Christopher M. Bache

Track: Psychedelics – Science, Spirituality and Therapeutic Potential

Diamonds from Heaven: A 20 year psychedelic journey

In this presentation I will share some of the boundaries crossed and lessons learned in my 20 year psychedelic journey reported in Diamonds from Heaven (forthcoming). Seventy-three high dose LSD sessions conducted between 1979-1999 became the philosophical adventure of a lifetime, but one I had to keep largely hidden from my university colleagues. As psychedelics return to scientific and academic discourse, I am now sharing my experiment in doing philosophy in the psychedelic mode. Categories include: crossing the boundary of birth and death, the ocean of suffering, Deep Time and the soul, the Greater Real of archetypal reality, Oneness and the Primordial Void, the birth of the Future Human, Diamond Luminosity, and coming off the mountain.

Christopher M. Bache, Ph.D., is professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 38 years. He is also adjunct faculty at CIIS and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences where he was Director of Transformative Learning from 2000 to 2002. An award winning teacher, Chris’ work explores the philosophical implications of non-ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. He has written three books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; and The Living Classroom, an exploration of the transpersonal dynamics of teaching and collective fields of consciousness. He is currently working on a book describing his twenty year psychedelic journey – Diamonds from Heaven.