psychedelia as precursor to religion

[qwe]

this post is in the form of an abbreviated paper... because it is a paper i'm working on. however, i'm not here for homework help but i do think that, besides the interesting discussion it can generate as a short bluelight treatise, making the notes available to BL could greatly improve the end paper.

if your only aim is to tear the worldview this paper espouses to shreds, realize it's a research paper exploring related evidence anyway, and either provide useful counter evidence or wait until finals are over (saturday) and then we'll have a gentlemanly debate debating a theist just goes with the morning cup of coffee.

sp.xp = spiritual experience

* religion as tool to access the spiritual experience
* examples of spiritual practices where a profound alteration of consciousness occurs and is celebrated
* possible role of attaining spiritual experience via Entheogens in starting religion
* spiritual experience as a chemical/neurological state
* modern research into potential benefits of this neurological state

*** religion as tool to access sp.xp

- access to sp.xp as primary motivating factor in perpetuating religion; functional and intellectual aspects of religion secondary and changing

- sp.xp access seems to depend on whether one has a method of attaining, not what particular religious doctrine you subscribe to

*** examples of spiritual practices where a profound alteration of consciousness occurs and is celebrated

_prayer
_meditation
_pain
_dance
_music
_fasting
_Entheogens

- the major, larger religions and secular celebrations retaining symbolism and ritualism depicting attaining the sp.xp through entheogens
_catholic mass?
_
_ {give me some good examples, you hippies bluelight P&S of all places should be able to provide some good ones here.}

*** possible role of sp.xp via entheogens in starting religion

- sp.xp via Entheogens seems to be a part of whatever precursor religion led to xtianity etc. seems to be prevalent in early religious behavior

- sp.xp as common to both religious and secular motivations. thus, it could serve as an intellectual and emotional bridge/transformer between a secular and religious society. functional aspects of religion arising later as the religion evolved with society

- sp.xp, induced by entheogen or otherwise, often includes similar effects
_ visitation and entity communication (divine or otherwise; difference?)
_ sense of profundity and clarity
_ both can have a "dark side"; demons, dark trips,
_ sense of evangelism and mission (EG tim leary)

- psychedelia as major part of art, science, after its introduction to academia and then youth: a new intellectual revival, with similarities to religious intellectual revivals based on possibly spiritual experiences achieved through entheogens?

*** sp.xp as a chemical state

- tim leary and the marsch chapel experiment, inducing reliably SPXP
- frontal lobe experiments, inducing reliably SPXP

- despite one's spiritual doctrine, the sp xp includes similar effects (as mentioned above)

- if it is simply a brain process, could entheogens be considered our best technological "dials" of this chemical process?

- if there is indeed a "real divine component" (supernatural component) to the sp.xp, what does this say about entheogens, the soul, nature, their interconnectedness, etc? what does it say about god, that he put a god-dial in our sandbox?

- as a brain process (or as a divine process), the "spiritual" can be seen anywhere with the right eyes; theorist Eliade, eg his "emerald light" experience

*** modern research into potential benefits of this neurological state

- concord prison exp, tim leary
- alcoholism and addiction (pioneered by leary, continued in modern research)
- MDMA and PTSD

- traditional religion having similar goals, different and similar methods?

hope you enjoyed the radical philosophy.

 

[L2R]

there are parallels here, but i don't see them as evidence of a link.


i think it is far more likely that religion has evolved from earlier stages in rationality and ritualised cultures/customs. i like your list of examples to induce sp.ex. your paper would be far more substantial if it focuses on each of them, rather than just psychedelia or entheogens.

 

[Changed]

- the major, larger religions and secular celebrations retaining symbolism and ritualism depicting attaining the sp.xp through entheogens
_catholic mass?
_
_ {give me some good examples, you hippies bluelight P&S of all places should be able to provide some good ones here.}

The most glaring examples can be found in Native American cultures: people drink ayahuasca to cleanse themselves physically and spiritually; I believe this is plenty of evidence that South American Indians used mescaline for religious purposes.

You also have rumors of Russian/Scandinavian/Eastern European(?) warriors eating mushrooms to enter that "berserker rage." Also, Russian shamans most likely partake/partook in psychedelia.


