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Hermit
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Mystical Experiences and Other Hallucinations
« on: 2006-07-11 14:21:24 » |
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Magic mushrooms can induce mystical effects, study finds
Source: The Independent
Authors: Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Dated: 2006-07-11
A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today.
Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, have for the first time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the laboratory. They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported for centuries. They are "descriptively identical".
And they argue that the potential of the hallucinogenic drugs, ignored for decades because of their links with illicit drug use in the 1960s, must be explored to develop new treatments for depression, drug addiction and the treatment of intolerable pain.
Anticipating criticism from church leaders, they say they are not interested in the "Does God exist?" debate. "This work can't and won't go there."
Interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs is growing around the world. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists debated their use at a conference in March for the first time in 30 years. A conference held in Basel, Switzerland, last January reviewed the growing psychedelic psychiatry movement.
The drug psilocybin is the active ingredient of magic mushrooms which grow wild in Wales and were openly sold in London markets until a change in the law last year.
For the US study, 30 middle-aged volunteers who had religious or spiritual interests attended two eight-hour drug sessions, two months apart, receiving psilocybin in one session and a non-hallucinogenic stimulant, Ritalin, in the other. They were not told which drug was which.
One third described the experience with psilocybin as the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes and two thirds rated it among their five most meaningful experiences.
In more than 60 per cent of cases the experience qualified as a "full mystical experience" based on established psychological scales, the researchers say. Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.
The effects persisted for at least two months. Eighty per cent of the volunteers reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction. Relatives, friends and colleagues confirmed the changes.
The study is one of the first in the new discipline of "neurotheology" - the neurology of religious experience. The researchers, who report their findings in the online journal Psychopharmacology, say that their aim is to explore the possible benefits drugs like psilocybin can bring. Professor Roland Griffiths of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, said: "As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time.
"I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what's called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people."
A third of the volunteers became frightened during the drug sessions with some reporting feelings of paranoia. The researchers say psilocybin is not toxic or addictive, unlike alcohol and cocaine, but that volunteers must be accompanied throughout the experience by people who can help them through it.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Mermaid
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Re:Mystical Experiences and Other Hallucinations
« Reply #1 on: 2006-07-12 00:04:08 » |
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I am going to post a friend's entry on this subject.
I have to say that I agree with him.
begin quote:
I'm not going to link to it again. Judging by how many times I've seen it already today, everyone already knows about it. Lots of people sure seem to be excited about it.
I'm not. Personally, I think it's really bad news.
What's going on here is that a government-funded study is looking into cooking up what's basically Prozac Plus, with the "plus" being that it renders people more likely to religious suggestion. Note that all of the subjects in the study were subjected to very particularly settings... and context is very important here, because what psilocybin does is NOT to give you a "spiritual experience." What it does is make you interpret sensory impulses differently, making them SEEM spiritually significant.
Here's the deal. Here's how this Brave New Soma will be administered.
The drug will be tightly... VERY tightly... controlled. It will be given only by licensed professionals in carefully controlled settings. It will be part of a therapy that includes religious sensory input.
In short, what's being cooked up here is an excellent candidate to use for brainwashing people to forget their troubles and accept a religious input of someone else's choosing.
You think Prozac and the like are over-prescribed? You think faith-based initiatives are too much NOW? Wait until the two can be combined. Wait until corporate America, in conjunction with a government that shows increasingly religious leanings, figures out that malcontents and atheists are suffering from a form of "depression" that can be treated with the amazing new Soma therapy. What will you get? Why, you'll get a bunch of happy malcontents who've accepted a little Jesus-in-the-pill.
No, I don't think this is a good thing. In the end, it will be used as ameans of social control, not some wonderfully liberating experience that you can pick up at the local drugstore. Most people are depressed not because there's something wrong with them, but because the life that most people live sucks. That doesn't stop them from being medicated now.
Wait until the pharmaceutical industry can pry open the heads of all these "depressed" people and insert the deity of someone's choosing. If they could do it right now, they'd do it. What, you thought the right-wing administration headed by a self-described evangelical is funding research on a drug that they can't use to get what they want in their little cultural war? Yeah, just like they jumped all over funding research into medical marijuana to alleviate the sufefring of cancer patients.
