Psychedelic Futures is a free educational series hosted by Sana Healing Collective to connect people with an interest in psychedelics. We welcome you to join us in growing the psychedelic community in Chicago. All are welcome - from clinicians to enthusiasts to the psychedelic-curious! We will discuss the past and future of psychedelics in our society, sometimes using written, video, or audio sources as our guide, and sometimes our own personal experiences. These sessions are led by UChicago anthropologist and Sana intern, Lorna Hadlock.
On Saturday, May 16th, we will meet at Sana at 2:00 pm.
For this Psychedelic Futures event, we welcome a panel of social scientists from the University of Chicago who are studying psychedelics from a variety of angles. We will hear briefly from each of them about their research projects before opening up for discussion and Q&A.
Panelist Bios:
Lorna Hadlock is a psychological and medical anthropologist studying cross-cultural and cross-species encounters related to healing in the Peruvian Amazon and Andes. She is currently a Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago, teaching courses on medical anthropology, anthropology of embodiment, psychedelic healing, Amazonia, and interdisciplinary perspectives on cognition. In her research, she addresses how language and culture influence experiences of healing, the body, and encounters with non-human others such as plants and spirits. Furthermore, she is interested in the transformative potential of encounters with others (interpersonal, cultural, and non-human), and how people manage the self/other boundary. Her first book project focuses on an ayahuasca training center in the Peruvian Amazon where an indigenous Shipibo healer trains Western apprentices. The work examines how Western students interpret Shipibo healing concepts and experience interactions with Amazonian plant spirits.
Meghan Doyle is a dual PhD student in Art History and Religions in the Americas at the University of Chicago, where she is also a graduate student researcher on the Metaphysical Spirituality Project, supported by the John Templeton Foundation. Her work considers the entanglements of religion, spirituality, and post-war aesthetics in the United States, specifically as they manifest in the environments, installations, and other cousins of the Gesamtkunstwerk across the 1960s counterculture.
Nida Paracha is a lawyer, researcher, and activist. She has lived and worked in Pakistan, Maldives, Europe, Colombia, and the United States mostly in legal and carceral spaces. Currently doing her PhD in anthropology at University of Chicago, she is also training in psychoanalysis, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and modalities of healing with energy. She is interested in questions of energetic intimacies and how they re-shape ethical relationships between the self, the social, the political, and the ecological.
Zak Arrington is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago in the Department of Anthropology. He is broadly interested in theories and debates in medical anthropology, the anthropology of death and dying, and social studies of psychiatry and the body. His current research project involves emergent changes in American end-of-life care expertise, focusing on the resurgence of interest in psychedelic substances as palliative aids in the United States.
Accessibility note: Our community space is currently only accessible via a stairway.
Participation in the group is free, but donations to Sana’s Community Care Fund are always appreciated!
For any questions or concerns, email Lorna at lorna@sanahealingcollective.org.