Below to Beyond Human: Social Death to Ego Birth During The Black Psychedelic Experience

Authors

Angelica Medina, University at Albany, State University of New York

Document Type

Research Project

Publication Date

5-2025

Faculty Sponsor

Charles Shepherdson

Course

Thesis Seminar II, AENG 499

Abstract

Prior to the modern day green light to research psychedelics, it has been consumed for its offered experience for centuries in indigenous traditions. Research today insists that psychedelics assist greatly with self healing and self discovery. The “self-healing” in its extreme form is often labeled as “ego death”, which is defined as “surrendering to our self-subjected identity”. I will argue that the present definition for ego death is inaccurate without the integration of sociological concepts and race theory. Social death, a term coined by Orlando Patterson, suggests that black individuals aren’t accepted as fully human in our social institutions and other authors such as Frank Wilderson agrees on that sentiment and even extends it further by stating that we shouldn’t desire to become human either. Using this theoretical context, I believe that black psychedelic experience is vastly unique and offers an extension to ego death by introducing an “ego birth”. Given that black individuals were never considered human, how could the modern definition of ego death apply to their experience? There is no such thing as “self-subjected identity” when social institutions are the reason for that subjection in the first place. It then certainly doesn’t apply to black individuals who don't possess an identity at all according to Wilderson and Patterson. My extension will seek to explore and connect ego death in context with social death as well as explaining ego birth as the prominent difference between white and black psychedelic experience. Relationship with suffering also differs between the two experiences that will be closely analyzed with the understanding of social death and Abdul R. JanMohamed ’s The Death Bound Subject.

Recommended Citation

Medina, Angelica, "Below to Beyond Human: Social Death to Ego Birth During The Black Psychedelic Experience" (2025). Library Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research. 9.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lib_award_undergrad/9

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