Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Drug induced mysticism










Have you guys read about this? A recent study at Johns Hopkins administered psilocybin (mushrooms) to subjects who had never taken drugs before, 61% of whom reported a "complete mystical experience." About two-thirds reported 2 months later that it was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lifetime, some comparing it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.

Here's the full paper.

2 Comments:

Blogger diana said...

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12:53 AM EST  
Blogger Unknown said...

It's very good research, impressive, thorough, and is bound to change the way we think of emotional pain, especially in the context of alleviating chronic pain in terminally ill patients. When the study came out, I sent it to all my friends fonder than I of the psychedelic drugs - and we all agreed that shrooms are for the most part (if used carefully), much better than other hallucinogens such as MDMA/ecstasy or more addictive substances with homologous sensory effects.

I just started reading TC Boyle's Drop City, and the beginning scenes reference the complications of acid and other hallucinogens in combination with varying personalities, beginning with the gang rape of a 14-year old girl by a nude colony (named "Drop City"). I know it's just a novel, set in the time of Free Love, but it carries weight to our time. Why?

"In the end, it's altered traits, not altered states, that matter. 'By their fruits shall ye know them.' It's good to learn that volunteers having even this limited experience had lasting benefits. But human history suggests that without a
social vessel to hold the wine of revelation, it tends to dribble away. In most cases, even the most extraordinary experiences provide lasting benefits to those who undergo them and people around them only if they become the basis of ongoing work. That's the next research question, it seems to me: What conditions of community and practice best help people to hold on to what comes to them in those moments of revelation, converting it
into abiding light in their own lives?" -Huston Smith

3:21 AM EST  

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