Magic mushrooms really cause 'spiritual' experiences
05:01 11 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

Commonly abused drugs, NIDA
Psilocybin and Psilocyn and other Tryptamines
Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins University
Psychopharmacology

“Magic” mushrooms really do have a spiritual effect on people, according to the most rigorous look yet at this aspect of the fungus's active ingredient.

About one-third of volunteers in the carefully controlled new study had a “complete” mystical experience after taking psilocybin, with half of them describing their encounter as the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetimes.

However, psilocybin use has been associated with side effects such as severe paranoia, nervousness and unwanted flashbacks and so experts warn against experimentation. “Once you’ve started down the path, you might not like where it ends,” comments Herbert Kleber, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York, US. “These are powerful agents that are just as likely to do harm as to do good.”

Psilocybin is found in mushrooms such as the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilanceata and about 186 other species. Hippies embraced the compound during the 1960s, after its mind-altering potential was touted by Timothy Leary, then a researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But as its use grew, US lawmakers took action. It is now generally illegal to sell or possess psilocybin drugs in the US.

Demonised compound

But Roland Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, US, and his colleagues believe there is a need to revisit the biological effects of psilocybin, which have been virtually ignored by the scientific community for about 40 years. “It so traumatised our society that we’ve demonised this compound,” he says.

Griffiths's team recruited 36 healthy volunteers who had not experimented with the drug before. They were informed that they would receive a hallucinogen but did not know in which of two or three sessions they would receive it. Each session was separated by two months.

They either received a substantial dose – about 30 milligrams – of psilocybin or a similar dose of an "active" placebo, Ritalin. The latter has a stimulating effect but is not known as a hallucinogen. An inactive placebo would be easy to identify by the volunteers when compared to psilocybin, which could bias the experiences they reported.

The researchers used psychological questionnaires and found that 22 of the 36 volunteers had a “complete” mystical experience after taking psilocybin – far more than the four who reported this type of experience after taking Ritalin.

More than one-third of the volunteers said that their encounter with psilocybin was the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetimes – no person given Ritalin said the same. Experts say the study is the most rigorous study of psilocybin’s potential to elicit spiritual feelings because it is the first to use an active control.

Spiritual shortcut

However, more than 20% of the participants described their psilocybin sessions as dominated by negative feelings such as anxiety. And while psilocybin appears to mimic the brain signalling-chemical serotonin, its precise action on mind function remains elusive.

Griffiths says that in the future psilocybin might have a therapeutic use, perhaps helping people who have just learned they have cancer come to terms with the news. But he is quick to add that “the therapeutic application is very speculative”.

“My guess is that there will be people saying ‘You’re looking for a spiritual shortcut’” says Griffiths. He stresses that the drug is no replacement for the mental health benefits of continuous personal reflection: “There’s all the difference in the world between a spiritual experience and a spiritual life.”

Journal reference: Psychopharmacology (DOI: 10.1007/s00213-006-0457-5)05:01 11 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

Commonly abused drugs, NIDA
Psilocybin and Psilocyn and other Tryptamines
Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins University
Psychopharmacology

“Magic” mushrooms really do have a spiritual effect on people, according to the most rigorous look yet at this aspect of the fungus's active ingredient.

About one-third of volunteers in the carefully controlled new study had a “complete” mystical experience after taking psilocybin, with half of them describing their encounter as the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetimes.

However, psilocybin use has been associated with side effects such as severe paranoia, nervousness and unwanted flashbacks and so experts warn against experimentation. “Once you’ve started down the path, you might not like where it ends,” comments Herbert Kleber, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York, US. “These are powerful agents that are just as likely to do harm as to do good.”

Psilocybin is found in mushrooms such as the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilanceata and about 186 other species. Hippies embraced the compound during the 1960s, after its mind-altering potential was touted by Timothy Leary, then a researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But as its use grew, US lawmakers took action. It is now generally illegal to sell or possess psilocybin drugs in the US.

