Psychedelic Experience Revealing the Mind

Psychedelic Experience presents a philosophical account of psychedelic experience.

A central premise of the book is that such experiences are mind-revealing experiences and that they can be induced by means other than psychedelics. In particular, the book argues that psychedelic experiences can also be had as the result of meditation. Aiden Lyon presents a unified conceptual framework for thinking about the different kinds of psychedelic experiences one may have as a result of psychedelics, meditation, and their combination. This framework is then used to shed new light on various commonalities between psychedelics and meditation, such as the ability to promote long-lasting increases in mindfulness and their reputation for inducing mystical experiences. Finally, the book uses these new philosophical resources to flip things around and shine the light back on philosophy itself, arguing that psychedelic experiences can be used as tools for doing philosophy. The result is a new approach to philosophy (or the revival of an ancient one), which integrates traditional analytic methods with a range of psychedelic techniques.

Aidan Lyon, Research Associate in the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam

Aidan Lyon is a philosopher at the University of Amsterdam and the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, and he has held academic appointments at several universities worldwide. He completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2009 at the Australian National University and has Bachelor's degrees in Science (Mathematics) and Arts (Philosophy) from the University of Queensland. His research is at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, focusing on wisdom, uncertainty, meditation, and psychedelics. Lyon also works as a philosophical consultant across various domains, including biosecurity intelligence, geopolitical forecasting, institutional investing, environmental decision making, and psychedelic therapy.