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Mushroom drug produces mystical event, study says

Malcolm Ritter
Associated Press
Jul. 11, 2006 12:00 AM

NEW YORK - People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks - all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s.

Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.

Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study's lead author. advertisement




But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't."

Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.

Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression.

It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said.

Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online today by the journal Psychopharmacology.

Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said.

Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics. While they have been studied by scientists in the past, research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of the drugs during the 1960s, Griffiths said. Some work resumed in the 1990s.

The study volunteers had an average age of 46, had never used hallucinogens, and participated to some degree in religious or spiritual activities like prayer, meditation, discussion groups or religious services. Each tried psilocybin during one visit to the lab and the stimulant methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin) on one or two other visits. Only six of the volunteers knew when they were getting psilocybin.

Each visit lasted eight hours. The volunteers lay on a couch in a living-room-like setting, wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward.

Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a "complete" mystical experience, compared to four of those getting Ritalin.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive moods like joy, peace and love.

>Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs
>called hallucinogens or psychedelics.

They are also classed as entheogens, indicating the tendency to be associated with spiritual experiences.

I know for sure that my experience with mushrooms and KC / Cassey was a spiritual experience.

the dogs

One should be clear about what these experiments mean. They don't legitimize mushrooms as a way to induce spiritual experiences. They make the argument that spiritual experiences are merely variances in brain chemistry.

Natural substances such as peyote and psilocybin have been used to induce spiritual experiences for many, many centuries. What legitimacy do they need?

Lots of superstitions are very very old. That doesn't make them true. Mushrooms might make you feel like something profound is happening, that you are getting in touch with the universe at some otherwise hidden deep level. It's an illusion, no more true than a magicians trick. These experiments provide some details as to how you are being fooled.

Don't get me wrong...I enjoy a good magic show. But I treat it as the entertainment it is, and I don't make some kind of religion out of it.

I have learned a few things by visiting this website, and this bit of info is most useful. I'd classify it as the opposite of profound: it takes one down a peg, given time to ponder. It's also nice to read about actual scientific evidence being gathered on a taboo social subject.

Since I'm usually pretty quiet on the board, I thought I would weigh-in on this. It is MHO that, generally, it seems that about any experience could trigger a mystical experience. Without sounding too out there...people have had mystical experiences in concentration camps or while being tortured.

Personally, I've done mushrooms only a few times, but it lead to insights....insights that probably would have come in time or perhaps a deeper understanding of a prior insight followed...from the last experience there are insights I still am processing six months later.

But also think people do drugs for different motives. Some want to get as intoxicated and as fucked up as they can....others seek spiritual experiences and they both tend to find what they are looking for.

Probably it goes without saying, but I have had mystical expereinces in Amsterdam with and without mushrooms. Literally, I thank G-d for Amsterdam and whatever insights come my way.

Curious1996