Also: more recently, Johns Hopkins U. did experiments with mushrooms and published a report that was largely supportive of using mushrooms as psychological healing tools.

 

[qwe]

at that point, i'm specifically looking for examples in (major) contemporary religions and secular celebrations, that don't include the actual psychedelic ritual itself, but a "remnant" of it... eg, about the warriors eating mushrooms for berserker rage, russian dolls?

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

you mean like the Eucharist ?

 

[Changed]

at that point, i'm specifically looking for examples in (major) contemporary religions and secular celebrations, that don't include the actual psychedelic ritual itself, but a "remnant" of it... eg, about the warriors eating mushrooms for berserker rage, russian dolls?

oh.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

you mean like the Eucharist ?

I would not be at all surprised if the Eucharist took some influence from the ceremonial ingestion of entheogens.

The influence is almost certainly indirect, though. More directly, the Eucharist is a vestigial remnant of the ceremonial feast, another rite common to a lot of primitive religion. It's far more common on a worldwide scale, in fact, than ceremonial entheogenic ingestion. Such feasts have always involved eating special foods that have special symbolic value to the people eating them, and are usually believed to be imbued with special powers. Often, but not always, the food eaten included a sacrificial animal, or (more controversially in modern anthropology), a sacrificed person.

I think it's most likely that entheogens ingested ceremonially were originally just another form of 'special powerful food' to be consumed only on special occasions and for special reasons. The line between food and drugs is a blurry one even today, after all.

*** possible role of sp.xp via entheogens in starting religion

One example that comes to mind for me is the architecture and design of sacred spaces. The hospital I used to work at had an interfaith chapel adorned with a big round backlit stained glass window of many colors and abstract design. I couldn't help but notice the similarity to the colorful vortex I was once sucked into on ketamine and LSD.

I really think the architecture and design of many sacred spaces is based on, and intended to capture in visual form, the mystical experience, whether drug-induced or not. They tend to be deep and multi-layered and full of fine detail. Staring at such places contemplatively can really make one wonder about what could lay beyond or behind our phenomenal world.

 

[HoneyRoastedPeanut]

<- Answer

*** possible role of sp.xp via entheogens in starting religion

Jesus conversed with a burning bush. Can anyone think of a psychotropic plant that sees widespread use in connecting with the divine? That is all.

 

[qwe]

One example that comes to mind for me is the architecture and design of sacred spaces

definitely. spiritual art is trippy as hell, i think art/what-we-call-spirituality/psychedelia are intimately linked.

just google-image hindu mandala.

 

[qwe]

yeah, i'm narrowing the focus of the paper quite a bit, L2R, as i start to work on it.

i (re-)found a great portal for research publications about this stuff, but i can't find one thing, if you guys want to help anyone know of any publications comparing the visuals of psychedelics and religious artwork like mandalas?

 

[qwe]

you mean like the Eucharist ?

yup

"the body of our lord"

nice one

 

[B9]

Jesus conversed with a burning bush. Can anyone think of a psychotropic plant that sees widespread use in connecting with the divine? That is all.

I thought that was someone else & it happened just after being released from about seventy years of captivity by a power who's religion included practicing firegazing to communicate with Ahura Mazda ( the good deity - God if you like) - no idea if the caps are appropriate or not - I expect Jamshyd would know correct me if I'm wrong on that.
I'd imagine it's relatively easy to fall into trance/meditative state in front of a fire in nigh utter blackness of deserts.

 

[Shrooms00087]

I'd imagine it's relatively easy to fall into trance/meditative state in front of a fire in nigh utter blackness of deserts.

You saying that reminds me that Amazonian Shamans only use sacraments as a 'jumping off point' or an introductory to their "coarse" if you will. Basically, only the noobs take drugs to heal.


*Btw Q I'm interested in this I just don't have much to add. May I ask if you have read Terrence McKenna? Definitely an eccentric person, but did not suffer from leary-idiocy-timothy-itis.

