Things Science Can't Explain
...need a place to go.
Newsletter Logistics: In Jan 2024, I will be launching a new Substack where I’ll continue writing on the same topics that I have been covering here in The Brave New World of Psychedelic Science. The Brave New World of Psychedelic Science will be on hiatus from Jan. 2024.
Free subscribers: You don’t have to do anything! You’ll automatically be subscribed to the new newsletter.
Paid subscribers: Your paid subscription to The Brave New World of Psychedelic Science will be suspended in January. If you’d like a refund, please follow these instructions. If you’d like to continue supporting the work in its new venue (which I hope you do!), you can subscribe to the new Substack here:
How did I end up in front of an audience of hundreds of people at the largest neuroscience conference discussing some of the most taboo topics in science?
That’s what I silently thought to myself when I took my place behind the podium at our SfN event last month – Revolution in Neuroscience: Alternative Models of Consciousness (website; we’ll have the recording up soon!). Even more curiously, my dominant state of being in that moment was calmness. Not fear. Not even regret, as I had suspected I would feel. Chills ran up my spine as I thought, “Oh my, I’ve actually changed.” Personal transformation is… real and obtainable.
When I wrote my book about how I encountered transpersonal experiences, flipped my worldview, and came to embrace spirituality, I was filled with fear of what people would think. I mean, yes, part of me revels in rebelling against the status quo and setting blaze to outdated systems and structures. But another part of me is a scared little girl that just wants to be liked, respected, and taken seriously. It’s easy to recall that when the book was being released, to alleviate my fears and comfort myself, I decided to roam in approving circles – like, you know, with people who are already open to alternative worldviews and spirituality. It’s that whole ‘find your people’ thing. I reminded myself that I didn’t have to interact with skeptical, rationalist jerks (which was basically ‘old me’).
At the time, the loudest voice in my head was that of ‘old me,’ which was representing the scientific materialist worldview and was constantly telling me that these experiences are just in our heads. Surely, the rest of the world would react in the same way. The thought of discussing emergent/transpersonal phenomena with a room full of traditional neuroscientists at the SfN conference would have had me in a laughing fit.
But somehow at our SfN event, I wasn’t focused on the naysayers anymore. In fact, I couldn’t have cared less. Instead, I was picturing all the people – especially scientists – who have had secret ‘weird’ experiences, and how I hoped they would feel relief, acceptance, and less shame around it all after attending the session. That’s what I heard from attendees of our last event in 2022, which is what encouraged us to hold it again. If sharing these experiences – which are typical human experiences – can help destigmatize them, I want to do that. That became more important than the fear. (Btw, through an informal hand-raising poll at the event, we learned that about 20% had experienced something they couldn’t explain with science).
Over time, that negative voice in my head got quieter. But, it was still there. When preparing my presentation, I had even debated whether I should share that I’ve had precognitive dreams myself. It wouldn’t be the very first time I’ve discussed this, as I’ve mentioned it on multiple interviews. Usually, I stick to the story of how transpersonal experiences barged into my life through other people, as a second-hand experience. As I prepared my remarks, though, it started to feel inauthentic to hold this back. I realized that I was just so tired of editing who I am and what I’ve experienced. Guys, it’s so tiring to be something you’re not! So, I thought, “Fuck it,” and threw the story in. (and I’m so glad I did!)
In a world of true plurality and acceptance, this would be a non-issue. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where we could calmly listen to others’ lived experiences without projecting our own insecurities and judgments onto them? This is what I tried to drive home in my talk, which was setting the stage for the event.
The few things I emphasized through my remarks at the event were:
(1) We don’t have all the answers in science, even though we sometimes act like we do. Let’s all remember Galileo.
(2) Worldviews are filters through which we view the world. Mainstream science sits under one of these worldviews: Materialist. But there are other worldviews, such as panpsychism or cosmopsychism or something else – but definitely others that have a different conception of reality being composed of solely physical matter.
Unfortunately, most scientists are unaware they sit inside a materialist box. In mainstream science, it’s an invisible assumption that everyone is on the same materialist page. Usually, we are. But there’s two instances when worldview becomes important and these were the themes of our event: consciousness and emergent/transpersonal phenomena.
For consciousness, some of the recent alternative models propose or require alternative worldviews, such as suggesting that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality. And the only reason that people have a difficult time reconciling a ‘weird’ emergent/transpersonal experience is because they’re trying to make it fit into their unaccommodating worldview. This can cause a crisis, like it did for me. The solution is (oddly) super simple, though: becoming aware of other worldviews and the fact that this debate has been going on for millennia and is nowhere near being solved. This simple awareness brings immense relief because then the ‘weird’ experiences have somewhere to go.
In my opinion – and this used to be a casual opinion, but it’s becoming less and less casual for me – we need to make the invisible materialist assumption in science visible. State it at the beginning of your papers. Make it explicit in your presentation. And what if, for fun, we also interpreted experimental results through the lens of alternative worldviews instead of just the materialist one? The worldview debate is ongoing in philosophy – so why does science act like it’s been settled? In fact, why does Western culture act like it’s settled? Small steps like these would begin to loosen the bonds of the unnecessary mental constructs we’ve built around what our reality is and what it can do.
Why would we bother to do this? Because the materialist worldview doesn’t account for many typical human experiences, including emergent/transpersonal ones, and more people than ever before have reported having mystical experiences (Gallup, Pew). And that number is about to explode with the FDA-backed, venture-funded Psychedelic Renaissance because psychedelics flip worldviews towards non-physicalist/non-materialist ones.1–3 We need to start being open to other worldviews before thousands of people emerge from altered states of consciousness with weird experiences that science can’t explain (or in other words, that don’t fit within materialism).
If you feel resistance to this suggestion, ask yourself: would you rather be Galileo or one of his lame ass colleagues who wouldn’t even look through his telescope?
***This is my last post on The Brave New World of Psychedelic Science. You’ll get the next issue in January from my new Substack: Cosmos, Coffee, and Science. Happy Holidays!***
Positivism is just another dogma.