Dr Andy Letcher - Notes Towards a Minimal Theory of Psychedelic Action

Psychedelic action is evaluated through a postmodern lens, questioning how knowledge constitutes power and challenging traditional scientific attempts to reach an essential truth of these experiences. Realist versus social-constructivist approaches to mysticism are contrasted, particularly through the lens of how drug effects are categorized as either meaningless impairment or meaningful re-organization of consciousness. Academic study must move beyond re-stating 1960s tropes by adopting a more critical, meta-analytic stance on the language and metaphors used to interpret altered states.