Books by Morgan Shipley
Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2015
Concerned with scholarly, popular, and religious backdrops that understand the connection between... more Concerned with scholarly, popular, and religious backdrops that understand the connection between psychedelics and mystical experiences to be devoid of moral concerns and ethical dimensions—a position supported empirically by the rise of acid fascism and psychedelic cults by the late 1960s—Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America traces the development of sixties psychedelic mysticism from the deconditioned mind and perennial philosophy of Aldous Huxley, to the sacramental ethics of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, to the altruistic religiosity practiced by Stephen Gaskin and The Farm. Building directly off the pioneering psychedelic writing of Huxley, these psychedelic mystics understood the height of psychedelic consciousness as an existential awareness of unitive oneness, a position that offered worldly alternatives to the maladies associated with the postwar moment (e.g., vapid consumerism and materialism, lifeless conformity, unremitting racism, heightened militarism). In opening a doorway to a common world, Morgan Shipley locates how psychedelics challenged the coherency of Western modernity by fundamentally reorienting postwar society away from neoliberal ideologies and toward a sacred understanding of reality defined by mutual coexistence and responsible interdependence.
In 1960s America, psychedelics catalyzed a religious awakening defined by compassion, expressed through altruism, and actualized in projects that sought to ameliorate the conditions of the least advantaged among us. In the exact moments that historians and cultural critics often locate as signaling the death knell of the counterculture, Gaskin and The Farm emerged, not as a response to the perceived failures of the hippies, nor as an alternative to sixties politicos, but in an effort to fulfill the religious obligation to help teach the world how to live more harmoniously. Today, as we continue to confront issues of socioeconomic inequality, entrenched differences, widespread violence, and the limits of religious pluralism, Psychedelic Mysticism serves as a timely reminder of how religion in America can operate as a tool for destabilization and as a means to actively reimagine the very basis of how people relate—such a legacy can aid in our own efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate world.
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Peer-Reviewed Articles by Morgan Shipley
Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2015
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Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural , 2014
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Utopian Studies, 2013
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Popular Culture Studies Journal, 2014
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The Journal of Popular Culture, 2013
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Interviews by Morgan Shipley
Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2011
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Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2010
Stephen Gaskin (1935) is an important figure in the American countercultural movement of the lat... more Stephen Gaskin (1935) is an important figure in the American countercultural movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He came to national prominence with the publication of his book The Caravan (1971), which largely consisted of his public talks and conversations during ...
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Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2012
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Encyclopedia Entries by Morgan Shipley
The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia, 2014
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Papers by Morgan Shipley
Public Philosophy Journal
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The Gerontologist
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CR: The New Centennial Review
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Journal of Contemporary Religion
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Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method Articles, 2021
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Self & Society, 2017
ABSTRACTHeralded as a time of economic prosperity, the post-World War II period in America also e... more ABSTRACTHeralded as a time of economic prosperity, the post-World War II period in America also experienced extraordinary religious awakenings of born-again evangelicalism, Prosperity Gospels, and an apocalyptic flare rendered palpable by atomic bombs and the Cold War. Postwar Christianity found itself reinforcing neoliberalism, sanctifying standardizations accompanying technological routinization, economic progress, and consumption-based lifestyles, resulting in alienating crises of spirit and culture. Amidst uncertainty and conformity, psychedelics offered sacramental means for bypassing postwar society’s mechanisms by uncovering expressions of mutuality and compassion. Outlined within Alan Watts’ work, psychedelics unveiled Buddhist wisdom, detailing existence not as a function of difference, but as an expression of absolute interconnection. Neither doctrinaire nor authoritarian, Watts’ psychedelic engagement with Buddhism invites us to investigate beyond differences, toward moments in which the subjec...
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The Relevance of Alan Watts in Contemporary Culture, 2021
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Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2014
In 1957, Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception, a work that would galvanize debates reg... more In 1957, Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception, a work that would galvanize debates regarding the sacredness and profaneness of mystical consciousness. In connecting psy-chedelically inspired, unmediated perception with mystical, and perennial, modes of understanding, Huxley, critics like R. C. Zaehner declared, elided the conditions that make mystical consciousness possible, inserting an amoral universal monism where only theistic doctrines should function. The comparative debates that subsequently emerged over the nature of real versus ersatz mysticism, while questioning critically the connection between morality and mysticism, ultimately extend beyond a mere critique of psychedelic culture. More distinctly, the debates over the “authenticity,” “truth,” and ethical weight of psychedelic mysticism demonstrate the challenges perennial beliefs posed to traditional, supernaturally based monotheistic religions. What critics of psychedelic mysticism fail to understand, as evid...
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Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2017
R amona Africa remains an active and vocal member of MOVE, a family of strong, serious, and deepl... more R amona Africa remains an active and vocal member of MOVE, a family of strong, serious, and deeply committed revolutionaries that was created and organized by John Africa in 1972. A predominantly African American interracial coalition of activists makes up MOVE’s constituents. As this interview demonstrates, MOVE was concerned not only with the black liberation struggle but also with animal and environmental rights, economic justice, and police brutality. MOVE centers their political and spiritual philosophy on “Life”—the force behind all living and sentient beings. In 1985, concerned with MOVE’s revolutionary activities, police bombed the communal house MOVE shared. One of the two survivors of the shooting and bombing, Ramona Africa, continues to advance the causes of the MOVE organization while also seeking freedom for the MOVE 9, members of MOVE imprisoned since 8 August 1978. In this interview, Morgan Shipley, Jack Taylor, and Ramona Africa discuss, among other things, the importance of life for MOVE’s political philosophy, the organization’s relationship with the broad counterculture of the 1960s (topics range from the Black Panther Party to the hippies), and their concern for animal and environmental justice. To quote from her essay “Long Live John Africa!”: “You can only be a revolutionary if you understand and believe in the principle of freedom, not in categories but the totality of the principle of freedom . . . JACK TAYLOR AND MORGAN SHIPLEY
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Books by Morgan Shipley
In 1960s America, psychedelics catalyzed a religious awakening defined by compassion, expressed through altruism, and actualized in projects that sought to ameliorate the conditions of the least advantaged among us. In the exact moments that historians and cultural critics often locate as signaling the death knell of the counterculture, Gaskin and The Farm emerged, not as a response to the perceived failures of the hippies, nor as an alternative to sixties politicos, but in an effort to fulfill the religious obligation to help teach the world how to live more harmoniously. Today, as we continue to confront issues of socioeconomic inequality, entrenched differences, widespread violence, and the limits of religious pluralism, Psychedelic Mysticism serves as a timely reminder of how religion in America can operate as a tool for destabilization and as a means to actively reimagine the very basis of how people relate—such a legacy can aid in our own efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate world.
Peer-Reviewed Articles by Morgan Shipley
Interviews by Morgan Shipley
Encyclopedia Entries by Morgan Shipley
Papers by Morgan Shipley
In 1960s America, psychedelics catalyzed a religious awakening defined by compassion, expressed through altruism, and actualized in projects that sought to ameliorate the conditions of the least advantaged among us. In the exact moments that historians and cultural critics often locate as signaling the death knell of the counterculture, Gaskin and The Farm emerged, not as a response to the perceived failures of the hippies, nor as an alternative to sixties politicos, but in an effort to fulfill the religious obligation to help teach the world how to live more harmoniously. Today, as we continue to confront issues of socioeconomic inequality, entrenched differences, widespread violence, and the limits of religious pluralism, Psychedelic Mysticism serves as a timely reminder of how religion in America can operate as a tool for destabilization and as a means to actively reimagine the very basis of how people relate—such a legacy can aid in our own efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate world.