This isn't about compassion. It's about a whole new kind of chemical weapon in the culture wars. It was only a matter of time.
end quote
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Hermit
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Re:Mystical Experiences and Other Hallucinations
« Reply #2 on: 2006-07-12 01:38:39 » |
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The reason for posting this was not because I advocate drug derived experiences. Far from it. Aside from the potential insanity raised by the Mermaid's drug-aware friend, I have a large number of reasons for not recommending such. Some are:- Like life itself, many drugs have side effects - and given our limited comprehension of the brain, we are not even sure what the primary effects, let alone side-effects, may entail.
- Some known primary effects and many secondary effects of reasonably well researched drugs (and drug inducing activities) are known to be one way functions, preventing the user from reversing the effects of using these drugs. While there are some situations where this can be beneficial, most changes are far more likely to be harmful than good (We have evolved to the point we have over a very long period of time, so much of how we function is, on the average, at least adequate. We know from the study of mutagens and genetics that most unplanned changes are likely to be harmful).
- To be effective, any psychoactive drug modifies the brain processes. As we have only one brain, this invariably prevents the effective evaluation of the effects of psychoactive drugs by the subject.
- Many effects which we enjoy, particularly those related to dopamine and seratonin are critical to memory, pattern matching and effective socialization, which is why the manipulation of these factors can result in significant problems for the user.
- It is well understood that many psychoactive drugs are best experimented with by stable and happy people with non-addictive personalities (and this seems to be at least to some extent, a function of genetic factors) as many drugs tend to magnify any instabilities already present in the personality. To my mind this suggests that changes in "safer" users are likely to be unhelpful and drug use in "less-safe" users positively dangerous.
- In many societies, any drug use is frowned on and even relatively innocuous drugs are outlawed. In America in particular, drug use, even when clearly victimless, is treated with a degree of brutality which generally exceeds that awarded in other categories of crime, however heinous. This means that any frowned upon drug use in such societies carries risks which, to my mind at least, far exceed any potential benefit.
Besides, as I tell people who ask me for my opinion on this field, I like myself as I am and appreciate my thinking abilities. I seriously doubt that any changes which drugs might instigate in my thinking would be beneficial to either my personality or my cognitive processes. So I'm reluctant to take the risk of playing games which might change either. Which means that I don't recommend them for others unless there are clearly visible reasons for doing so, and probable benefits which outweigh the risks. In my opinion, this happens, but much less often than most drug advocates - legal and less so - suggest. Clinical depression and hysterical reactions being examples of instances where the benefits far outweigh the risks.
So why did I post this you may be asking? The answer is simply that it shows what I have long weykenned. Religious experiences, being indistinguishable from, or even inferior to, drug induced experiences, are likely merely a product of aberrant brain chemistry*. Man's history and ongoing research into the unpleasant realities of religious societies [ Refer e.g. Hermit, "Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'", Church of Virus, Philosophy & Religion, Re:Virian Ethics: The End of God Referenced Ethics, Reply #4, 2006-07-07 ] tends to demonstrate that religion is possibly the most common reason for people turning against other people. Or, expressed only slightly differently, religion is an extremely dangerous drug which most people don't tolerate well. Perhaps that is why the religious are so intolerant - and intolerable.
*It is also my hypothesis that much "recreational" drug use is driven by people seeking to stabilize or exaggerate the effects of aberrant brain chemistry.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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the.bricoleur
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Re:Mystical Experiences and Other Hallucinations
« Reply #3 on: 2006-07-14 06:03:09 » |
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Thanks for posting the article Hermit.
Quote from: Mermaid on 2006-07-12 00:04:08 I am going to post a friend's entry on this subject.
I have to say that I agree with him.
begin quote:
I'm not going to link to it again. Judging by how many times I've seen it already today, everyone already knows about it. Lots of people sure seem to be excited about it.
I'm not. Personally, I think it's really bad news.
