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About the Journal

Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture (ESIC) publishes scholarly and scientific articles on every aspect of imaginative culture: literature, film, theater, television, music, ideology, religion, politics, the visual arts, and digital media. Contributors to ESIC also review books from all fields of the evolutionary sciences and humanities. The journal aims to help researchers stay informed about the newest thinking in the broad range of disciplines that converge on imaginative culture. Articles are written in English, but the subject matter can include works from any language and any historical period.

 

In what ways can the psychedelic imagination be “transformative”? The science of psychedelics is having a renaissance currently and the research is helping us understand the mind better and provide us with fresh therapeutic options. Psychotropic substances engender psychological and philosophical states that reveal important features of the self and consciousness. They can reduce the vigilant executive functions in the frontal areas of the brain and release the mind into the involuntary sphere of free-association and mind-wandering (what neuroscientists call the Default Mode Network, DMN). These altered states loosen the tyranny of task-based consciousness, and they also suspend the ego’s usual dominance –letting us feel connected to everything (possibly activating improved empathy).

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