Psychedelics as Tools for Belief Transmission. Set, Setting, Suggestibility, and Persuasion in the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens

Abstract

The use of psychedelics in the collective rituals of numerous indigenous groups suggests that these substances are powerful catalysts of social affiliation, enculturation, and belief transmission. This feature has recently been highlighted as part of the renewed interest in psychedelics in Euro-American societies, and seen as a previously underestimated vector of their therapeutic properties. The property of psychedelics to increase feelings of collective belonging and transmission of specific cultural values or beliefs raise, however, complex ethical questions in the context of the globalization of these substances. In the past decades, this property has been perceived as problematic by anticult movements and public authorities of some European countries, claiming that these substances could be used for “mental manipulation.” Despite the fact that this notion has been widely criticized by the scientific community, alternative perspectives on how psychedelic experience supports enculturation and social affiliation have been yet little explored. Beyond the political issues that underlie it, the re-emergence of the concept of “psychedelic brainwashing” can then be read as the consequence of the fact that the dynamic through which psychedelic experience supports persuasion is still poorly understood. Beyond the unscientific and politically controversed notion of brainwashing, how to think the role of psychedelics in the dynamics of transmission of belief and its ethical stakes? Drawing on data collected in a shamanic center in the Peruvian Amazon, this article addresses this question through an ethnographic case-study. Proposing the state of hypersuggestibility induced by psychedelics as the main factor making the substances powerful tools for belief transmission, I show that it is also paradoxically in its capacity to produce doubt, ambivalence, and reflexivity that psychedelics support enculturation. I argue that, far from the brainwashing model, this dynamic is giving a central place to the agency of the recipient, showing that it is ultimately on the recipient’s efforts to test the object of belief through an experiential verification process that the dynamic of psychedelic enculturation relies on. Finally, I explore the permanence and the conditions of sustainability of the social affiliation emerging from these practices and outline the ethical stakes of these observations.

Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

“…The psilocybin mushroom microdose resulted in decreased power in the theta range (4 to 8 Hz). Figure 4B presents the same results binned into four major frequency bands: delta (1-4 Hz), theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). Consistent with the spectra shown in Fig.…”

“…Microdosing is frequently undertaken to improve mood, cognitive function and mental concentration, as well as to enhance creativity and problem-solving skills [7][8][9], yet the effects of low doses of psilocybin or other serotonergic psychedelics have not been extensively investigated to date. However, the extrapolation of some of the effects usually found for higher doses suggests that low amounts of psychedelics could modify brain oscillatory activity, perception, cognitive functions and mood [10,11], in turn, these effects could be variable among individuals, depending on traits such as suggestibility [12,13] and absorption [14]. Moreover, research suggests that full doses serotonergic psychedelics are capable of producing lasting positive changes in behavior, personality and mental health [10,11,15,16].…”

Models of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Contemporary Assessment and an Introduction to EMBARK, a Transdiagnostic, Trans-Drug Model

“…However, some participants have still opted to engage interpersonally with the clinicians from within the altered relational dynamics of a medicine session. These dynamics are likely to differ significantly from those found in talk therapy and may include heightened participant suggestibility, vulnerability, and sensitivity; alterations in the meanings and expectations that the participant ascribes to the relationship; amplification of the participant’s attachment style or other habitual relational behavior; and increased participant-led boundary testing ( Sjöberg and Hollister, 1965 ; Passie, 2012 ; Carhart-Harris et al, 2015 ; Taylor, 2017 ; Dupuis, 2021 ). Additionally, even if a participant remains inward for the full duration of a medicine session, they may experience increased feelings of social connectedness and emotional empathy ( Pokorny et al, 2017 ; Carhart-Harris et al, 2018b ) that will subsequently impact their relationships post-medicine, including those with the clinicians during the subsequent integration phase.…”

“…These models do not provide clinicians with predetermined frameworks for interpreting treatment benefits and thereby reduce the possibility that they will make poor-fitting interpretations that may disrupt positive treatment outcomes. These models’ interpretive flexibility may also protect participant autonomy as they undergo treatment with drugs that have been known to increase suggestibility ( Sjöberg and Hollister, 1965 ; Carhart-Harris et al, 2015 ; Timmermann et al, 2020 ; Dupuis, 2021 ).…”

Consume and Transform: Perfumes and healing in vegetalista healing practices of the Peruvian Amazon

“…For Clara, these body sensations-tightness, gentleness, energy releases -signify the movement of physical and emotional traumas in her body. Although these sensations can feel very intense, for her they herald the clearing of "blockages" that will transform suffering into healing, which is a common New Age interpretation previously discussed by anthropologists (e.g., Fotiou & Gearin 2019;Dupuis 2021). The visual component, on the other hand, was less tolerable for her healing process to the extent that she had "asked Ayahuasca more than once, like, can we stop with the visuals, because I can handle it more without the visuals."…”