Neşe Devenot delivered four invited talks during the Spring 2026 semester, each of which reflected a distinct aspect of their recent work in Critical Psychedelic Studies:
On March 5, Devenot delivered an invited “dose” (extended presentation) at the “Trip Out! Symposium on Media and Altered States” at the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology. Organized by Kate Maddalena and Daniel Guadagnolo, the symposium examined the “trip”—a timespace marked by shifts in perception through virtual reality, drug consumption, meditation, and other technologies of altered consciousness—bringing together scholars whose work explores perception as technological affordance and reality as already-altered, mediated experience. The event was structured around thematic “trips” featuring “theory pills” from graduate students and longer “doses” from invited guests. Devenot’s presentation, “Form as Pharmakon: Psychedelic Poetics as Emancipatory Pedagogy,” explored how literary and rhetorical forms can counter corporate capture of psychedelic discourse.
On March 28, Devenot presented at “Religion and Psychedelics: Critical, Cross-Cultural, Cross-Disciplinary Approaches,” a conference jointly organized by The Ohio State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education. The conference brought together Indigenous practitioners, scientists, and scholars to examine relationships between psychedelics and religion amid the so-called “Psychedelic Renaissance.” On a panel with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s David Yaden, Devenot presented “Felt Sense or False Signals?: The Challenge of Implicit Bias for ‘Embodied Presence’ in Psychedelic Therapy.” This talk examined how prominent training organizations teach psychedelic facilitators to non-verbally “read” clients’ needs through relational somatic resonance, which is empirically unsupported and creates risks of abuse in psychedelic therapy settings. It can be viewed on YouTube under the title “Telepathy in Psychedelic Therapy.”
On April 1, Devenot was an invited speaker for “Poetics and Plant Medicine,” a reading and conversation series organized by Ramsey McGlazer (UC Berkeley) and Stephanie Young (Mills College) that was funded by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The series brought together writers working at the intersection of aesthetics and psychedelic culture to examine colonial histories, Indigenous sovereignty, and the biotech and pharmaceutical interests that shape the current psychedelic landscape. During a conversation titled “Commodified Journeys” with Patricia Kubala and Sarah Miller, Devenot read an excerpt from “The Psychedelic Syndicate: How Silicon Valley Used Veterans to Hijack the Psychedelic Industry,” a book-length investigative report co-written with colleagues from the nonprofit Psymposia.
On May 15, Devenot was invited as a featured speaker in Saddleback College Emeritus Institute’s virtual Dorothy Marie Lowry Distinguished Guest Lecture Series for Spring 2026. The Emeritus Institute is California’s largest older adult education program, serving more than 5,000 students each semester with courses that promote lifelong learning. In “Programming Perception: Corporate Capture of Psychedelic and AI-Enhanced Suggestibility,” Devenot examined how psychedelic and artificial intelligence technologies are converging as instruments for shaping perception and behavior at scale, tracing patterns of corporate capture across both industries.