This conference will bring together a wide range of scholars and practitioners to discuss complex relation between psychedelics and religion. We are now in the midst of what has been called a "Psychedelic Renaissance," which has raised many questions about the relationship between traditional uses of psychedelics (peyote, ayahuasca and psilocybe mushrooms) and modern scientific and medical research. Presenters will include indigenous artists and practitioners, psychiatrists, scientists and scholars in the fields of religion, anthropology and art history.
The keynote speaker will be Luis Eduardo Luna, an anthropologist and ayahuasca researcher, and the conference will also include a display of Mazatec art and a Rapeh ceremony. The event is free and open to the public.
Luis Eduardo Luna is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. He is the author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism Among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon (1986), and with Pablo Amaringo of Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (1991). He is co-editor with Steven F. White of Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine (2000, with a revised new edition in 2016), and co-author with Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz and Ede Frecska of Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys Through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies.
Tentative Schedule
March 27, 2026
Panel 1: Psychedelics, Spirituality, and the Sacred, 1:30-3:30
William Richards (Johns Hopkins University), “Sacred Knowledge: Phenomenology and Integration”
Glauber Loures de Assis(Chacruna Institute), “From Renaissance to Confluence: Kinship and Cosmic Diplomacy as a Paradigm Shift in Psychedelic Science”
Erik Davis(Independent scholar), "Superstar: The Psychedelic Jesus of the Counterculture"
Jeffrey J. Kripal (Rice University), “We Cannot Allow the Soul to Exist, So We Imagine UFOs and the End of the World: The Abduction Experience and the Psychedelic Connection”
Keynote Address, 4:00-5:30
Luis Eduardo Luna(Wasiwaska Rsearch Center), “Indigenous Spirituality on a Time of a Much-Needed Paradigm Shift”
March 28, 2026
Panel 2: Psychedelic Therapy and Mystical Experience, 10-12:00
Amy Koehlinger (Oregon State University), “Sacrality and Social Trust: Psychedelic Group Containers as Areligious Religious Practice”
David Yaden (Johns Hopkins University), “Psychedelic Experience and Belief Changes: Evaluating the Evidence”
Nese Devenot (Johns Hopkins University), “Felt Sense or False Signals?: The Challenge of Implicit Bias for "Embodied Presence" in Psychedelic Therapy"
Paul Gillis-Smith (Harvard University), “Mystical Medicinals, or Medical Mystics? A Genealogy of Mystical-type Experiences in the Study of Psychedelics”
Panel 3: Psychedelics in History, Art, and Practice, 1:30-3:30
Jackie Tileston (University of Pennsylvania), “Transimmanence: Nondual Tantra, Psychedelic Gnosis, and Embodied Practice”
Elías García Méndez (Casa Adobe Gallery), “Huautla: Entre la Curiosidad y el Olvido de una Tradición Sagrada”
Erika Dyck (University of Saskatchewan), “Indigenous Ceremonies and First-Generation Psychedelic Science: A Historical Look at Peyote”
Estrella Castillo (Yale University), TBA
Rapeh Ceremony, 4:00-5:00
The funds for the project come from a Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme collaborative grant. This is a joint project between the Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education. Co-hosted by the Humanities Institute.