Demonised compound

But Roland Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, US, and his colleagues believe there is a need to revisit the biological effects of psilocybin, which have been virtually ignored by the scientific community for about 40 years. “It so traumatised our society that we’ve demonised this compound,” he says.

Griffiths's team recruited 36 healthy volunteers who had not experimented with the drug before. They were informed that they would receive a hallucinogen but did not know in which of two or three sessions they would receive it. Each session was separated by two months.

They either received a substantial dose – about 30 milligrams – of psilocybin or a similar dose of an "active" placebo, Ritalin. The latter has a stimulating effect but is not known as a hallucinogen. An inactive placebo would be easy to identify by the volunteers when compared to psilocybin, which could bias the experiences they reported.

The researchers used psychological questionnaires and found that 22 of the 36 volunteers had a “complete” mystical experience after taking psilocybin – far more than the four who reported this type of experience after taking Ritalin.

More than one-third of the volunteers said that their encounter with psilocybin was the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetimes – no person given Ritalin said the same. Experts say the study is the most rigorous study of psilocybin’s potential to elicit spiritual feelings because it is the first to use an active control.

Spiritual shortcut

However, more than 20% of the participants described their psilocybin sessions as dominated by negative feelings such as anxiety. And while psilocybin appears to mimic the brain signalling-chemical serotonin, its precise action on mind function remains elusive.

Griffiths says that in the future psilocybin might have a therapeutic use, perhaps helping people who have just learned they have cancer come to terms with the news. But he is quick to add that “the therapeutic application is very speculative”.

“My guess is that there will be people saying ‘You’re looking for a spiritual shortcut’” says Griffiths. He stresses that the drug is no replacement for the mental health benefits of continuous personal reflection: “There’s all the difference in the world between a spiritual experience and a spiritual life.”

Journal reference: Psychopharmacology (DOI: 10.1007/s00213-006-0457-5)

exelent article. I wonder how much a single dose of mushrooms runs nowadays. I'm not willing to pay more than 20 bucks, though. Bacause I can get darn close to a spiritual experience with a botle of cheap wine and my inflatable girl-friend, you know! That's ten bucks tops.

Wine is so good for us, especially the red kind. I can't speak for inflatable dolls, but I'll bet they don't come cheap! ;-)

Now, I must ask: How come we have two threads about magic mushrooms?

Evidently Hey Hey believes that this news is so important that it rates two separate threads in two sub-fora. I happen to agree with him.

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Different things to different people?

The Entheogen Theory of Religion

The entheogen theory of religion holds that the main origin and ongoing wellspring of religion is visionary plants, such as Psilocybe mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca combinations, Salvia divinorum, Cannabis, Opium, Henbane, Datura, Mandrake, Belladonna, ergot, and Amanita mushrooms.

Visionary plants have been commonly used around the world throughout the history of religion and culture (Hofmann, Schultes, & Ratsch 1992), including in the various forms of Western Esotericism (Heinrich 1994). Greek and Christian mythic-religious systems often refer to visionary plants (Ruck, Staples, & Heinrich 2001). Leading mystics throughout the history of various religions have used on-demand, visionary-plant sessions with rationality-oriented mystic-state experiencing (Merkur 2001).

Meditation, shamanic drumming, and liturgical ritual were developed as activities to do in the plant-induced dissociative state, not as methods of inducing the dissociative state in the first place.

http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm

The canning English gentleman wanted to check up something. Very wise Hey Hey, indeed.

Interesting.

I strongly suggest to replace Mushrooms with Cheese. The 'same' effect. E.g Parmesan and Masarella. It is much 'safer' than toxic mushrooms. Hope gentlemen from France and Italy will not be offended that Enki has disclosed the '"great"' secret? But do not forget, that by eating the Cheese and Mashrooms too much you run danger to loose your Freedom of Will.

But I strongly recommend to follow my experimental scheme with Red, Blue and Green Pillows presented in the mirror variant of this topic.

Guests cannot post in the other thread.

Its not the same effect.

Your experiment sounds neat. But recording ones dreams is interesting in and of itself. I highly doubt the color of ones pillows comes into it at all.

