Erik Davis - Back to the Bardo: The Psychedelic Experience Reconsidered

The Bardo concept offers an important framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic experiences and death itself. By reconsidering historical approaches to these states of consciousness, it is possible to see how diverse disciplines like science, philosophy, and ethnobotany intersect to map extraordinary experiences. These states, which involve themes of ego death and dissolution, require careful integration and an appreciation for the variety of lenses through which they can be viewed. Psychedelic practices operate within cultural contexts that shape their meaning, and ignoring this framing risks misunderstanding the core of the altered state itself. Approaching these experiences through a lens of pluralism ensures that their symbolic and psychological richness is preserved rather than flattened by reductive medical models.