Conference

About

Conference

About

Victoria Litman, M.Div., JD., LL.M

Roger Williams University School of Law; Suffolk Law School

Speaker Bio

Victoria Litman, M.Div., JD., LL.M. is a lawyer, law professor, and interdisciplinary psychedelic studies scholar focused on the intersections of religion, drugs, and law. Her work has focused on the emerging psychedelic church movement, psychedelic chaplaincy, and other issues at the intersection of constitutional law and drug law. She has presented at Psychedemia, Philadelic, and the Drug Law and Public Safety symposium hosted at the Arizona State University School of Law and published in a variety of venues. Victoria is a project affiliated researcher of the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR) at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

ICPR 2024 Abstract

The necessity of regulating psychedelic spiritual care

There is an undeniable connection between psychedelics, mystical experiences, and religious practices. Yet, there remains disagreement among medical researchers about the extent to which it is ethically appropriate or medically beneficial for religious, spiritual, or mystical ideas and practices to be part of regulated psychedelic medicine. What role does spirituality have in psychedelic healing? Is a truly “secular” psychedelic spirituality possible or are researchers doomed to impose their own psychedelic theologies? What is required for informed consent to be adequately given? Examining these questions legally, medically, and culturally, I conclude that it is necessary to regulate the spiritual and religious dimensions of legal psychedelic use. My interdisciplinary research on this topic will be presented at conferences hosted at Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School in 2024 with plans for inclusion in edited volumes. In one paper, I examine the law and policy of psychedelic chaplaincy and argue that it is both medically beneficial and legally necessary to regulate spiritual care as part of psychedelic medicine. In the other paper, I cite religious studies scholarship deconstructing the category of secular to support the conclusion that a secular psychedelic spirituality is an impossibility. In both papers, I stress the importance of this topic due to an observed increase of suggestibility among individuals under the influence of psychedelic medicine shaped by the patient’s “set and setting.” This presentation will summarize both papers, citing relevant medical, anthropological, legal, and religious studies research to support the regulation of psychedelic spiritual care. 

© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands