OPEN Foundation

R. Metzner

Entheogenesis: Toward an Expanded Worldview for Our Time

Whereas the terminology of psychedelics has acquired spurious cultural associations of “tripping,” the historically primal concept of consciousness expansion has two advantages. One, it connects psychedelic drugs with other modes of consciousness expansion, such as meditation and creative visioning; and two, it suggests contrasting comparison with the consciousness contraction involved in concentration and focus. Both expansions and contractions can be observed at the level of an individual’s states of consciousness and also at the level of the shared worldview of society. Contemporary world culture is moving toward an expanded worldview that recognizes both the material and the spiritual dimensions of our existence.
Metzner, R. (2017). Entheogenesis: Toward an Expanded Worldview for Our Time. Journal of Humanistic Psychology57(5), 443-449. 10.1177/0022167817723405
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IJTS Special Topic Section: Ketamine ● Ethnographic Accounts of Ketamine Explorations in Psychedelic Culture

Abstract

Off-label use of ketamine as a mind-altering substance did not begin in the laboratory, but in the psychedelic culture that grew out of the 1960s counterculture movement. Whatever the risks and limitations of such experimentation, without them the remarkable therapeutic effects of the drug might well have gone unnoticed, and unresearched. The following personal accounts—both inspiring and cautionary—offer glimpses into the cultural contexts that found ketamine to be much more than a reliable anesthetic.

Ring, K., Metzner, R., & Wolfson, P. E. (2014). Ethnographic Accounts of Ketamine Explorations in Psychedelic Culture. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(2).
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