Psychedelic Crystals in Cinema: Opening Virtual Dimensions and Potential Healing
Deleuze and Guattari Studies November 1, 2023 Erica Biolchini
The article proposes a new concept called the 'psychedelic crystal', building on Gilles Deleuze's idea of the crystal-image. This concept links the crystalline regime of cinema with current scientific research into the healing potential of hallucinogenic drugs. The psychedelic crystal emerges from the intersection of Deleuze's crystals of time, the therapeutic use of psychedelics, and Siegfried Kracauer's idea of cinematic redemption. Both films and drugs are seen as media with curative power, capable of restoring belief in the world and renewing life's affirmative potential. Analyzing Jan Kounen's film Blueberry (2004), the article argues that cinema can reanimate mental and physical reality, particularly in cases of traumatic, repressed, or dissociated memories. This positions certain film aesthetics as a mind-revealing, mind-expanding, and mind-healing technology, entangled with the revival of psychedelic therapy.