ABSTRACT
The psychedelic visual aesthetic is an established part of mainstream culture, loosely affiliated with a movement that has gone mainstream. The chemical sublime might be thought of as a type of subjective experience in which users experience intense visual hallucinations accompanied by profound feelings of awe, terror, and a sense of cosmic unity. This chapter argues the reduction of the visual imagery associated with the chemical sublime to the status of hallucination has been deeply connected with the evolution of how we conceptualize the use of powerful psychoactive drugs. The psychedelic visual aesthetic can be understood as the latest iteration of a long-standing process. The disappearance of the chemical sublime can be seen in the clinic. This is because the development of sophisticated instruments designed to measure subjective psychological states through self-reporting has allowed psychological research to conform to the epistemological framework of the controlled clinical trial.
