In both clinical and informal settings, psychedelics users often report they have undergone something profound and even life-altering. Yet there persists a confounding inability to articulate just what has been imparted. Informed by multidisciplinary emerging research, this book provides an account of the specifically educational aspects of psychedelics and how they can render us ready to learn. Drawing from indigenous peoples worldwide who typically revere these substances as “plant teachers” and from canonical thinkers in the western tradition such as Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Heidegger, the author proposes an original set of categories through which to understand the educational capabilities of “entheogens” (psychedelics with visionary qualities). It emerges that entheogens’ real power lies not in destabilizing and decentering–“turning on and dropping out”–but as powerful aids in restoring and reenchanting our shared worlds.

David J. Blacker is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Legal Studies at the University of Delaware (USA). He has also held positions at Illinois State University and Teachers College, Columbia University. He has published six books including, most recently, Deeper Learning with Psychedelics: Philosophical Pathways Through Altered States (2024), The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame (2013), What’s Left of the World: Education, Identity, and the Post-Work Political Imagination (2019) and Democratic Education Stretched Thin: How Complexity Challenges a Liberal Ideal (2007). Blacker is also General Editor of the SUNY book series Horizons in the Philosophy of Education. He has written well over one hundred sole-authored academic publications and presentations, including contributions to edited volumes with Oxford University Press, University of California Press, Blackwell, Springer and others. A highly sought-after speaker, Blacker has been invited to provide keynote lectures at institutions worldwide, including: McGill University, University of Ottawa, University of Cambridge (UK), University of Edinburgh, University of Wales, University of London, University of Illinois, National Defense University (School of Joint Strategic Studies, Washington, DC), Arizona State University, Westminster University (UK), Columbia University, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (Rome), Kazi Nazrul University (West Bengal, India), the Philosophy of Education Societies of both Great Britain and the US, and both the British and American Educational Studies Associations. The Falling Rate of Learning was recently the subject of a special issue of Educational Theory, the leading US philosophy of education journal. He has been quoted in the New York Times and The Guardian (UK) and has been the main guest on dozens of podcasts, including multiple “best interview of the year” awards. Blacker has received both Outstanding Teacher and Distinguished Faculty awards from his students and colleagues.

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