 

[qwe]

^ lol... i have the reverse perspective. leary is my guy, i've read a lot of his philosophy and i've also read/heard some of mckenna's. mckenna is a little kooky/out-there for me, while leary is cutting-edge and spot-on on social theory and psychedelia in general.

btw, for those interested, my paper (would be better had i not procrastinated the shit out of it)

NSFW:

Spiritual Ethnomycology

In the early 1950s, R Gordon Wasson, an avid mycologist, was studying mycology in indigenous Mexico. During 1955, he participated in a religious ritual where mushrooms were first celebrated and then consumed. He emerged from the experience "awestruck" and proceeded to attempt to secure a supply of these mushrooms and their psychoactive compound for research purposes (Wasson 116).

Wasson was not the only researcher who would become interested in these compounds, and their significance in many aspects of society, including religion. Tim Leary learned of these experiments through colleague Anthony Russo, and Leary partook in the ceremony in 1960 (Grob).

Both of these researchers relayed "undescribable" and "profound" experiences. Leary made the bold claim that he learned more about psychology during the five hour mushrooms experience than he had in his fifteen years of studying and researching psychology, and Wasson mentioned that "it was a climax to nearly 30 years of inquiries and research into the strange role of toadstools in the early cultural history of Europe and Asia." (Wasson 101)

The spiritual aspect of mushrooms had previously been largely ignored in mycology, and mycology had been largely ignored in the study of religion. Anthropologists in Mexico were embarking on unexplored territory. In indigenous Mexico, there are five distinct cultural regions where the natives invoke entheogenic mushrooms. The mushrooms, notably, are called by the natives "flesh of the gods". Besides religious ceremonies, the mushrooms have a particular psychosocial functional use (one that the tribes are consciously aware of): The natives "consult the mushrooms when distraught with great problems" (Wasson 118), including about matters of mortality. The mushrooms thus participate in their intellectual development.

Religion, intellectual development, and the spiritual experience seem to be intimately linked. Researchers like Robert Graves, Gordon Wasson, and theologian Alan Watts have even surmised that psychedelic drugs may have been a precursor to religion (Smith). If entheogenic compounds induce spiritual-like thinking, perhaps they could serve as a sort of bridge between a secular and religious society.

In fact, fungi seem to be culturally bathed in an aura of divinity across the entire world (Wasson 115). Early populations as diverse as the Dyaks of Borneo, Hagen natives of New Guinea, and the Aztecs and their "God's flesh" all had recourse to entheogenic mushrooms. There is an ancient tradition of "divine mushrooms of immortality" in China and Japan, and the Guatama Bhudda at his last supper supposedly ate a dish of mushrooms and was then translated to nirvana (Wasson 116) .

Scholars like Gordon Wasson and Aldous Huxley have considered hallucinogenic plants to be the "bedrock of human civilization" (Grob). Psychedelics, in aboriginal and shamanic contexts, have been at the "absolute center of culture and world view" and used to "access vital information imperative to tribal cohesion and survival." Shamans used "awe-inspiring botanicals" to assist healing, interpret the future, defend the tribe and facilitate teaching (e.g. learning to hunt). However, these same drugs became dangerous to authority with the introduction of hierarchical and stratified societies, and "controls were placed on direct access to the sacred" (Grob). Contemporary rituals of major religion, for example, the Eucharist and "eating the body of Christ" could perhaps be remnants of hallucinogen-eating, and such controls placed on psychedelics may explain the separation of the holy sacraments of Catholic mass from the churchgoers.

It is worth noting the distinct difference in pharmacology between psychedelic drugs (which include LSD, mescaline in peyote, psilocybin in mushrooms, cannabis, and dozens of new compounds developed by more recent chemists like Alexander Shulgin) and other drugs, including hallucinogens and stimulants and narcotics, which have also been used in spiritual practices. Besides the dramatic phenomenological differences, psychedelic drugs appear to induce no addiction like that of other classes of drugs. Wasson noted that, when the rainy seasons were over and mushrooms were no longer available, the Mexican natives showed no physiological or psychological signs of craving (Wasson 119). Indeed, neurological tolerance to these drugs works in such a way as to prevent daily use in the first place. Taking a psychedelic daily will render its effects minimal or nonexistent by the second or third day. The similar effect of different psychedelic drugs should also be stressed; despite chemical differences, LSD, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, et al, all have an equivalent mechanism of action (Unger). Even experienced users cannot reliably tell them apart in the laboratory.

