Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes is a director at Breaking Convention and also sits on the board as a trustee. In addition to his role at Breaking Convention, he is philosopher of mind and metaphysics who specialises in the thought of Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Whitehead, and in fields pertaining to altered and panpsychological states of consciousness. He is a research fellow and lecturer at the University of Exeter where he has co-founded the Exeter Psychedelic Research Group, the ambit of which includes taught modules, conferences, workshops, and publications. Peter is the author of Noumenautics, Modes of Sentience, editor of Bloomsbury's Philosophy and Psychedelics volume, the TEDx Talker on Psychedelics and consciousness, and he is inspiration to the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak. Published with Bloomsbury, Routledge, Palgrave Macmilllan, and the Psychedelic Press.

Panpsychism, Pantheism, Paganism, and Animism

This short talk sets out ancient-yet-contemporary philosophies that see the world as inherently sentient and alive, outlining somewhat-suppressed European ideas that may be of use in the endeavour to fathom non-European indigenous cosmologies associated with psychedelic use. The Panpsychism (that minds are ubiquitous throughout Nature) of Continental thinkers will be briefly compared to the 'Animisms' commonly associated with indigenous thought, revealing broad similarities and differences. As well as looking down into the panpsychological world of sentient trees, bees, and below, we shall also look up to the notion of a cosmic consciousness, a 'world soul', anima mundi, inherent to the universe – a Pantheism (all is deity, as Spinoza had it). This metaphysical view is often unwittingly alluded to in psychedelic trip reports, yet its global (or, cosmic) significance to interdisciplinary psychedelic research has not been sufficiently explored. We shall see how varieties of Panpsychism and Pantheism were common to pre-Christian, Pagan, European thought, and consider how these philosophies might now relate and inform contemporary fields in psychedelic research.