Secular Mysticism: Entanglements of Science and Religion in Psychedelic Medicine.

The mainstreaming of psychedelic medicine, a billion-dollar industry, blends psychiatry with spiritual experience, creating new forms of secular mysticism in an age of disenchantment. Drawing on public discourse analysis, ethnographic research in a psychedelic church, a therapy training program, and science conferences, the article argues that this entanglement reveals contemporary social anxieties and yearnings. It shows how attempts to distinguish drugs, medicine, and sacraments in clinical and non-clinical spaces are not only shifting mental health care paradigms but also generating secular mystical practices.

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Abstract

Psychedelic medicine is a rapidly growing, billion-dollar industry poised to transform mental health care by incorporating spiritual experiences into clinical psychiatry. However, while the blending of psychiatry and mystical experience has long made this field unique, the blurred boundaries between science and spiritual practice have sparked increasing public debate. What does the entanglement of science and religion in psychedelic medicine reveal about the concerns, anxieties, and yearnings of our contemporary social and political moment? This article draws on an analysis of public discourse alongside ethnographic and qualitative research within a psychedelic church, a psychedelic-assisted therapy training program, and psychedelic science conferences in the United States. Through stories of the intertwining of science and religion, psychotherapy and mysticism, and attempts to distinguish between drugs, medicine, and sacraments in both clinical and non-clinical spaces, I argue that the mainstreaming of psychedelic medicine is not only shifting paradigms of mental health care but also creating new forms of secular mysticism in an age of disenchantment.