When entheogens first appeared on the academic scene, there was not only a lack of data regarding their mycology and botany and chemistry, but also a lack of data regarding the psychoactive effects of these kinds of compounds at all. New nomenclature and an entirely new paradigm in pharmacology were required. Different researchers have used different nomenclatures for these substances and their effects. Among the most popular terms are "psychedelic", literally, to reveal aspects of the mind previously hidden; "entheogen", literally, to generate divinity within; "hallucinogen", literally, to induce hallucinations; and more recently, "empathogen", literally, to generate empathy. The term "hallucinogen" is, in regards to these particular compounds, somewhat of a misnomer: psychedelic drugs, at normal doses, do not produce technical "hallucinations", which are perceptions that one believes are real but have no basis in reality; rather, they produce "illusions" and "visuals" that the user is quite aware are "not normal". A very early term, "psychotomimetik", literally to mimic psychosis, has been abandoned in the literature when it was shown that psychedelic drugs are in fact not useful platforms for studying psychosis (Pahnke)

The question of whether the potential religious experience induced by entheogenic compounds is "genuine" was a question actively pursued by researchers. Around the time that musicians, artists, and intellectuals were being introduced to these compounds in regards to the their effects on creativity, theologians and divinity students were introduced to entheogens as well.

The "Good Friday" experiment of 1962 was a pivotal publication concerning the religious effects of enthogens. "Experiences previously possible for only a small minority of people, and difficult to study because of their unpredictability and rarity, are now reproducible under suitable conditions." (Pahnke). Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and mescaline were declared important tools for the study of the mystical state of consciousness.

The study was an empirical inquiry into whether drugs can induce a spiritual experience. It was conducted by Pahnke under the supervision of Timothy Leary. Twenty Protestant divinity students, from similar backgrounds and belonging to the same congregation, were given a capsule of either placebo or psilocybin before listening to two one and a half hour services taking place in another part of the building through loudspeakers. The service included organ music, readings, prayers, and personal meditation.

Careful attention was given to the "set" and "setting" of the participants, terms coined by Harvard sociologist Tim Leary. The "set" includes one's expectations and state of mind when taking the drug, while the "setting" refers to the physical environment one is in (Unger). These variables have a large impact on the phenomenological aspects of the chemically induced experience. The students were selected from the same congregation and given extensive medical and psychological testing to ensure a similar set, and the setting was chosen as their familiar worship environment. Attention was paid to reducing fear and increasing trust in the setting by instructing the "group leaders" to help maximize positive expectation.

What neither the subject participants nor the group leaders knew was what criteria their experiences would be qualitatively evaluated on. Pahnke and colleagues devised a characteristic set of phenomenological attributes to the "mystical experience", after studying the writings of mystics themselves and of scholars attempting to characterize the mystical experience (e.g. William James). They then qualitatively compared the subjects' accounts with these attributes common to mystical experiences. These categories included "unity" (e.g., a sense of oneness with the universe), "transcendence of time and space" (e.g., time dilation), "deeply felt positive mood", "sense of sacredness", "objectivity and reality" (i.e. insightful illumination felt at an intuitive level), "paradoxicality" (e.g. experiencing opposites), "alleged ineffability" (i.e. the experience is beyond explanation), "transiency" (i.e. the temporary nature of the mystical experience) and "persisting positive changes in attitude and behavior". (Pahnke)

While numerous steps were taken to make the experiment nonbiased, the methodology has been criticized by a number of researchers. The double-blind nature of the experiment, for example, was compromised in two ways: the active placebo (nicotinic acid) has a shorter onset time, causing those in the placebo group to believe they were in the psilocybin group; and the placebo also has a shorter duration of action, allowing the participants to realize who was in the control group and who received psilocybin once the effects of the nicotinic acid wore off and the psilocybin started kicking in (Doblin, "Pahnke's 'Good Friday...."). The questionnaire used to measure the occurrence of mystical experience, while generally accepted as valid, was seen as incomplete by Zaehner for omitting specifically Christian experiences such as "identification with the death and rebirth of Jesus Christ." Zaehner points out that it is impossible to tell if the experiences reported by the Good Friday subjects were religious, because these specific Christian religious experiences are the most relevant to these specific subjects (Protestant divinity students) (Doblin, "Pahnke's 'Good Friday...").

