Harvard’s Annual Conference — Psychedelics Intersections: Cross-Cultural Manifestations of the Sacred

Harvard’s Annual Conference: Psychedelics Intersections: Cross-Cultural Manifestations of the Sacred

• February 17, 2024: 9-6:40 pm, James Room, Swartz Hall, 45 Francis Ave.
• Organized by: The Center for the Study of World Religions and Harvard Psychedelic Project at the Harvard Divinity School

We cordially invite you to our second annual Psychedelics conference, which will expand beyond Harvard to explore how psychedelics and religion intersect across disciplines, countries, and communities. How does psychedelic spirituality emerge and diverge in different cultural contexts? What considerations are necessary to promote healthy partnerships? And how can bridges be built across existing divides?

The conference will feature two internationally renowned keynote speakers— Dr. Carl Hart and Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, 6 panels, 2 interactive workshops, and over 20 researchers and scholars from Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Columbia, and other academic and research institutions.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.

Register to attend in person.

Register to attend via livestream.

Keynotes: 

Dr. Carl Hart is a neuroscientist, psychologist, and best-selling author of Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear and High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. He is the Mamie Phipps Clark Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and runs the Neuropsychopharmacology Lab investigating behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans. Throughout his career Dr. Hart has been a passionate advocate for science-based drug policy reform, a vocal critic of racist and dehumanizing War on Drugs policies, and an important voice raising awareness about ways psychedelic exceptionalism and psychedelic spirituality can inadvertently undermine social justice efforts.

Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna is the Director of Wasiwaska, a Brazilian research center specializing in interdisciplinary research on plants, consciousness, visionary art, and indigenous spirituality. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna has been working with indigenous Amazonian communities for over 45 years and has written extensively about the Shipibo-Conibo in Peru and related ayahuasca traditions, notably Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman and Vegetalismo: Shamanism Among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon. His expansive and interdisciplinary work incorporates approaches from anthropology, religious studies, philosophy, and the visionary arts.