Six years after the publication of Noumenautics (2016) Dr. Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes brings us a new collection of essays, Modes of Sentience, in which he continues his exploration of Psychedelic experience, Metaphysics and Consciousness. Unlike this previous book there is no exploration of Meta-Ethics.

Many of the chapters are deeply complex such as “The Great God Pan is not Dead,” which explores Whiteheads Metaphysics in relation to Psychedelics perception and “Deeper then Depth,” which explores space and sentience. I don’t want to summarise these more complex essays here. Doing so would take up to much space for this to remain a simple review and I do not think a short summary would present such ideas adequately. Instead I will briefly discuss what could be seen as the more “approachable” essays.

“The Concrescence of Dissent” is a fantastic essay exploring the development of Alfred North Whitehead within the Religious and Philosophical context of his time  – showing that Whitehead stood as a heretic amongst his contemporaries. An interesting article for those both new to Whitehead and those already knowledgeable of his work.

The book also contains perhaps one of Sjöstedt-Hughes most significant essays: “The Psychedelic history of Philosophy.” Which gained almost instant popularity after its original publication in Mid-2016. This essay explores the hidden influence of Psychedelics have had on Western Philosophy exploring usage from Plato to Foucault. Here Sjöstedt-Hughes provides us an alternative view of Western Philosophy and discusses figures both well known and obscure.

One such obscure figure is Sir Humphry Davy, who is further discussed in the essay “The First Scientific Psychonaut.” Davy is best remembered for inventing the miners lamp and isolating several elements however he want on to experiment heavily with Nitrous Oxide – inspiring a poetic philosophy of Metaphysics of which Sjöstedt-Hughes explains in detail.

Modes of Sentience is a compelling and complex read. I wish not to discourage or criticise by mentioning its  complexity – I enjoy a challenging read. I don’t think ideas like these can be presented simply and in many ways I feel this book continues on from the writing he presented several years earlier – Modes of Sentience brings us deeper into Sjöstedts Psychonautic voyage. But we have further to travel yet as in the past Dr. Sjöstedt-Hughes has stated that he hopes to combine the metaphysics of Whitehead with the philosophy of Nietzsche.