Description: In this presentation, we'll explore the ups and downs of interpreting spiritual experiences triggered by psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics.  We will look at the common pitfalls  and discuss how to develop metrics for judging the validity and importance of our experiences.  Working primarily with views gleaned from the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley and others, we will explore a safe framework (both personally and socially) for interpreting our psychedelic experiences.  

Bio: Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of philosophy and world religions at the Maine College of Art  & Design and author of biographies of both Aldous Huxley (2002) and Huston Smith (2014). His primary expertise is in Hinduism and Buddhism but for more than twenty years, his work has focused on comparative mysticism, theories of the “perennial philosophy,” and the value of psychedelic experiences in the study of mysticism. His most recent books are an analysis of The Transcendental Meditation Movement for Cambridge University Press (2023), and The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded for Monkfish (2024).