippy Dimension

The most fascinating part, however, is less about the philosopher’s descriptions of his substance journeys, but the fact that they are penned by a tough-minded systematic scholar, well-versed in analytic Foundations of Empirical Knowledge as mystical mescaline-inspired consciousness studies. Moreover, they’re presented seeking to eroding the egos of his fellow thinkers and the public arguing that psychedelics transcend our selves merging us with divine unity, thereby rendering true freedom in the way Baruch Spinoza’s thinker the ethicist defined it (paraphrased by Smith-Ruiu through “a willing acquiescence regarding how one’s own body functions within the inevitable cosmic structure”).

Melting the Cartesian Paradigm

The dissolving metaphor fits well, because the foundational moment of early modern western philosophy was exemplified when the French philosopher French thinker the rationalist transformed a wax sample. The lump could alter its form, smell, size, extent, however, the philosopher argued, we still claim with certainty its identity as the identical object. The knower might misperceive regarding every experiences about the substance but not, Descartes argued, the fact that cognition exists: here lies the core of his celebrated “Cogito ergo sum” – through which the French thinker established reason-driven, science-respecting beings we are to this day.

The author, discombobulatingly, challenges the tradition on the Cartesian thought experiment: imagine if, in place of heating the substance, Descartes had “altered his perception” with acid, or through entheogens starting to arrive across the continent from overseas together with agricultural products and tobacco, like peyote or Amazonian brews? Imagine if he had not foregrounded reason but rather praised the creative abilities that he argues, are unleashed through substances? European thought may have evolved seeing the world through a transformed lens, and people not as rational agents but as “boundless sources of light and knowledge”.

Transcending Conventional Epistemology

Further dimensions exist within the author’s substance journey, as suggested, than considered in strait-laced colleagues’ theories. His perspective bears resemblance to current contemporary, reality-altering movements like the new realism of perspectives, and object-oriented philosophies and ecological thought. Immanuel Kant claimed the transcendent remains unknowable, theorizable but not directly perceived. We could never through sensory experience, perceive the divine. According to the author, psychedelics can potentially lift that veil. Due to this proposition alone one is stunned – and inspired – that he got tenure.

Sober Reflections

It’s worth mentioning at this point that this is not like those drug-fueled memoirs composed when the writer is out of their gourd. The philosopher is not the gonzo journalist. It is called About Psychedelics however it is not written on drugs (except, probably, including the prescription meds he mentions above and occasional caffeine jolt). “During composition, lucid, lucid, and completely engaged in the work.”

A Surprising Turn

The volume concludes with a fascinating turn of events (warning: insight ahead). In 2023, Smith-Ruiu attended Catholic mass for the first time since his youth at a local chapel next door to his residence. His proposition at this point states that the psychedelic experience is analogous to the experience of ritual worship: ordinary time is regarded as a limited view, and through ritual one might perceive, similar to his during trips, a glimpse of eternity. A further similarity concerns how one submits one’s will during ceremony as on a consciousness-expanding journey. Smith-Ruiu expresses: “Substances, similar to faith, like poetry are among other things a release of ego to go it alone.” Smith-Ruiu shows awareness to admit how strange this sounds: that substances are now his pathway to religious experience.

Everyday Transcendence

It isn’t necessary to take psychedelics from a dealer in Amsterdam (as Smith-Ruiu did) to melt your mind. The author references the opening of In Search of Lost Time the classic text, as the young character vividly envisions that he has become {some of the things