The similarity between the spiritual experience capable of being induced by LSD and mystical experiences attained in other ways raises unsettling questions about the nature of religion. Walter Houston Clark divides religious life into three categories: thought and contemplation, active expression of religious principles, and a third "non-rational" component: encountering the "Holy" (Clark). If such an encounter can be induced semi-reliably with methods like fasting, prayer, meditation, dance, music, and very reliably with certain chemicals, could "the Holy" be simply a neurochemical state? If religion is fundamentally about encountering the holy, a specific state of mind that does not vary depending on one's ideological doctrine, this is further evidence that entheogens may have played an important role in the development of the religion and could help to explain why so many prehistoric cultures partook in these ceremonies.

Contemporary science has reinforced these parallels between psychedelic drugs and religion. For example, research into the visual cortex of the human brain has taken advantage of the visual effects of psychedelics and other hallucinations in order to determine how this region of the brain works (Bressloff); these "geometric hallucinations" bear a striking resemblance to many works of esoteric and Hindu spiritual art (e.g., the mandala). Other research has shown the physiological brain changes that occur during a psychedelic "trip" to be as profoundly perspective-shifting as events like having children (Unger). The idea of the spiritual experience including a sense of being "reborn" is just as crucial to the psychedelic experience as it is to the mystical experience (Unger).

Michael Persinger, an Ontario cognitive neuroscientist, has invented what he calls the "God helmet." Utilizing previous findings concerning magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobe of the brain and its reliable inducing of experiences that feel "supernatural", the God helmet consists of electrodes placed in such an arrangement as to apply a gentle magnetic field to this region to induce "paranormal activity" (Persinger). Persinger hypothesizes that much of human paranormal experience is related to varying magnetic fields (e.g., geological activity) and their effects on neurophysiology.

On the one hand, the reach of technology and science into the sacred could be seen as refuting the very existence of the "sacred". On the other hand, science has also "clearly shown that experiences of God might not always be the preoccupation of a patient with classically disorganized thoughts" (i.e. psychosis) (Persinger). The introduction of psychedelics to academic research with publications by Wasson, Leary, and others, spurred a large volume of ensuing research. Entheogens have been studied in areas as diverse as psychotherapy and self actualization, the religious experience and development of early culture, medical therapies and treatments, and more. While most research abruptly ended with the DEA's scheduling of these substances and refusal to grant research permits (Doblin "Dr. Leary's Concord..."), even after Leary demonstrated a reduced prison recidivism rate from 60% to 20% in his Concord Prison experiment as he turned his subjects "from prisoners to prophets" (Leary) and other therapeutic and research benefits were revealed. However, a recent "psychedelic renaissance" has been gaining momentum in academia (Grob).

REF

the post won't post with the references copy pasted, if you're interested in the ref's feel free to PM

 

[Shrooms00087]

^ lol... i have the reverse perspective. leary is my guy, i've read a lot of his philosophy and i've also read/heard some of mckenna's. mckenna is a little kooky/out-there for me, while leary is cutting-edge and spot-on on social theory and psychedelia in general.

Well don't get me wrong his early works were that of a sane man. Most of his psychedelic rhetoric was Aldous Huxley's. Timothy then became popular treated women poorly, told people to drop out of the system (Those who did failed, those who didn't got things like rights), insanely self absorbed, and then in the end all around bonkers...Much like McKenna, but I was referring to "Food of the Gods".

Btw I enjoyed your paper.

 

[L2R]

One example that comes to mind for me is the architecture and design of sacred spaces. The hospital I used to work at had an interfaith chapel adorned with a big round backlit stained glass window of many colors and abstract design. I couldn't help but notice the similarity to the colorful vortex I was once sucked into on ketamine and LSD.

I really think the architecture and design of many sacred spaces is based on, and intended to capture in visual form, the mystical experience, whether drug-induced or not. They tend to be deep and multi-layered and full of fine detail. Staring at such places contemplatively can really make one wonder about what could lay beyond or behind our phenomenal world.

Islamic art is particularly psychedelic since it contains no images of people.

