Imperfect Cognitions

This post is by Elly Vintiadis who recently guest-edited a special issue of Philosophical Psychology on psychedelic-assisted therapy and wrote a free access introduction to the special issue entitled The Promises and Perils of the Psychedlic Turn in Psychiatry . Elly Vintiadis Psychedelic substances have been part of human culture for centuries, used in ritual, healing and spiritual contexts to induce altered states of consciousness that could bring insight and change. In recent years, they have re-emerged in psychiatry in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), a therapeutic framework in which substances such as psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, ketamine, or ibogaine are administered in controlled conditions, accompanied by preparation, supervision and integration. Research into psychedelic therapies flourished in the mid-20th century but came to a halt in the early 1970s, driven by shifting social attitudes and the onset of the War on Drugs. With their classification as Schedule I substances under ...

This post is by Michiel van Elk who works in the Religion, Cognition and Behavior Lab at the University of Amsterdam and is currently a Fullbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. He recently published a paper on the self-attribution bias and paranormal beliefs in Consciousness and Cognition.   My name is Michiel van Elk and I am intrigued by religious and spiritual experiences. Why do some people have paranormal encounters? What causes people to experience the feeling that another invisible being is present? How do mystical experiences and feelings of transcendence come about? As a researcher working at the Religion, Cognition and Behavior Lab at the University of Amsterdam, I aim to answer these questions. I often go into the field to study religious experiences, but also conduct lab-based studies using a variety of different psychological and neurocognitive techniques. Together with my colleagues we found for instance that mystical experiences can be induced th...