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The volume proves to be an adventure. Among other things, it extensively chronicles numerous substances that the US-born scholar in history and philosophy of science has experimented with. These encompass psilocybin, acid, weed; quetiapine and Xanax to manage stress; antidepressants, SSRIs, modern medications and traditional treatments; coffee (“I've ingested coffee daily since the early 90s”); and, in his experience, the perpetually underwhelming booze.

The Deeply Mind-Bending Dimension

The most fascinating part, nevertheless, is not so much the philosopher’s descriptions of his psychedelic episodes, but the fact that they’re written by a disciplined systematic scholar, well-versed in empirical Foundations of Empirical Knowledge just as much as visionary mescaline-inspired consciousness studies. Furthermore, he delivers them with the aim of dissolving the minds of his philosophical peers and the rest of us arguing that hallucinogens break down our selves connecting us to cosmic consciousness, thus making liberation as defined by Baruch Spinoza’s Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza explained it (paraphrased by Smith-Ruiu through “a willing acquiescence regarding how the physical form functions within the inevitable universal laws”).

Melting the Cartesian Framework

The transforming metaphor is appropriate, because the primal scene of Enlightenment-era rationalist tradition occurred when René Descartes scholar Descartes transformed a piece of wax. The material could alter its properties, odor, length, extent, however, he claimed, we still claim to know its identity as the identical object. The observer might misperceive regarding every sensory inputs related to the wax yet not, he insisted, whether they are thinking: this is the foundation of his well-known “Cogito ergo sum” – through which the French thinker made us logical, science‑venerating beings we have been from then on.

Smith-Ruiu, discombobulatingly, flips the script regarding the philosophical exercise: suppose that, in place of melting the wax, he had “melted his mind” using LSD, or one of those entheogens newly introduced to the West from the Americas alongside potatoes and nicotine, like peyote or Amazonian brews? Imagine if he had not foregrounded reason and instead celebrated the creative capacities that the author proposes, are released by psychedelics? Western civilization might have ended up seeing the world in a wholly new way, and human beings not as rational agents but as “boundless sources of light and wisdom”.

Transcending Mainstream Thought

Further dimensions exist in this psychedelic experience, one might say, than is dreamt of in conventional academics’ philosophies. His perspective bears resemblance to current trendy, paradigm-shifting schools of thought like contemporary realist theories, and Timothy Morton’s philosophies and object-oriented philosophy. The German philosopher claimed the noumenal remains unknowable, theorizable but never knowable. One cannot within empirical reality, perceive the divine. In this work, psychedelics can potentially lift that veil. For that thought merely one is stunned – and encouraged – that such ideas are accepted.

Clarity Insights

Crucial to highlight now that this is not one of those drug-fueled memoirs composed as the person is out of their gourd. Smith-Ruiu is not Hunter S Thompson. Titled Regarding Substances however it is not composed while high (excluding, probably, from the medications he describes earlier and occasional coffee boost). “During composition, sober, alert, and fully dedicated to the work.”

A Surprising Plot Twist

This work finishes with an unexpected plot twist (philosophical spoiler alert!). Not long ago, Smith-Ruiu attended church service after decades since his youth in the parish next door to his home. His argument at this point is that the psychedelic experience is analogous to that of ritual worship: everyday perception is regarded as a distortion, and during mass individuals can sense, similar to his on mushrooms, a glimpse of timelessness. A further similarity concerns how one submits egoic control in church as on an entheogenic experience. He writes: “Psychedelics, similar to faith, like poetry constitute a release of ego to go it alone.” The philosopher demonstrates reflexivity to acknowledge how absurd this may seem: that psychedelics serve as his pathway to the Catholic church.

Accessible Psychedelia

One need not to consume psychedelics from any source in a shop (as Smith-Ruiu did) to expand consciousness. He cites the opening of Proust’s novel the classic text, where the protagonist creatively fantasizes that he transforms into {some of the things