 

[Divine Moments]

^ lol... i have the reverse perspective. leary is my guy, i've read a lot of his philosophy and i've also read/heard some of mckenna's. mckenna is a little kooky/out-there for me, while leary is cutting-edge and spot-on on social theory and psychedelia in general.

btw, for those interested, my paper (would be better had i not procrastinated the shit out of it)

NSFW:

Spiritual Ethnomycology

In the early 1950s, R Gordon Wasson, an avid mycologist, was studying mycology in indigenous Mexico. During 1955, he participated in a religious ritual where mushrooms were first celebrated and then consumed. He emerged from the experience "awestruck" and proceeded to attempt to secure a supply of these mushrooms and their psychoactive compound for research purposes (Wasson 116).

Wasson was not the only researcher who would become interested in these compounds, and their significance in many aspects of society, including religion. Tim Leary learned of these experiments through colleague Anthony Russo, and Leary partook in the ceremony in 1960 (Grob).

Both of these researchers relayed "undescribable" and "profound" experiences. Leary made the bold claim that he learned more about psychology during the five hour mushrooms experience than he had in his fifteen years of studying and researching psychology, and Wasson mentioned that "it was a climax to nearly 30 years of inquiries and research into the strange role of toadstools in the early cultural history of Europe and Asia." (Wasson 101)

The spiritual aspect of mushrooms had previously been largely ignored in mycology, and mycology had been largely ignored in the study of religion. Anthropologists in Mexico were embarking on unexplored territory. In indigenous Mexico, there are five distinct cultural regions where the natives invoke entheogenic mushrooms. The mushrooms, notably, are called by the natives "flesh of the gods". Besides religious ceremonies, the mushrooms have a particular psychosocial functional use (one that the tribes are consciously aware of): The natives "consult the mushrooms when distraught with great problems" (Wasson 118), including about matters of mortality. The mushrooms thus participate in their intellectual development.

Religion, intellectual development, and the spiritual experience seem to be intimately linked. Researchers like Robert Graves, Gordon Wasson, and theologian Alan Watts have even surmised that psychedelic drugs may have been a precursor to religion (Smith). If entheogenic compounds induce spiritual-like thinking, perhaps they could serve as a sort of bridge between a secular and religious society.

In fact, fungi seem to be culturally bathed in an aura of divinity across the entire world (Wasson 115). Early populations as diverse as the Dyaks of Borneo, Hagen natives of New Guinea, and the Aztecs and their "God's flesh" all had recourse to entheogenic mushrooms. There is an ancient tradition of "divine mushrooms of immortality" in China and Japan, and the Guatama Bhudda at his last supper supposedly ate a dish of mushrooms and was then translated to nirvana (Wasson 116) .

Scholars like Gordon Wasson and Aldous Huxley have considered hallucinogenic plants to be the "bedrock of human civilization" (Grob). Psychedelics, in aboriginal and shamanic contexts, have been at the "absolute center of culture and world view" and used to "access vital information imperative to tribal cohesion and survival." Shamans used "awe-inspiring botanicals" to assist healing, interpret the future, defend the tribe and facilitate teaching (e.g. learning to hunt). However, these same drugs became dangerous to authority with the introduction of hierarchical and stratified societies, and "controls were placed on direct access to the sacred" (Grob). Contemporary rituals of major religion, for example, the Eucharist and "eating the body of Christ" could perhaps be remnants of hallucinogen-eating, and such controls placed on psychedelics may explain the separation of the holy sacraments of Catholic mass from the churchgoers.

It is worth noting the distinct difference in pharmacology between psychedelic drugs (which include LSD, mescaline in peyote, psilocybin in mushrooms, cannabis, and dozens of new compounds developed by more recent chemists like Alexander Shulgin) and other drugs, including hallucinogens and stimulants and narcotics, which have also been used in spiritual practices. Besides the dramatic phenomenological differences, psychedelic drugs appear to induce no addiction like that of other classes of drugs. Wasson noted that, when the rainy seasons were over and mushrooms were no longer available, the Mexican natives showed no physiological or psychological signs of craving (Wasson 119). Indeed, neurological tolerance to these drugs works in such a way as to prevent daily use in the first place. Taking a psychedelic daily will render its effects minimal or nonexistent by the second or third day. The similar effect of different psychedelic drugs should also be stressed; despite chemical differences, LSD, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, et al, all have an equivalent mechanism of action (Unger). Even experienced users cannot reliably tell them apart in the laboratory.

