Episode description

In this week's episode, we bring you a thought-provoking discussion on the Psychedelic Renaissance. Our guest, historian and professor Erika Dyck, offers her perspective on where psychiatry and medical research intersect with psychedelic research. She also speaks about society's moral panic; what it means and what we should be doing about it.

Erika is a Professor and a Canada Research Chair in the History of Health & Social Justice at the University of Saskatchewan. She was introduced to us by a previous guest, Paul Gootenberg, and we are so glad he made the introduction. With over 20 years of research under her belt, Erika is not only an expert on the history of psychedelic research but is also plugged into its future. She is the author or co-author of several books, including Psychedelic Psychiatry (2008); A Culture’s Catalyst: Historical Encounters with Peyote and the Native American Church in Canada (2016); Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond (2018); and co-author of The Acid Room: the Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital (2022). She is also the guest editor of the Chacruna Series on women in the history of psychedelic plant medicines.

At the University of Saskatchewan, Erika teaches courses in the history of medicine and madness. She is particularly interested in making history inclusive and learning about people who have been written about but rarely listened to. Some of the community-engaged collaborations have created space for these discussions, see: https://madnesscanada.com/ and www.eugenicsarchive.ca.This has extended to work focused on the COVID-19 pandemic with the COVID-19 Community Archive.

Erika works to think about things in a global and interconnected way, bringing strong research and authentic passion to the topics she speaks on. Are you ready to think about the world in a different way? Join the discussion with Erika and me in this week's new episode.