Mushroom drug creates mystical experience: study

[\/\/illy]

[color:brown]Mushroom drug creates mystical experience: study

[color:gray]Last Updated Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:23:01 EDT

The Associated Press

People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behaviour 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.

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.

Beneficial behaviour changes

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 U.S. government, the research was published online Tuesday 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 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.

Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark.

"I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done" to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.

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.

"We've lost 40 years of (potential) research experience with this whole class of compounds," he said. Now, with modern-day scientific methods, "I think it's time to pick up this research field."

Inward focus

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 methylphenidate.

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 mood like joy, peace and love. People say "they can't possibly put it into words," Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 per cent ranking it in the top five.

About 80 per cent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either "moderately" or "very much."

© The Canadian Press, 2006

[edger]

And all this time I thought I was ingesting an anti-inflammatory...

I must look into this 'mysticism' they speak of... gotta get me some of that... inward reflection sounds like it might be a blast too..

I say at Lose Yer Shoes we all lie down blindfolded on the lawn, crank up the classical music, and make the world a better place...

[Baj]

im in

[timouse]

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

Funded in part by the U.S. government, the research was published online Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology.

these clips all caught my eye. i'd agree about the don't do this at home bit, it's much more fun to do it out with friends

and where can i get a subscription to Psychopharmacology? and do the Mounties hand deliver my first issue?

[Esau.]

Funny how it takes a gov't millions of dollars to come to a conclusion (of sorts) that anyone whose indulged over the years could have told them for the price of a coffee.

[SolarGarlic]

[color:black]

[color:brown]Mushroom drug creates mystical experience: study

Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting.

hmmm, strange. A rigid and controlled enviro while on boomers caused people to wig a little?

Cool artilce though! Thanks...

[color:black]

Edited July 11, 2006 by Guest

[The Chameleon]

Is this news?! Seriously, seems like this is really stating the obvious.

This just in: ALchahol makes you drunk for hours at a time.

[livingstoned]

Thanks for posting that - I've always wondered what it was like to do psychedelic drugs.

Hmmmm too bad it reads with that warning not to try it youself.

Damn warning and disclaimers always ruin all the fun.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Funny how it takes a gov't millions of dollars to come to a conclusion (of sorts) that anyone whose indulged over the years could have told them for the price of a coffee.

Well put . Pity these folks throw around words like "anecdotal" like insults.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Another angle on the same story, from the Belfast Telegraph (same day - shows where reporters' minds are at, to jump on it like that ).

Magic mushrooms can induce mystical effects, study finds

[d_rawk]

and where can i get a subscription to Psychopharmacology? and do the Mounties hand deliver my first issue?

Here.

Pity these folks throw around words like "anecdotal" like insults.

That is actually a major pet peeve of mine, and I am this close (this is me holding two fingers very closely together) to launching off into a tangent. I mean what, to take just one example, do physicians - and I pick this profession for good reason - do but modify their practice based on the anecdotal reports of their patients? So for fucks sake, how is it possible that ...

ok. Deep breath.

I'll leave it alone.

[briguy]

So on a side note what about the 20% or whatever the number was that didn’t have a positive experience? What sort of lives are they leading/living now? Are they stable, were they stable to begin with? Can a “spiritual†experience be a catalyst to more problems? Spiritual/mystical experiences have clearly been portrayed as positive in this report. A lot of times it works the other way.

I know a few people that have clearly lost their minds and it appears to be from hallucinogens. Were these folks bound to have mental issues regardless of their experience(s)/substance intake, which apparently helped their health problems develop faster? I’ve seen experienced users as well as first timers never come back. I wonder how different their lives would be if they didn’t experiment with such a powerful substance, among others.

I’ve always wondered about this because I’ve lost a few good friends from what seems to be substance related mental health issues. I guess it’s pretty hard to figure out who should and shouldn’t take the fung.

Edited July 16, 2006 by Guest
because Lazlo is a virgin

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

You're right, briguy, it's certainly nothing to make light of. I was glad to see that amid the retelling of how Syd Barrett went off the rails from hallucinogens, there were people who knew him well saying that he was on that course anyway. Of course, that does nothing to account for the terror of being plunged at whatever accelerated rate into it.

Ken Wilber, who comes perilously close, imo, to being a big flake, did come out with a good line around this in one of his books (I think it was in Transformations of Consciousness), which is that if you're seeking to become Nobody, in the mystical sense, you still have to have begun as Somebody, i.e. to have had a fairly well-integrated personality going in.

It may be that the experience forces some people's hands in dealing with problems of personal development, integrity, or authenticity, and they handle it well, but like you say, what about those who can't pull this off for any complex variety of reasons? I also wonder about the follow-up for that 20% of the people in the study.

[bouche]

apparantly there is a doc that is studying the shroom as a CURE for some forms of cancer. I haven't read the article, but a dude at work was talking about it.

[edger]

I have not READ anything specific about this, but I have HEARD of various related rumblings. I wonder if the use of shrooms in the treatment process is actually in the pursuit of an actual cure, or whether they would be used more to help an individual explore/gather insight on the process of death and dying, come to grips with their situation, facilitate the opportunity to make peace with themselves, and others, etc....

[mattm]

This study's all fine and dandy but, as stated, all they had to do was ask some folks who'd tried shrooms. Man, I'll tell them all sorts of stories. They really should have let the people run around and given them lights and glowsticks and stuff to play with though, it would have been much better, though probably not as spiritual.