When entheogens first appeared on the academic scene, there was not only a lack of data regarding their mycology and botany and chemistry, but also a lack of data regarding the psychoactive effects of these kinds of compounds at all. New nomenclature and an entirely new paradigm in pharmacology were required. Different researchers have used different nomenclatures for these substances and their effects. Among the most popular terms are "psychedelic", literally, to reveal aspects of the mind previously hidden; "entheogen", literally, to generate divinity within; "hallucinogen", literally, to induce hallucinations; and more recently, "empathogen", literally, to generate empathy. The term "hallucinogen" is, in regards to these particular compounds, somewhat of a misnomer: psychedelic drugs, at normal doses, do not produce technical "hallucinations", which are perceptions that one believes are real but have no basis in reality; rather, they produce "illusions" and "visuals" that the user is quite aware are "not normal". A very early term, "psychotomimetik", literally to mimic psychosis, has been abandoned in the literature when it was shown that psychedelic drugs are in fact not useful platforms for studying psychosis (Pahnke)

The question of whether the potential religious experience induced by entheogenic compounds is "genuine" was a question actively pursued by researchers. Around the time that musicians, artists, and intellectuals were being introduced to these compounds in regards to the their effects on creativity, theologians and divinity students were introduced to entheogens as well.

The "Good Friday" experiment of 1962 was a pivotal publication concerning the religious effects of enthogens. "Experiences previously possible for only a small minority of people, and difficult to study because of their unpredictability and rarity, are now reproducible under suitable conditions." (Pahnke). Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and mescaline were declared important tools for the study of the mystical state of consciousness.

The study was an empirical inquiry into whether drugs can induce a spiritual experience. It was conducted by Pahnke under the supervision of Timothy Leary. Twenty Protestant divinity students, from similar backgrounds and belonging to the same congregation, were given a capsule of either placebo or psilocybin before listening to two one and a half hour services taking place in another part of the building through loudspeakers. The service included organ music, readings, prayers, and personal meditation.

Careful attention was given to the "set" and "setting" of the participants, terms coined by Harvard sociologist Tim Leary. The "set" includes one's expectations and state of mind when taking the drug, while the "setting" refers to the physical environment one is in (Unger). These variables have a large impact on the phenomenological aspects of the chemically induced experience. The students were selected from the same congregation and given extensive medical and psychological testing to ensure a similar set, and the setting was chosen as their familiar worship environment. Attention was paid to reducing fear and increasing trust in the setting by instructing the "group leaders" to help maximize positive expectation.

What neither the subject participants nor the group leaders knew was what criteria their experiences would be qualitatively evaluated on. Pahnke and colleagues devised a characteristic set of phenomenological attributes to the "mystical experience", after studying the writings of mystics themselves and of scholars attempting to characterize the mystical experience (e.g. William James). They then qualitatively compared the subjects' accounts with these attributes common to mystical experiences. These categories included "unity" (e.g., a sense of oneness with the universe), "transcendence of time and space" (e.g., time dilation), "deeply felt positive mood", "sense of sacredness", "objectivity and reality" (i.e. insightful illumination felt at an intuitive level), "paradoxicality" (e.g. experiencing opposites), "alleged ineffability" (i.e. the experience is beyond explanation), "transiency" (i.e. the temporary nature of the mystical experience) and "persisting positive changes in attitude and behavior". (Pahnke)

While numerous steps were taken to make the experiment nonbiased, the methodology has been criticized by a number of researchers. The double-blind nature of the experiment, for example, was compromised in two ways: the active placebo (nicotinic acid) has a shorter onset time, causing those in the placebo group to believe they were in the psilocybin group; and the placebo also has a shorter duration of action, allowing the participants to realize who was in the control group and who received psilocybin once the effects of the nicotinic acid wore off and the psilocybin started kicking in (Doblin, "Pahnke's 'Good Friday...."). The questionnaire used to measure the occurrence of mystical experience, while generally accepted as valid, was seen as incomplete by Zaehner for omitting specifically Christian experiences such as "identification with the death and rebirth of Jesus Christ." Zaehner points out that it is impossible to tell if the experiences reported by the Good Friday subjects were religious, because these specific Christian religious experiences are the most relevant to these specific subjects (Protestant divinity students) (Doblin, "Pahnke's 'Good Friday...").

