Dr. Ido Hartogsohn

Dr. Ido Hartogsohn researches drugs, media, and technology from historical, sociological, philosophical, and related perspectives. His work examines drugs as technologies and as media environments that shape consciousness, integrating insights from Science, Technology, and Society studies (STS), media studies, drug studies, and critical theory. His research aims to develop applied understandings that contribute to the promotion of human well being in a media saturated age.

Hartogsohn runs a widely read blog on technology and mysticism, and publishes extensively in Israeli and international newspapers and magazines, including Haaretz, Maariv, Ynet, and Odyssey. He is a frequent contributor to Israeli and international media, including outlets such as the BBC and The New York Times, where he takes part in discussions on drug research and drug policy.

Hartogsohn’s book Technomysticism: Consciousness in the Technological Age (Ivrit, 2009) was the first Hebrew language book to explore psychedelics, situating psychedelic substances within a broader conceptual framework and examining the effects of technologies on consciousness. His book American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century (MIT Press, 2020) has had a profound impact on sociological and historical thinking about psychedelics. The book examines how the socio cultural landscape of mid twentieth century United States shaped both psychedelic research and psychedelic culture, and has been widely praised for expanding scholarly discourse on the role of social and cultural context in the formation of psychedelic science and culture, as well as in the very emergence of the idea of the “psychedelic experience.” In 2025, Hartogsohn published Mind Changing: Notes from the Psychedelic Renaissance with Pardes Publishing, a book based on columns and essays he published in Haaretz between 2021 and 2024.

Within the graduate program in Science, Technology, and Society, Hartogsohn teaches courses on topics such as the relationship between media and consciousness; techno optimistic and techno pessimistic approaches to technology; interdisciplinary perspectives on psychedelics; social, cultural, and philosophical issues in artificial intelligence; and the implications of the increasingly intimate integration of humans and technology.