What's going on here is that a government-funded study is looking into cooking up what's basically Prozac Plus, with the "plus" being that it renders people more likely to religious suggestion. |
OK …
Quote:| Note that all of the subjects in the study were subjected to very particularly settings... and context is very important here, because what psilocybin does is NOT to give you a "spiritual experience." What it does is make you interpret sensory impulses differently, making them SEEM spiritually significant. |
… but this is not true. The setting was “particular” in the sense that it was “supportive” only.
“The 8-h drug sessions were conducted in an aesthetic living room-like environment designed specifically for the study. Two monitors were present with a single participant throughout the session. For most of the time during the session, the participant was encouraged to lie down on the couch, use an eye mask to block external visual distraction, and use headphones through which a classical music program was played. The same music program was played for all participants in all sessions. The participants were encouraged to focus their attention on their inner experiences throughout the session. If a participant reported significant fear or anxiety, the monitors provided reassurance verbally or physically (e.g., with a supportive touch to the hand or shoulder).”
-- Griffiths RR, Richards WA, McCann U, Jesse R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology (online edition): July 11, 2006. (PDF) – Original paper.
Therefore, it was not the setting (“context”) that was critical to the subjects reported spiritual experience’s (beyond it being a ‘safe’ setting, of course), but rather their ‘set’ i.e. the fact that the subjects were already of a religious nature.
“Fifty-three percent (19 volunteers) indicated affiliation with a religious or spiritual community, such as a church, synagogue, or meditation group. All 36 volunteers indicated at least intermittent participation in religious or spiritual activities such as religious services, prayer, meditation, church choir, or educational or discussion groups, with 56% (20 volunteers) reporting daily activities and an additional 39% (14 volunteers) reporting at least monthly activities.”
-- Griffiths RR, Richards WA, McCann U, Jesse R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology (online edition): July 11, 2006. (PDF) – Original paper.
Thus, the somewhat paranoid rant that followed fails as it rests on (a) the assumption that the sessions were ‘directed’ and of a religious aesthetic, and (b) the failure to account for the subject’s own subjective nature. That somebody can ever overlook the latter is bewildering to me …
Quote:| The drug will be tightly... VERY tightly... controlled. It will be given only by licensed professionals in carefully controlled settings. It will be part of a therapy that includes religious sensory input. |
I think that I need not have to point out to our “drug-aware” friend that they have been attempting, very unsuccessfully, to “VERY tightly” control Psilocybin under the guise of prohibition for decades. The reasons it has failed will be the same reason that it will fail in this scenario – i.e. how to prohibit a substance (psilocybin or psilocin) that occurs naturally in over 180 species of mushrooms.
But I look forward to your suggestions.
Quote:| In short, what's being cooked up here is an excellent candidate to use for brainwashing people to forget their troubles and accept a religious input of someone else's choosing. |
A blueprint for a ‘lost’ P. K. Dick novel is not the only thing being “cooked up here” -- there is also a double edged-sword at play. If Psilocybin is a “candidate” for other people to use as a brainwashing agent as a means of reducing anxiety and accepting “religious input” then it follows that it is also possible for an individual to conduct their own reprogramming, thereby reducing anxiety and opening the possibility of accepting a new “religious input” (and not necessarily a theistic one).
Quote:| You think Prozac and the like are over-prescribed? You think faith-based initiatives are too much NOW? Wait until the two can be combined. Wait until corporate America, in conjunction with a government that shows increasingly religious leanings, figures out that malcontents and atheists are suffering from a form of "depression" that can be treated with the amazing new Soma therapy. What will you get? Why, you'll get a bunch of happy malcontents who've accepted a little Jesus-in-the-pill. |
The error here is to confuse spiritual experience with spiritual belief. At the heart of spirituality is a feeling, a feeling of what it is like to be connected to something bigger than your illusory self - what the philosopher Schleiermacher called "a sense and taste for the infinite", a taste for the interconnectedness of things, a taste for being in love with life and the world, etc. None of which has anything to do with the personal narratives, or beliefs, that we use to describe or give meaning to the experience.
It is, I think, the experience that is being investigated by the Psilocybin study.
Quote:No, I don't think this is a good thing. In the end, it will be used as ameans of social control, not some wonderfully liberating experience that you can pick up at the local drugstore. Most people are depressed not because there's something wrong with them, but because the life that most people live sucks. That doesn't stop them from being medicated now.
