At Chacruna: How Set and Setting Shape Psychedelic Cultures

Ido Hartogsohn, Ph.D.

Experimental psychedelic voyaging has long been a distinct cultural movement. Born of the ecstatic, life-transforming experiences that commonly occur under the effect of psychedelics, it has become associated with ideas of ecological awareness, independent, free thinking, and progressive values of peace, anti-consumerism, and human and indigenous rights. Such values are often taken to be the direct result of the transformative psychedelic experience; the fruits of deeply humbling and edifying experiences inspired by psychedelics. And yet, at times, when pondering psychedelics from a broader cultural perspective, one is confronted with the question of just how much of the culture revolving around psychedelics is distinctly psychedelic, and how much of it is merely a reflection of independent cultural trends?.. continue reading.