Trip Where you Stand: Towards Psychedelic Liberation

Priya Sharma (PS): I have never ingested any kind of recreational drug apart from alcohol, and so I have never tripped.It might seem strange that I have dedicated myself to writing a piece about psychedelics, but an investment in liberatory politics outside of institutions is why I have felt the need to write about such things.In this short piece, the political and personal context is set, before moving on to an exploration of Scouse Republic (2022), a short film by Somali, queer, trans, multidisciplinary artist Kiara Mohamed Amin, with whom I have had the pleasure of co-authoring this piece.The film explores radical possibilities for healing through psychedelic, ecological and ancestral communion. Kiara Mohamed Amin (KMA):Life in the UK is difficult, and increasingly so for those at the sharper end of capitalism; the population is coming to terms with the gas and electricity fuel hike, and many will have to make the hard choice between being able to eat and being able to heat their homes.A2020 report led by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation stated that poverty has risen as a result of the pandemic (Barry et al., 2021), and yet in September 2021 the government stopped the 20 uplift cost to Universal Credit recipients despite criticisms from other MPs and the British public (Ferguson, 2022).The climate crisis, a global upsurge in right-wing populism and ongoing wars notwithstanding, it is difficult to rouse any hope of autonomy or futurity.PS: Psychedelics, and in particular psilocybin (a hallucinogenic chemical found in certain mushrooms), was only something I began hearing about a couple of years ago when psychedelic therapy came to my attention (Roseman, Nutt and Carhart-Harris, 2018).Talk around this resurfaced when, in early March 2022, I went along to Kiara's exhibition opening.His film Scouse Republic, which was the centrepiece to a show that included a painted wall mural and homemade altar, explored radical possibilities for healing through the use of psychedelic mushrooms.'We live in a society that teaches there is not enough of any valuable resource to go around, including selfhood', write the CrimethInc.Ex-Workers' Collective:we grow up in households where our parents don't have enough time for us; we are sent to schools that employ a grading system that permits only a handful to excel, and are discharged into a market that enriches a few of us while exploiting or discarding the rest.We internalize the values of this system.(