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The work is a trip. In particular, it extensively chronicles various compounds ingested by the American-born professor of history and philosophy of science has ingested. They include psilocybin, lysergic acid, marijuana; anxiety medications to ease tension; venlafaxine, Prozac, modern medications and traditional treatments; coffee (“I've consumed caffeine daily since the early 90s”); and, personally speaking, the consistently lackluster alcohol.

The Most Reality-Shifting Aspect

The really trippy thing, though, is not so much Justin Smith-Ruiu’s accounts of his substance journeys, instead that they’re written by a rigorous systematic scholar, who knows analytic Foundations of Empirical Knowledge as Aldous Huxley’s mescaline-inspired The Doors of Perception. Furthermore, they’re presented intending to dissolving the minds of his academic colleagues and the rest of us by suggesting that entheogens dissolve the ego and make us part of cosmic consciousness, thereby rendering liberation in the way Baruch Spinoza’s thinker Baruch Spinoza explained it (paraphrased by Smith-Ruiu with “an agreeable acceptance regarding how the physical form functions within the inevitable universal laws”).

Melting the Western Tradition

The dissolving analogy is apt, as the iconic example of Enlightenment-era rationalist tradition occurred when the 17th-century philosopher the rationalist transformed a solid lump. The material might transform its properties, scent, size, breadth, and yet, he claimed, we still claim to know that it is the same piece. The observer may err about all sensory inputs related to the wax but not, Descartes argued, that cognition exists: here lies the foundation of his well-known “Cogito ergo sum” – through which the French thinker made us the rational, science‑venerating entities we have been to this day.

The author, provocatively, flips the script on the Cartesian mental exploration: imagine if, instead of melting the wax, Descartes had “expanded his consciousness” with acid, or through entheogens starting to arrive in Europe from the Americas alongside agricultural products and nicotine, such as peyote or ayahuasca? Suppose that instead of prioritized rationality and had praised the imaginative powers , he argues, are activated by psychedelics? European thought could have become understanding existence completely differently, and human beings not as rational agents but as “boundless sources of insight and understanding”.

Beyond Conventional Philosophy

There is greater depth in Smith-Ruiu’s consciousness expansion, it could be argued, than considered in strait-laced colleagues’ frameworks. His thinking seems kin to these contemporary, mind-blowing intellectual trends including Markus Gabriel’s new realism, and the holistic views of frameworks and object-oriented philosophy. The German philosopher argued the divine is inherently behind an impenetrable veil, inferable perhaps but never knowable. One cannot in this world, see God. In this work, psychedelics can potentially lift that veil. Due to this proposition by itself one is stunned – and inspired – that he got tenure.

Clarity Reflections

It’s worth mentioning now that this is not like those gonzo books typed when the writer is intoxicated. Smith-Ruiu is not the gonzo journalist. Titled About Psychedelics but it was not written on drugs (except, presumably, including the prescription meds he details earlier and regular coffee boost). “While writing, sober, lucid, and fully dedicated to the work.”

A Surprising Revelation

This work ends with a remarkable philosophical shift (philosophical spoiler alert!). In 2023, Smith-Ruiu attended church service after decades since early adulthood in the parish next door to his residence. His proposition here is that entheogenic journeys parallels religious ceremonies: ordinary time is regarded as a distortion, and during mass it is possible to experience, similar to his during trips, an intimation of timelessness. Another parallel lies in how one submits personal agency in church similar to a psychedelic trip. He writes: “Substances, akin to spirituality, as with art are among other things a letting go of ego to remain separate.” The philosopher is self-aware to admit how absurd this appears: that substances have become his pathway to religious experience.

Common Psychedelia

One need not to consume psychedelics from some geezer in a Dutch head shop (as Smith-Ruiu did) to alter perception. The author references the initial section of literary works the classic text, as the young character creatively fantasizes identifying as {some of the things