Spirituality and Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness
Orality and Literacy in Psychedelic Spiritualities
This project explores to what degree a literate religious tradition impacts the nature of spiritual experiences, particularly in relation to religions that incorporate psychedelic and other peak experiences in their practice. Crina Bondre Ardelean, PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies, is spearheading this investigation into psychedelic practices that emphasize orality over codification and will enquire whether an alternative understanding of community emerges, and whether there is more permissiveness regarding the nature and expression of spiritual experiences.
Religious Studies, Spirituality of Dying, & NOSC
Traditionally, religions furnished the overarching narratives as well as the specific language through which people articulated their sufferings, and made sense of their life’s trajectories. In contemporary medical encounters this is largely absent. The ideology that underpins the medicalization of the end of life is at striking odds with traditional religous perspectives and the medical encounter is more commonly marked by a lack of a coherent, shared language with which to communicate the subjective experience of illness. This long-term ethnographic research (particularly within the Jain community in India) has centered on collecting illness and end-of-life narratives, many of which contained first-personal experiential accounts of NOSC. Anne Vallely is working to understand the role of these narratives in the process of dying, as well as in the grieving process. In our own age- and death- phobic culture, death is typically viewed as personal annihilation, and the public expression of grief is shunned. I am interested in better understanding the ways in which this overarching "setting" informs end of life experiences, and what role NOSC might do to disrupt it.
Comparing Mystical Experiences Between Psychedelics and Yogic Practices
This study conducted by Challian Christ, MA student, in the Department of Religious Studies, is a comparative analysis between mystical-type experiences occasioned by psychedelics and those occasioned by traditional yogic practices. Because pharmacological research alone is insufficient to explain how psychedelic-induced mystical-type experiences convey a therapeutic effect, a more holistic interdisciplinary approach proves necessary. My research is a phenomenology-centered comparative analysis between mystical-type experiences occasioned by psychedelics and those occasioned by traditional yogic practices such as fasting and meditation.
Mystical Experiences in Psychedelic Healing
Amy Bartlett, PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies, is working on a project focused on unlocking the ineffable — understanding the role of mystical experiences in psychedelic the healing process. Research asks: do mystical-type psychedelic experiences contribute to creating positive feelings of connection and belonging? If so, what is the impact of these feelings of connection on a person’s life and mental health, and what internal and external factors might play a role in cultivating these feelings of community and connection before, during and after a psychedelic experience?
Dr. Monnica Williams attends Transcendence: Psychedelics & Spiritual Healing at the End Life, December 6-8, 2018, at the University of Ottawa, organized by Dr. Anne Vallely.
Clergy Training in Therapeutic Psychedelics: Interfaith protocol
We are in the early stages of an intiative which seeks to develop a Section 56 application for use of psychedelic therapy for clergy working in grief and end-of-life counselling. We also seek to develop an education training programme and an interfaith therapy protocol.
The team includes Anne Vallely in Religious Studies, Jennifer Tobe (an administrative lawyer who has worked with federal government on cannabis legislation), Nicolas Galton in Counselling & Spirituality at St Paul’s University, and Mark Slatter who is a Theologian at St Paul’s University.