Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes

Outsight was a bold plan to bring together and give mescaline and/or LSD to fifty to a hundred of the world’s pre-eminent minds, including Einstein, Jung, A. J. Ayer, and Graham Greene. The intention was that “of changing the intellectual climate,” (26 June 1953) as lead instigator Osmond put it to fellow organiser, Huxley. The greater intention was that of changing Western civilisation, away from “the materialist way of life” (ibid.) to one where a transcendental dimension was registered, not by faith but by experience and experiment, not by religion but by science and philosophy.

This is a (preprint) Commentary on: Borkel, Lucas F., et al. "Altered Rationality? Integrating Psychedelic Experiences Into Rational Thinking Through the Critical Anchor Approach." Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 2025. Project MUSE. Introduction: In the developing field of psychedelic-assisted therapy and wellness, there loom large philosophical questions pertaining to the significance of the psychedelic experience – questions touching the three traditional pillars of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology (ethics and aesthetics). This paper from Borkel et al. asks for the application of an epistemology against metaphysical postulations in psychedelic-assisted therapy to prevent ‘epistemic harm’ and thus retain what the authors consider to be metaphysical neutrality. More specifically, the authors advocate that a method of rationality – which they formalize as the ‘Critical Anchor Approach’ (CAA) – be applied to psychedelic experiences that encompasses (i) critical thinking, (ii) meta- (self-) consciousness, (iii) epistemic humility, (iv) an empirical epistemology, and (v) the ‘adoption of phenomenal rather than metaphysical interpretations’ of such experiences. This is all to avoid the hazards, or the ‘epistemic risks’, of interpreting ‘psychedelic experiences and other irrational-belief-inducing states’ as that which William James calls ‘genuine metaphysical revelation’ (James, 1902, XVI), experiences the authors consider to be potential delusions. There is certainly material to commend in this paper, but I shall here, as this is a brief commentary, seek to show that this approach implodes under the weight of its own conditions – and moreover could itself be harmful to psychedelic-assisted therapy and wellness. As an alternative I suggest an open, rational, critical, and undogmatic approach to integrating metaphysical experiences into such therapy, as recommended by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. ...

Pantheism – All is God – is the hidden doctrine behind many reported psychedelic-occasioned experiences, both in the literature and in clinical trials, yet its meaning is little understood in the clinical and therapeutic spheres. This essay therefore seeks to remedy this deficit by offering a fresh outline of Pantheism via the exploration of its etymology and history, the meanings of pan/all and theos/God, before traveling into a Pantheism typology that covers the two veritable varieties, Monist and Idealist Pantheism, as well as related doctrines that include Physicalist Pantheism, Partial Pantheism, Panentheism, and Panpsychism.

Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes introduces us to the private 1720 book Pantheisticon, written by the Irish early-Enlightenment philosopher and political activist John Toland, who first used the word ‘Pantheist’ in English, classifying himself through it. Toland was a self-confessed contrarian, and came perilously close to persecution by the command of the Church. He is credited (or accused) by some to have been a key figure in the formation of modern Druidry and Freemasonry. Regardless of the veiled truth of which, we see in the Pantheisticon the forging of a Pantheist creed and sect, and with it a sought return to European paganism, in terms of philosophic belief and ordered ritual.

Modes of Sentience: Psychedelics, Metaphysics, Panpsychism (2021) is an essay collection by philosopher of mind Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes. It explores the extraordinary intersection of psychedelic experience with philosophy, the analysis of mind in relation to panpsychism, multiple dimensions of space, time, and other metaphysical matters. Keeping apace with the psychedelic renaissance in science and medicine, this collection proposes new philosophical models for discerning altered and alternate modes of sentience. Paperback: ISBN: 9781916266735 PAGES: 222

