Dr Leor Roseman is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, where he received his MRs and PhD, under the supervision of both Professor David Nutt and Dr Robin Carhart-Harris. His research focuses on the neural and psychological correlates of the psychedelic experience and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.
Colloquium Presentation: 02 March 2022
The Revelatory Event: Alain Badiou’s politicized philosophy as a framework to understand psychedelic insights. Case studies from Ayahuasca rituals of Palestinians and Israelis
Abstract
The ritualistic use of ayahuasca can induce a feeling of unity, harmony, and ‘oneness’ among group members. Used in groups of Israelis with a Palestinian minority, harmony is associated with ayahuasca’s potential for promoting peace. However, such ‘apolitical’ harmony is also in service of the status-quo by marginalizing Palestinian national identity, which is conflictual and disharmonic with the Israeli ritual structure. Yet, politics found its way in, and a few participants had ayahuasca-induced revelatory events with historical and political content related to the injustice Jewish Israelis had inflicted upon Palestinians. These events were painful, and the emotions accompanying them were conflict, anger, and resistance towards the hegemonic ritual structure. The events were followed by an urge to deliver an emancipatory “truth” to the rest of the group through a song. Participants developed loyalty to these events long after they occurred. Such fidelity to the events – which is counterhegemonic to the Israeli ritual structure – supported the diversification and diffusion of ayahuasca practices to Palestinians. Badiou’s theory of ‘Being and Event’ is applied here to analyze the relations between the Israeli ritual structure, the Palestinian revelatory event, and the emancipatory fidelity that follows the event. Badiou’s theory elucidates the egalitarian revolutionary potential, which is part of the socio psychopharmacology of psychedelics, but also how psychedelic practices can oppose such potential and preserve harmony over liberation. Furthermore, Badiou’s theory can be applied to other psychedelic insights like those that occur in the realm of politics, science, art, and love. Understanding psychedelic revelations through Badiou’s framework clarifies the connection between insight and action.