Psychedelic Affective Maps for New Ecological Futures

Psychedelic experiences expressed in literature and art provide affective maps that guide readers through imaginal landscapes of sensation and feeling, opening moments of cognitive alterity and inviting alternative ontologies. The essay connects psychedelic aesthetics with affect theory, cognitive science, and systems thinking, drawing on writings from the 1960s and 1970s by Anishinaabeg elder Keewaydinoquay Peschel and health figure Adelle Davis, read through contemporary Indigenous thinkers Robin Wall Kimmerer, Tyson Yunkaporta, and Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. These psychedelic stories and performances invite readers to imagine new possibilities for navigating life with greater awareness of interconnection within wider ecological and metaphysical systems.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This essay explores how psychedelic experiences are expressed in literature and how readers and viewers experience these aesthetic forms. The author connects psychedelic aesthetics and theories of affect, cognitive science, and systems thinking to argue that psychedelic aesthetics offer affective maps that lead readers through imaginal landscapes of sensation and feeling that open up moments of cognitive alterity and invite us into alternative ontologies. The author brings together the work of Keewaydinoquay Peschel, an Anishinaabeg elder, with that of Adelle Davis, a leading health and wellness figure from Los Angeles, both writing in the 1960s and 1970s on psychedelics. The author reads these figures through the lens of contemporary writers and theorists Robin Wall Kimmerer, Tyson Yunkaporta, and Vanessa Machado de Oliveira to draw connections between Indigenous ontologies with the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences. The author looks at how psychedelic aesthetics provide affective maps, guideposts for cognitive, somatic, and affective processing that serve as sites of transformation, and examines the paradigm-shifting possibilities that can be enacted through readers’ engagement with such texts. Through their psychedelic stories and performance, the author argues that readers are invited to imagine new possibilities for navigating our lives with greater awareness of our interconnection within wider ecological and metaphysical systems.