Wait until the pharmaceutical industry can pry open the heads of all these "depressed" people and insert the deity of someone's choosing. If they could do it right now, they'd do it. What, you thought the right-wing administration headed by a self-described evangelical is funding research on a drug that they can't use to get what they want in their little cultural war? Yeah, just like they jumped all over funding research into medical marijuana to alleviate the sufefring of cancer patients.
This isn't about compassion. It's about a whole new kind of chemical weapon in the culture wars. It was only a matter of time.
end quote
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That the author based their scenario on a flawed and incorrect premise means that we learn more about their worldview than we do about the significance of the Psilocybin research and the field of neurotheology itself.
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-07-12 01:38:39 | The reason for posting this was not because I advocate drug derived experiences. Far from it. |
You mean to say some “drug derived experiences” surely? Or at what point does the chemical you put in your body become, or not become, a drug?
Here I have in mind the “drug derived” experience to be found from ingesting, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, sugar, etc.
Quote:| Aside from the potential insanity raised by the Mermaid's drug-aware friend, |
Oh, has it been established that said friend is a user of Psilocybin? 
Quote:I have a large number of reasons for not recommending such.
Some are:- Like life itself, many drugs have side effects - and given our limited comprehension of the brain, we are not even sure what the primary effects, let alone side-effects, may entail.
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Of course this is not true for all drugs. And since we are talking about Psilocybin/Psilocin it would be wise not to make hasty generalisations.
See the 360+ studies into Psilocybin research here – Psilocybin Bibliography
Re “primary effects” / “side-effects” -- do the centuries of human use amount to nothing?
See the following for more:
Psilocybin Mushroom Timeline
Quote:| Some known primary effects and many secondary effects of reasonably well researched drugs (and drug inducing activities) are known to be one way functions, preventing the user from reversing the effects of using these drugs. While there are some situations where this can be beneficial, most changes are far more likely to be harmful than good (We have evolved to the point we have over a very long period of time, so much of how we function is, on the average, at least adequate. We know from the study of mutagens and genetics that most unplanned changes are likely to be harmful). |
Within the context of Psilocybin and its long history of use, how does the above still apply? Please supply references in support.
Quote:| To be effective, any psychoactive drug modifies the brain processes. As we have only one brain, this invariably prevents the effective evaluation of the effects of psychoactive drugs by the subject. |
Does this also include non-drug induced activities that “modify” brain processes e.g. drumming, chanting, etc? And if not, why not?
Quote:| Many effects which we enjoy, particularly those related to dopamine and seratonin are critical to memory, pattern matching and effective socialization, which is why the manipulation of these factors can result in significant problems for the user. |
Sure, therefore each case should be assessed individually for it is the individual that is key.
And, the serotonin system plays an important role in the biological basis for spiritual experiences.
See for example:
Jacqueline Borg, Psychol., M.Sc., Bengt Andrée, M.D., Ph.D., Henrik Soderstrom, M.D., Ph.D., and Lars Farde, M.D., Ph.D. (2003) The Serotonin System and Spiritual Experiences. Am J Psychiatry. 2003 Nov;160(11):1965-9. (ONLINE)
Quote:| It is well understood that many psychoactive drugs are best experimented with by stable and happy people with non-addictive personalities (and this seems to be at least to some extent, a function of genetic factors) as many drugs tend to magnify any instabilities already present in the personality. To my mind this suggests that changes in "safer" users are likely to be unhelpful and drug use in "less-safe" users positively dangerous. |
But this is not the whole story.
For example, the study in question concludes that at “2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes rated by community observers.”
-- Griffiths RR, Richards WA, McCann U, Jesse R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology (online edition): July 11, 2006. (PDF) – Original paper.
