Charismatogens - Prof Nicolas Langlitz MD PhD

This event is part of our monthly public lecture series exploring clinical and theoretical perspectives on the intersection of psychoanalysis and the study of psychedelics. Events take place on the last Wednesday of each month.

Charismatogens: Anthropological Observations of a Neuroethical Problem

Psychedelic culture has been a happy hunting ground for charismatics. Charismatics challenge traditional and bureaucratic forms of authority, Max Weber noted a century ago. They claim to lead their followers in and out of moments of crisis, reveal the breakdown of the cultural order while positioning themselves outside of that order, evading routine occupations and obligations, acting as if they were a law unto themselves. Conventions are broken, moral transgressions abound. To maintain their charisma, the charismatic needs to constantly conjure the extraordinary (doing heroic deeds, working miracles). Psychedelics offer a highly efficient way to produce this effect and have proved the perfect tool for people who Pierre Bourdieu called the "petty independent entrepreneurs of salvation." From an anthropological and historical perspective, this talk examines the "charismatogenic" effects of psychedelics as a neuroethical challenge. Considering that the psychedelic renaissance has subjected key parts of psychedelic culture to bureaucratic authority, it also raises the question of whether anything valuable gets lost as the field rids itself of gurus and other proponents of heterodoxy.

Nicolas Langlitz, a medical doctor by training, is an anthropologist and historian of science and medicine who uses ethnographic fieldwork to think through philosophical questions. He wrote three books: Chimpanzee Culture Wars: Rethinking Human Nature alongside Japanese, European, and American Cultural Primatologists (2020), Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the Decade of the Brain (2012), and Die Zeit der Psychoanalyse: Lacan und das Problem der Sitzungsdauer (2005). He is Professor of Anthropology and director of the Psychedelic Humanities Lab at The New School for Social Research in New York.

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