ABSTRACT Title of Document: SPIRITUALITY IN THE LABORATORY: NEGOTIATING THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCES. Michelle Dawn Corbin, Ph.D., 2010 Directed By: Associate Professor, Meyer Kestnbaum, Department of Sociology In this study I argue that psychedelic substances served as a doorway through which spirituality entered the scientific laboratory to an unprecedented degree given their traditionally demarcated relationship by making spirituality more amenable to scientific paradigms and accessible to scientific methodologies. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the politics of knowledge enacted in this unique intersection of spirituality and science in the psychedelic sciences. I draw on feminist theories of science and knowledge which conceptualize science as a dominant knowledge constituted through and productive of the intersecting and historically hierarchical systems of power of race, class, gender and nation. Using discourse analysis techniques, I analyze a documentary archive I created through a theoretically driven sampling of the psychedelic sciences of spirituality from the 1930’s to the present. In Chapter 2, I analyze how spirituality was brought forward and negotiated in these sciences. I argue that psychedelic scientists utilized a range of what I call tactics of legitimation to justify the scientific study of these peculiar substances and the spirituality with which they are associated vis-à-vis dominant scientific knowledges and I analyze the attendant epistemological costs of this assimilation. In Chapter 3, I analyze the efforts to integrate psychedelic substances and the spiritual experiences they induce into western therapeutic assumptions and practices. I argue that their efforts to scientifically determine the mysticality of mystical experiences and their pursuits of scientific liturgical authority over the administration of psychedelic sacraments resulted in the emergence of a would-be psychiatric clerical authority. In Chapter 4, I analyze the efforts to integrate and develop indigenous spiritual psychedelic knowledges and practices across each step of a bioprospecting model from plant identification to the determination of mechanisms of action and finally to drug development studies. I argue that in each step indigenous spiritual knowledges were assimilated into dominant scientific assumptions and practices reifying western scientific authority over indigenous knowledges and practices and reinforcing historically hierarchical colonial relationships despite the ‘good intentions’ of these psychedelic scientists. In the final chapter of this study I discuss future sociological and feminist projects analyzing these peculiar psychedelic sciences and spiritual substances. SPIRITUALITY IN THE LABORATORY: NEGOTIATING THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCES By Michelle Dawn Corbin Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Meyer Kestnbaum, Chair Associate Professor Laura Mamo Assistant Professor Kris Marsh Associate Professor Katie King Associate Professor Maxine Grossman © Copyright by Michelle Dawn Corbin 2010 Dedication I dedicate this project and all that it has entailed to the loving memory of my father and my grandfather. I am forever grateful for their gifts which have made so many things possible in my life. And I dedicate this project and all that it has entailed to the dear and beautiful friends and lovers who have blessed me and lifted me up through the many years of this long journey. ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge those without whose patience, support and hard work have enabled me to achieve this long and difficult accomplishment. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my advisor Laura Mamo for all of her hard work, tireless patience and support that she has given me all these long year. I offer sincere gratitude for sticking with me and not giving up. I could not have done it without her. I would also like to acknowledge my committee member and sometimes chair Patricia Hill Collins for the occasional well timed kick in the pants that always helped me to avoid going where I was not trying to go. I want to acknowledge my titular chair/committee member Meyer Kestnbaum for his willingness to help me in my hour of need. I am grateful for his sacrifices of time, work and vacation days as well as his kindness during my distress. I also want to acknowledge my newfound committee member Kris Marsh who kindly and graciously stepped in to save my defense at the 11 th hour saving me from having my defense cancelled and my graduation ruined. I cannot say thanks enough. Finally, I want to acknowledge my friends and colleagues Anthony Hatch and Emily Mann without whose friendship, mentorship and support I never would have made it through. I will always value our work together as friends, co-teachers and colleagues. Beyond those directly involved in this project itself, I also want to acknowledge my friends and chosen family who have been the lights of my life enabling me to continue to strive to finish this lifelong dream. iii Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Spirituality in the laboratory: negotiating the politics of knowledge in the psychedelic sciences of spirituality ............................................................................... 1 I. Introduction: Spirituality enters the laboratory through the psychedelic doorway3 II. Feminist studies of science and knowledge ........................................................ 10 A. Subjugated spiritual knowledges ................................................................ 11 B. Scientific and spiritual collisions: Discovery, assimilation, co-optation, and appropriation ........................................................................................................... 15 III. Crafting a theory-methods research Design .................................................... 22 A. Feminist genealogy ......................................................................................... 23 B. Textual pattern analysis .................................................................................. 26 C. Coding and memos ......................................................................................... 28 D. Data sources .................................................................................................... 31 IV. Organization of findings ................................................................................. 33 Chapter 2: Experimental Mysticism : Tactics of legitimation in the psychedelic sciences of spirituality................................................................................................. 37 I. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 37 II. The psychedelic doorway and the politics of demarcation ................................. 39 III. Tactics of legitimation .................................................................................... 46 A. Accessing Spirituality: Autoexperimentation as a science of spirituality ..... 46 B. Measure spirituality: Operationalizing through experimental mysticism ...... 60 C. Explain Spirituality: Indians believe, scientists explain ................................ 68 D. Apply Spirituality: psychopharmacology of existential medicine ................. 78 III. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 88 Chapter 3: Neurotheology: Expanding scientific authority over spirituality in the psychedelic sciences ................................................................................................... 90 I. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 90 II. Psychospiritual: The psychological disciplining of spirituality ..................... 92 A. History of psychology of religion ................................................................... 92 B. Psychotherapeutic psychedelic spirituality ..................................................... 94 II. (What does it do) Scientific taxonomies: Psychedelic sciences, hallucinogenic disorders and entheogenic religions ............................................................................ 98 III. (How does it work) From magic to molecules: Scientific causality and sacred substances ................................................................................................................. 105 A. Psycho-spiritual: Divinity as psychology .................................................... 105 B. Spirit Molecules: Divinity as neurology ...................................................... 111 iv IV. (How do we apply it) Magical psychotherapy: psychological protocols for applying psychopharmacological spirituality ..........................................................