Maybe, but the real aim was very obvious, at least for me.

That is why I put brackets over the word "same"!

The colors are very important. There is a very serious physics underlining that experiment. But unfortunately better to have independent testing results prior to discuss the physics of the phenomena! The sequence of the colors must not be changed: Red, Blue, Green.

BTW it is centuries tested experiment.

This might as well admit that your pillow experiment is not particularly relevant to the discussion of the relationship between entheogenic plants and religion, and yet you quote my post and others as if it some kind of rebuttal.

Well from my own personal experience, I think that the effects of Psylocybin on me, was one of a great reflection of myself. It was more an "on the outside looking in" type experience. Very valuable imho. I feel it benefited me anyway.

No, I fully agree with the essence of your post, I just want to point at extremely important experiment. I am really sorry that I was misunderstood.

Another variant of entering in such a state is to pronounce specific sounds.

I just suggested that Experiment because it is one of the most simple and non-distractive one.

Please describe it in details. Please bring an example.

Then we are in accord. Perhaps the board would benefit from an exhaustive thread on your dream experiments and others' experience with them? Dreams are very fascinating.

How so?

....and do not forget bright yellow and bright orange!!!

....also the neurological activity assosiated with colours and what chemicals are triggered by and released in the synaptic clefts....also the psychological assosiations with colour....and yes, physics and the objective/subjective phenomena of various wavelengths and amplitudes and there assosiated energies, of course backed up by various mathematical and geometrical analogies.

The were various halleucinagenic side affects, such as my hands appearing larger and then smaller - really vivid tastes when I was eating things. The other effect, was that everything was rather monochromatic, ranging between a bright green to a dark red - it seemed to oscillate between these two colours. Also, time seemed to go strangely slow, whilst my mind raced.

As far as the experience goes, it was one of actually seeing myself as if I was a seperate person from myself. I was in a room with friends - and though I was participating in conversation and the general activity, it felt like I was not there, and I was watching this from "outside" of the group. I thought a lot more about what was being said, the way people reacted, and indeed the way I reacted and felt throughout the whole thing. It's quite difficult to explain without experiencing it for yourself - but I suppose it is roughly similiar to what one would describe as an out of body experience.

This is quite something. If I could afford I'd buy. Instead I have to dream about it. Hey, that means I can spend many hours looking....free!

Click to view attachment

Have a look at the info on this website (I googled psylocybin dissociation which revealed many other sites too).

http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu/33/

Thank you very much.
So it is partially working.

Body larger and them smaller. Very interesting.
It is difficult to explain, but the day will come it will be possible to explain.
Watching things from "outside". Quite interesting.

Could you watched things like you were looking outside from eyes of other beings: men, cats, falcons etc? Or you were looking just from outside?

As I said before, you Trip has exceptional sense of colors. My respects. One day you will produce such a masterpiece in colors that will marvel this world.

Other colors can be used as well. But in my Experiment the Red, Blue and Green are very important in the sequence I mentioned. Variations are not recommended.

You can sleep on the pillows with eyes bound with black ribbon. It works in that case as well. It works even if you go to sleep in a room where there is no illumination, so you do not see the color of the Pillow. It is very important to understand that it works even with black ribbon on the eyes.

The Physics and Metaphysics (up to now unstudied part of the physics) of that phenomena requires separate studies.

The time has come when humanity have to know something interesting about our dear Universe and God.

Interesting. Thanx.

....too late, the experiment is already contaminated because we now know that the colours are going to be red, blue and/or green, so the implant is already there and the influece has already occurred.

You need to do the experiment with a black ribbon in a black room without telling the testee what colours are represented. Otherwise it is a tainted experiment.... and besides, who isn't going to be influenced psychologically and neurological by being put in a black room with a black ribbon over their eyes. I know I would dream some weird shit, because it is not part of the normal routine that I engage in.

It works even in the case you describe.

The most interesting are the suppositions which then flow like a wide river after success in the Experiment.

The physics of the phenomena may turn to be very interesting.