Speaker Bio
Leor Roseman is a Senior Lecturer and Psychedelic researcher at the University of Exeter. He has previously worked at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, under the mentorship of Prof. Robin Carhart-Harris and Prof. David Nutt, supporting the foundational work of a remerging research field.
His interdisciplinary research covers neuroscience, psychology, phenomenology, anthropology and conflict resolution, using various research methods such as fMRI, quantitative, qualitative, microphenomenology, ethnographic, and participatory research.
Currently, Leor is investigating relational processes and group dynamics in psychedelic rituals. He is interested in how psychedelics enhance connectedness, group bonding (communitas), and sociality and can serve as a social cure. Furthermore, together with Palestinian and Israeli activists and researchers, he is developing a praxis of research & action which utilizes the potential of psychedelics for peacebuilding, liberation and justice. They hope to create a participatory approach that focuses on personal and societal healing and considers action and healing intertwined.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
The dynamics of psychedelic diffusion
When asked what psychedelics do, most answers focus on their biological or phenomenological qualities. But what about asking how psychedelics spread? From this point of view of the substance, the goal is to proliferate - diffuse across time and space.
Many genes and substances have succeeded in spreading by coming into relationships with other substances or animals. This usually happens by parasitic relations or by symbiotic ones (or both). For example, wheat, potatoes, and rice developed such a strong relationship with humans that some argue that we did not domesticate them, but they have domesticated us.
By trying to answer how psychedelics diffuse, what is revealed is the dynamics through which they excite us - their revelatory quality can lead to (revolutionary) enthusiasm. Subjects, in fidelity to a revelation, seek to give meaning to the experience and to proliferate the substance. This fidelity is the key mechanism of action through which psychedelics spread. Yet, any act of diffusion happens within a specific sociocultural situation. In fidelity to the revelation, the subjects connect the memes, ideas, beliefs, and practices of the situation with the substance while proliferating them. This means that proliferation is usually bounded within specific situations. However, occasionally, certain revelatory events succeed in diffusing and liberating the substance into different sociocultural situations.
I will present the different steps through which psychedelic substances diffuse and give examples of these dynamics, drawn from diverse historical accounts, my work within a psychedelic renaissance, and my work with ayahuasca groups of Israelis and Palestinians.