The similarity between the spiritual experience capable of being induced by LSD and mystical experiences attained in other ways raises unsettling questions about the nature of religion. Walter Houston Clark divides religious life into three categories: thought and contemplation, active expression of religious principles, and a third "non-rational" component: encountering the "Holy" (Clark). If such an encounter can be induced semi-reliably with methods like fasting, prayer, meditation, dance, music, and very reliably with certain chemicals, could "the Holy" be simply a neurochemical state? If religion is fundamentally about encountering the holy, a specific state of mind that does not vary depending on one's ideological doctrine, this is further evidence that entheogens may have played an important role in the development of the religion and could help to explain why so many prehistoric cultures partook in these ceremonies.

Contemporary science has reinforced these parallels between psychedelic drugs and religion. For example, research into the visual cortex of the human brain has taken advantage of the visual effects of psychedelics and other hallucinations in order to determine how this region of the brain works (Bressloff); these "geometric hallucinations" bear a striking resemblance to many works of esoteric and Hindu spiritual art (e.g., the mandala). Other research has shown the physiological brain changes that occur during a psychedelic "trip" to be as profoundly perspective-shifting as events like having children (Unger). The idea of the spiritual experience including a sense of being "reborn" is just as crucial to the psychedelic experience as it is to the mystical experience (Unger).

Michael Persinger, an Ontario cognitive neuroscientist, has invented what he calls the "God helmet." Utilizing previous findings concerning magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobe of the brain and its reliable inducing of experiences that feel "supernatural", the God helmet consists of electrodes placed in such an arrangement as to apply a gentle magnetic field to this region to induce "paranormal activity" (Persinger). Persinger hypothesizes that much of human paranormal experience is related to varying magnetic fields (e.g., geological activity) and their effects on neurophysiology.

On the one hand, the reach of technology and science into the sacred could be seen as refuting the very existence of the "sacred". On the other hand, science has also "clearly shown that experiences of God might not always be the preoccupation of a patient with classically disorganized thoughts" (i.e. psychosis) (Persinger). The introduction of psychedelics to academic research with publications by Wasson, Leary, and others, spurred a large volume of ensuing research. Entheogens have been studied in areas as diverse as psychotherapy and self actualization, the religious experience and development of early culture, medical therapies and treatments, and more. While most research abruptly ended with the DEA's scheduling of these substances and refusal to grant research permits (Doblin "Dr. Leary's Concord..."), even after Leary demonstrated a reduced prison recidivism rate from 60% to 20% in his Concord Prison experiment as he turned his subjects "from prisoners to prophets" (Leary) and other therapeutic and research benefits were revealed. However, a recent "psychedelic renaissance" has been gaining momentum in academia (Grob).

REF

the post won't post with the references copy pasted, if you're interested in the ref's feel free to PM

I enjoyed reading that, thanks for posting (I don't know enough on the subject to give useful feedback)

 

[Toast to the Spirits]

For me, psychedelia freed me from mainstream religion. It was the abuse of drugs that was a precursor to my indoctrination. Strangely, psychedelia has also inspired me to start a religion-something I've yet to accomplish cause I haven't found the time to fully dedicate myself to it.

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

I love how everything is interconnected. This is my precursor to any sort of spirituality, and it's what I held with me even when I was a very stark atheist. Psychedelics just sort of help with the realization of the interconnection, as well as the internal realization of other fundamental truths. All of the spiritual principles can be arrived at without psychedelics, but they certainly have the potential to speed things up for a perceptive individual.

 

[qwe]

^ i believe that it not only speeds things up, but allows for states otherwise inaccessible. you can only pack so many 5HT onto the 5HT2A's without a neurological disorder or a drug.

Strangely, psychedelia has also inspired me to start a religion-something I've yet to accomplish cause I haven't found the time to fully dedicate myself to it.

one of tim leary's big things was to get people to start their own religions