Brad Stoddard PhD

“Altered States, Sacred Visions: Psychedelic Religion in Theory and Practice”

 

Guest editor: Brad Stoddard, McDaniel College

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This special issue of Nova Religio will explore the intersections of psychedelics and religious practice. Psychedelic religions—both historical and emergent—pose unique theoretical and empirical questions about the nature of religious experience, ritual practice, and the construction of sacred authority.

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Psychedelic religious traditions draw upon diverse sources, including Indigenous ceremonial practices, western esotericism, contemporary spiritual movements, psychoanalysis, and scientific discourses on consciousness. As psychedelic spirituality continues to grow and evolve, new theoretical frameworks may be necessary to account for these dynamic traditions.

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We invite scholars to contribute research that engages with the following key questions:

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• How do contemporary psychedelic religions conceptualize and legitimize their practices within broader religious, legal, and cultural frameworks?

• What theoretical approaches best capture the altered states and visionary experiences central to psychedelic religious traditions?

• How do practitioners interpret and integrate their psychedelic experiences into religious worldviews, and what role does tradition, innovation, or syncretism play in this process?

• In what ways do psychedelic religions challenge or reaffirm established models of religious authority, leadership, and community organization?

• How do social, legal, and political contexts influence the development and visibility of psychedelic religious movements?

• What ethical and moral issues accompany psychedelic religion, specifically related to practices involving Indigenous peoples?

• What can scholars of new or emergent religions learn by studying entheogens and entheogenic communities?

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We welcome contributions from a range of disciplines that address new, marginal, revival, and/or alternative psychedelic religious movements (as opposed to psychedelic religions that ultimately became part of a dominant religious tradition).

 

Please submit your paper proposal in the form of a 300-word abstract to the guest editor by 1 April 2025. The guest editor will notify the author by 1 May 2025 if the paper topic is suitable for the special issue. The first draft of the paper should be submitted to the guest editor by 1 September 2025, who will determine if the paper is suitable or not, or if it needs revision. The guest editor will work with the author to prepare the paper for submission to Nova Religio.

 

The co-editors of Nova Religio will make the final decision on whether the paper can be accepted, or revised and resubmitted, or rejected.

 

After the guest editor deems the paper to be in good shape, it will be submitted by the author to Nova Religio through a link to Scholastica located on its University of Pennsylvania Press Journals website at: https://www.pennpress.org/journals/journal/nova-religio/. On this webpage, scroll down and click “For Authors,” and this will make visible Nova Religio’s Style Sheet, Spelling Style Sheet, and the link, which reads “Submit to Nova Religio,” where the paper can be submitted.

 

The author should make sure that the paper and the endnotes should follow the Style Sheet to make the formatting of the paper and citations suitable for consideration for Nova Religio.

 

For further questions please email Brad Stoddard at bstoddard@mcdaniel.edu.