Psychedelic Sangha welcomes,
Alex Belser, PhD
to its Seminar Series with host Tomas Sander

Talk: "The Psychedelic Spectrum: Beyond Traditional Mystical Experience"
September 26, 2023, 7-9 pm
online

Summary: In this talk, we peer inside the “black box” of psychedelic mystical experience. I challenge the confines of the established psychedelic mystical paradigm by examining the profound states psychedelics induce. Moving beyond W.T. Stace's distinctions and the "monomystical" framework of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), I advocate for a broader comprehension: a genuine spectrum of psychedelic experiences. Drawing from my research and interviews with participants from psilocybin clinical trials at New York University and Yale University, I highlight the drawbacks of the current dominance of "psychedelic mysticism" grounded in Advaita Vedanta that emphasizes non-dualistic experiences. I provide four critiques that address methodological, theistic, nature-mystical, and criticalist-queer-feminist viewpoints. Through the lens of a psychedelic spectrum, we uncover a vast landscape of experiences—those that are embodied, ancestral, rooted in nature, or intertwined with human relationships. It becomes evident that mystical experiences are not one, but many.

Speaker bio: Alex Belser, PhD is a clinical scientist, author, and licensed psychologist with a focus on psychedelic research. At Yale University, he's a Co-Investigator for a study investigating psilocybin treatment for people with OCD. He has explored the potential of novel therapies in multiple clinical trials with psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, and DMT to help alleviate human suffering and treat specific indications, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD. His most recent book: EMBARK Psychedelic Therapy for Depression: A New Approach for the Whole Person, co-authored with Dr. Bill Brennan, will be published later this year by Oxford University Press. Dr. Belser has co-founded a number of leading psychedelic organizations, including the NYU Psychedelic Research Group in 2006; Nautilus Sanctuary, the first non-profit on the East Coast dedicated to psychedelic medicine; and Adelia Therapeutics, where he served as Chief Clinical Officer (CCO). He also served as CCO at Cybin, where he directed clinical teams in the United States and Europe and chaired the Scientific Advisory Board. His other main area of interest is mental health for LGBTQIA+ people—his last book is Queering Psychedelics: From Oppression to Liberation in Psychedelic Medicine. His work has been featured in the media, with coverage in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, The Guardian, Forbes, Rolling Stone Magazine, and in Michael Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind. Dr. Belser is a hatha and kundalini yoga teacher. He studied at Georgetown, Cambridge, Columbia, NYU, and Yale University. To learn more, you can check out his website at http://alexbelser.com or his practice website, https://www.centerforbreakthroughs.com/

Host bio: Tomas Sander is a Buddhist practitioner and author based in New York. He has been practicing mostly in the Tibetan tradition. His teachers include Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and Greg Goode. He co-authored the book "Emptiness and Joyful Freedom" which explores Buddhist insights into the nature of reality using tools from Western philosophy.
Tomas is an early member of Psychedelic Sangha. He has a strong curiosity for the boundless possibilities at the nexus of psychedelic medicines, personal healing and spiritual awakening.
Tomas has a Ph.D. in Mathematics and works on data privacy in the tech industry.