Aldous Huxley employed, in his 1954 book on the mescaline experience, The Doors of Perception, both explicitly and implicitly the metaphysics of French philosopher Henri Bergson, notably through two concepts that Huxley named the ‘reducing valve’ and ‘Mind-at-Large’. The former concept claims that our perception of the external world and of our past is significantly filtered for the purpose of practicality. The latter idea is that the wider world, the cosmos, and the total past, exist as consciousness. It is this ‘Mind-at-Large’ that we as humans reduce into a useful fragment that comprises our finite minds. In other words, Huxley offers via Bergson a view somewhat (but not quite) in line with pantheism and extended-mind theories, one that sees the brain and body as receiving rather than generating consciousness – a top-down and exogenous approach to the mind. Huxley severely simplifies (and slightly misunderstands) Bergson’s metaphysics, so the aim of this text is to rectify and fortify Bergson’s thought in the relevant aspects, thereby offering a more coherent, correct, and comprehensive framework into which we may understand psychedelic experience through a Bergsonian, or Bergsonesque, lens.

What do psychedelics reveal about consciousness? What impact have psychedelics had on philosophy? In this rapidly growing area of study, this is the first volume to explore the philosophy of psychedelic experience, from a range of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives. In doing so, Philosophy and Psychedelics reveals just why the place of psychedelics in our societies should not be left to medical sciences alone, as psychedelic experience opens up new perspectives on fundamental philosophical questions relating to human experience, ethics, and the metaphysics of mind. Mapping a range of philosophical responses to the surge in studies into psychedelic drugs in the cognitive sciences, this go-to volume examines topics including psychedelics and the role of governance; psychedelics and mysticism; what psychedelics can tell us about dyadic thankfulness; and psychedelics as ways to gain new knowledge. Written by leading international scholars, the essays cover Western and non-Western traditions, from analytic philosophy to Zen Buddhism, and discuss a variety of hallucinogens, such as LSD, MDMA, and Ayahuasca, in order to build a much-needed bridge between the rapidly growing scientific research and the philosophy behind psychedelic experience.

Experiences of enlightened unity with Nature or with Deity are reported not only in the mystical literature of the past but also in contemporary accounts of the psychedelic adventurer. In Chapter 13, Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes seeks to fathom such reported states within the framework of the metaphysics of Benedict de Spinoza – a metaphysics encompassing monism, pantheism, panpsychism, and the eternal substance: the timelessness of pure Nature, God itself. God is Nature for Spinoza. To achieve this framework, the tenets of Spinozism are explicated with a culmination in the Intellectual Love of God, amor Dei intellectualis, where the finite mind and infinite intellect of Nature unite. Sjöstedt-Hughes then provides a phenomenological account of the unitive states occasioned by certain psychedelic substances, notably the ever-so potent 5-MeO-DMT, comparing these phenomenological elements to the ontological aspects of Spinozism. This comparative analysis will proffer a Spinozan-Psychedelic symbiosis: that certain psychedelic states can be understood through the Spinozan system, and that the Spinozan system can be intuited through certain psychedelic states – a blinding flash of Spinozism that can change one’s relation to oneself and to Nature itself.

The essential proposal of this text is that psychedelic-induced metaphysical experiences should be integrated and evaluated with recourse to metaphysics. It will be argued that there is a potential extra benefit to patients in psychedelic-assisted therapy if they are provided with an optional, additional, and intelligible schema and discussion of metaphysical options at the integrative phase of the therapy. This schema (the “Metaphysics Matrix”) and a new Metaphysics Matrix Questionnaire (“MMQ”) stemming therefrom will be presented, the latter of which can also be used as an alternative or additional tool for quantitative measurement of psychedelic experience in trials. Metaphysics is not mysticism, despite some overlap; and certainly not all psychedelic experience is metaphysical or mystical—all three terms will be defined and contrasted. Thereafter psychedelic therapy will be presented and analysed in order to reveal the missing place for metaphysics. Metaphysics, with epistemology (theory of knowledge) and axiology (ethics and aesthetics), is a defining branch of Philosophy. Metaphysics, in contrast to mysticism, is considered to be based on argument rather than pure revelation. Thus, in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy one sees here the potential bridge between reason-based philosophy and practical therapy.

