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Psychedelics Today

PT499 – Osiris González Romero – Mesoamerican Psychedelics, Decolonization, and the Concept of an Ontological Turn

Psychedelics Today

Psychedelics Today, LLC

Life Sciences, Science, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.6598 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2024

⏱️ 91 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, David interviews Osiris González Romero: philosopher and Postdoctoral researcher on cognitive freedom and psychedelic humanities at the University of Saskatchewan.

Romero believes that our weakest point of research is our knowledge of Indigenous languages, and is focused on highlighting different cultural uses of psychedelics to better inform future drug policy. He's currently studying more than 100 documents (including one over 400 years old) to establish an honest understanding of why peyote was ever banned.

He discusses:

  • Mesoamerican psychedelics and their relevance to cognitive liberty and decolonization
  • How the War on Drugs is our main colonial legacy
  • The concepts of an ontological turn and ontological pluralism
  • The neocolonial, biomedical, and spiritual paradoxes found inside the 'psychedelic renaissance'
  • How imagination is often viewed through a lens of illusion rather than problem solving or creativity

and more!

Click here to head to the show notes page

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Psychedelics today. My name is David Drapkin, your host for this episode,

0:17.1

a conversation with Dr. Aziris Sunouhe Gonzalez-Romero based in Mexico. He is a

0:24.4

doctor of archaeology. He's a philosopher. He's an expert on the history of the Mesoamerica

0:31.3

around the uses of psychedelic plants. And he's really a novel thinker, particularly around

0:37.1

the intersection of the psychedelic

0:38.6

renaissance and indigenous traditions and concepts and who gets to kind of name things and define

0:45.0

things and own the way that this should be done or legalized so a bit of drug policy comes into

0:51.2

this but there's very much is quite a lot around decolonization

0:55.3

and cognitive liberty in what we're speaking about. And it really is so refreshing to speak to a

1:01.7

philosopher because our need for ideas terminology is huge because we are developing kind of new meanings, new narratives, and we are

1:14.0

deconstructing a lot of the old ones that simply aren't fit for purpose, but are also,

1:20.0

you know, racist and colonialist. So we put a lot of emphasis on psychedelics as humanities,

1:27.0

not as a medicalization, but something that is more

1:29.9

a philosophical area of exploration and an area of humanities to understand. The concept of an

1:38.5

ontological turn is something that Osiris mentioned as well, and this sense that it's not just a incremental shift in how we

1:46.9

think about something is actually an entirely different framework or methodology of experiencing

1:54.6

reality and existential worlds. So love talking about that. And at the very end, he mentioned something about a peyote

2:02.7

project with the University of Wisconsin, an ancient manuscript from the experiences of pey

2:11.0

traditions just before the Spanish Inquisition had kind of started over there. So really interesting

2:17.1

to hear that.

2:18.3

Before we dive in, just want to tell folks, if you have not yet been to our websites,

2:22.3

go check them out.

...

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