It is worth pointing out that the study by Griffiths et al is essentially a replication of a study conducted by Walter Pahnke at Boston University's Marsh Chapel in 1962 (it was for his Phd). A follow-up study was conducted in the mid to late 90’s and concludes that “Each (iolo: note that not all of the original subjects participated in the follow-up) of the psilocybin subjects felt that the experience had significantly affected his life in a positive way and expressed appreciation for having participated in the experiment. Most of the effects discussed in the long-term follow-up interviews centred around enhanced appreciation of life and of nature, deepened sense of joy, deepened commitment to the Christian ministry or to whatever other vocations the subjects chose, enhanced appreciation of unusual experiences and emotions, increased tolerance of other religious systems, deepened equanimity in the face of difficult life crises, and greater solidarity and identification with foreign peoples, minorities, women and nature.”
-- Rick Doblin. Pahnke's "Good Friday Experiment": A Long-Term Follow-Up and Methodological Critique. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology Vol 23 (No.1) 1991
What is missing here, and it is crucial, is succinctly stated in the Griffiths et al paper – “When administered under supportive conditions, … “ (emphasis mine)
So where is the turmoil arising from ….
Quote:| In many societies, any drug use is frowned on and even relatively innocuous drugs are outlawed. In America in particular, drug use, even when clearly victimless, is treated with a degree of brutality which generally exceeds that awarded in other categories of crime, however heinous. This means that any frowned upon drug use in such societies carries risks which, to my mind at least, far exceed any potential benefit. |
… Aha! Prohibition – or in keeping with the nature of this thread, the removal of a supportive environment/culture.
Good point BTW Hermit.
Quote:| Besides, as I tell people who ask me for my opinion on this field, I like myself as I am and appreciate my thinking abilities. I seriously doubt that any changes which drugs might instigate in my thinking would be beneficial to either my personality or my cognitive processes. So I'm reluctant to take the risk of playing games which might change either. Which means that I don't recommend them for others unless there are clearly visible reasons for doing so, and probable benefits which outweigh the risks. In my opinion, this happens, but much less often than most drug advocates - legal and less so - suggest. Clinical depression and hysterical reactions being examples of instances where the benefits far outweigh the risks. |
IMO this occurs due to the fact that these substances are pathologised. But, I will admit that this is derived from personal observation/experience with traditional cultures where these substances are considered sacraments and are not derided or consumed with the blithe attitude of a ‘few pints down the pub’ crowd. The Griffith et al study does seem to support my view, as does the research and therapy that was conducted with Psilocybin (as well as LSD, MDMA) before legislation drove these substances onto the street and into the recreational field.
Quote:| So why did I post this you may be asking? The answer is simply that it shows what I have long weykenned. Religious experiences, being indistinguishable from, or even inferior to, drug induced experiences, are likely merely a product of aberrant brain chemistry*. |
Many of the physiological and psychological aspects of trance states (spiritual experiences) point to their being ideal for metaphor generation:
- a hyper-associative,
- low-focus,
- divergent state in which the individual is open to new possibilities, is not being distracted by anxiety or a narrow (high) focus,
- and is able to destructure the limitations of previous metaphor sets as well as generate new ones.
States similar to trance are often related by people of exceptional creative ability in relation to fundamental breakthroughs. What must be stressed here is the relation of trance states to metaphor generation, not necessarily to some objective truth.
That last sentence is crucial and it harkens back to something I mentioned earlier – that it is important to dissect spiritual experience from spiritual belief because the former is a useful and beneficial aid in a route to transformative experience.
Is this really something we want to simply discard (even if it is “likely merely a product of aberrant brain chemistry” – what isn’t for that matter?)?
Quote:
Does the above then include the religion of the CoV? No. Why? Because as you so eloquently stated in another thread, it is the “belief in god(s)” that you rightly attack here, not religion.
I suggest that the same method be applied to the spiritual experience / spiritual belief dynamic and that the CoV use this information to the same end that you proposed in your excellent essay, The God Module.
iolo
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Further reading
- Griffiths RR, Richards WA, McCann U, Jesse R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology (online edition): July 11, 2006. (PDF) – Original paper.
- Editorial and commentaries on the Griffith et al study – Griffiths Commentries
- Psilocybin Bibliography
- Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies: Supporting psychedelic and medical marijuana research since 1986
- Towards a Naturalistic Spirituality
- Spirituality Without Faith
- How to be a religious atheist
- Psilocybin
- The Vaults of Erowid: Psilocybin Vault
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