This is how Gülseren Ölcüm phrases the content of her episode in the ARD Mediathek: “Drugs as a cure for the soul? Gülseren Ölcüm meets activists who use psychedelics to expand their consciousness. And doctors who want to use them to treat the mentally ill. They are fighting for easier access. Some of them go further than the law allows.”
At INSIGHT 2021, scientists and therapists, pharmaceutical industry and anthropology, philosophers, and chemists will come together to determine the potential place of LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, and other psychedelic substances in the treatment of mental disorders. In addition, we will discuss the use of non-pharmacological methods to alter and cultivate states of consciousness and all that it takes to build such unusual states of consciousness a legitimate and safe place in society.
To mark the launch of the research project “Ritual Dynamics and Salutogenesis in the Use and Misuse of Psychoactive Substances”, Henrik Jungaberle and Rolf Verres have written an essay on “Rituals of Intoxication”. In a brief cultural history, the tension between culture and medicine becomes visible. The topic was researched from 2002-20213 in a Collaborative Research Area of the German Research Foundation at Heidelberg University Hospital.