Enchanted consciousness revisited – Ayahuasca visualizations and Sartre's ideas on hallucination
Journal of Psychedelic Studies – March 09, 2026
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Ayahuasca hallucinations reveal profound insights into consciousness, challenging traditional views. By analyzing 100 participants' experiences with ayahuasca, Benny Shanon’s phenomenological cognitive psychology highlights aspects of enchanted consciousness overlooked by Sartre. The study illustrates the concept of "double bookkeeping," where individuals navigate two realities—one delusional and one grounded. This phenomenon contrasts with typical psychological interpretations, suggesting that psychedelic experiences can reshape our understanding of the unconscious mind and offer new perspectives on how we perceive reality through altered states of consciousness.
Abstract
Abstract The aim of the paper is to complement Sartre's concept of enchanted consciousness. The first section of the paper studies the contradictions inherent in Sartre's mescaline experiment and the limits of his phenomenological analysis of hallucination. The second section argues that Benny Shanon's phenomenological cognitive psychology, which is based on the typology of ayahuasca hallucinations, can contribute to the phenomenological analysis of hallucinations and reveal some aspects of the enchanted consciousness that Sartre failed to discover. The third section examines the phenomenon of double bookkeeping, which originated in phenomenological psychiatry, and illustrates the characteristics of the delusional world. The fourth section expands the idea of enchanted consciousness through Shanon's study on ayahuasca hallucinations and provides a comparison between the pathological double bookkeeping and the so-called psychedelic bookkeeping. Finally, the last section actualizes Sartre's views on hallucination and offers a new way to define captivated consciousness through psychedelic double bookkeeping.