Citation:
Koehlinger, Amy. 2023.“Cautions and Correctives to Prevent Religious Abuse in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: Lessons from the Oregon Psilocybin Services Initiative”. in Uses and Abuses of Power in Alternative Spiritualities. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
Abstract: My paper argues that 1) the absence of critical awareness by many leaders in psychedelic-assisted therapy about the historical origins of the specific metaphysical claims they have taken from the field of transpersonal therapy, 2) bolstered by the proliferation of a reductive and mechanical-empiricist definition of “religious mysticism” that clinical trials with psychedelics have authorized and disseminated, 3) combined with the expectation of clients taking therapeutic doses of psilocybin that they will and in fact should experience a transformative mystical state, 4) in a context where people ingesting the “medicine” are profoundly psychologically vulnerable, creates significant potential for spiritual abuse.Presenter bio: Amy Koehlinger is Associate Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University where she teaches courses in North American religious history, U.S. Catholicism, the spirituality of nature, psychedelics and religion, and theories of religion. Dr. Koehlinger’s scholarly publications include work on the racial activism of Catholic sisters, Catholic masculinity and the sport of boxing, white Christian privilege in the U.S., the influence of the social sciences on Catholic structures. She also is in first cohort of individuals training to become licensed facilitators for the Oregon Psilocybin Services Initiative which legalized psilocybin-assisted therapy starting in 2023.
Presenter affiliation: Oregon State University