The thesis that follows proffers a solution to the mind-matter problem, the problem as to how mind and matter relate. The proposed solution herein is a variant of panpsychism – the theory that all (pan) has minds (psyche) – that we name pansentient monism. By defining the suffix 'psyche' of panpsychism, i.e. by analysing what 'mind' is (Chapter 1), we thereby initiate the effacement of the distinction between mind and matter, and thus advance a monism. We thereafter critically examine the prevalent view, antithetical to a pansentient monism, that mind is not identical to matter but emergent therefrom (Chapter 2). This anti-emergentist critique acts also as a fortification of the Genetic Argument for panpsychism: if mind is not emergent (nor distinct) from matter, mind must always have existed with matter. But what is 'matter'? Chapter 3 investigates what we understand by 'matter', or 'the physical', and exposes it as a highly deficient concept and percept that in concreto points to its identity with that denoted by 'mind'. This also acts as a fortification of the Abstraction Argument for panpsychism, employing a new taxonomy of physicalism and a new taxonomy of the varieties of abstraction. Thus do we reach a monism that is a parsimonious psycho-physical identity theory. But here we face what can be called The Identity Problem for Panpsychism: if our panpsychism is a psycho-physical identity theory, how can it respond to the powerful objections that beset the identity theory of the twentieth century? In Chapter 4 it will be argued that, like emergentism, this psycho-neural identity theory presupposed a deficient concept of 'matter', down to which mind was reduced away, let alone identified. But to identify down phenomena to what is actually an abstraction is to commit failure of explanation. When the theory is amended accordingly, we move from a psycho-neural identity theory to a genuine psycho-physical identity theory that as such can overcome the aforementioned identity problem. Furthermore, as Chapter 5 clarifies, our pansentient monism has, in addition to parsimony, the explanatory power to resolve the problem of mental causation that afflicts both the reductive physicalism of psycho-neural identity theory and the non-reductive physicalism of emergentism, by genuinely identifying physical and mental causation. Jaegwon Kim considers the place of consciousness in a physical world and the nature of mental causation to be the two key components of the mind-matter problem. Through the critical analysis of our prosaic understanding of mind and matter in this thesis, which incorporates the thought of both classical and contemporary thinkers through a novel fusion, it is hoped that both components are addressed and redressed. That is to say that I present this pansentient monism as a plausible, parsimonious, explanatory, and thus, I think, powerful position towards this ever-perplexing mind-matter mystery. [This thesis was passed in January 2019 with viva examination from Galen Strawson and Joel Krueger.

Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-H’s Noumenautics traverses the mindscape of metaphysics, nihilism and psychedelic phenomenology. It navigates through subjects such as the sentience of cells, the constrictions of consciousness, the metaphysics of might, the magic of mushrooms, the narcotics of Nietzsche, and the neologism of neo-nihilism – the last of which may itself cause flashbacks. Tracing the fall of western morality through Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the book descends deeper still into a metaphysics further upheld by Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead. This collection of essays and notes provides a most idea-provoking, educational, and original piece of literature for the thoughtful lay-reader and specialist alike. Contents: I. Philosophy and Psychedelic Phenomenology II. Myco-Metaphysics: a Philosopher on Magic Mushrooms III. Psychedelics and Empiricism IV. Bergson and Psychedelic Consciousness V. Vertexes of Sentience: Whitehead and Psychedelic Phenomenology VI. Antichrist Psychonaut: Nietzsche and Psychedelics VII. Neo-Nihilism: the Philosophy of Power VIII. The Teutonic Shift from Christian Morality: Kant – Schopenhauer – Nietzsche IX. Schopenhauer and the Mind X. The Will to Power