Hallucinogens induce profound mystical experiences

Want a mystical experience? Got no time or inclination for meditation, austerities, guru-worship, or rituals? A shortcut is available: hallucinogens, such as psilocybin.

This is no surprise to baby boomers like me who experimented with LSD, mescaline, and "magic mushrooms" back in the 60's. I was searching for the Meaning Of It All, so I was part of the flower children subset who looked upon hallucinogens not only as a good time, but as a doorway to higher consciousness.

I figured that these trippy drugs had pretty much gone out of fashion. However, an article in the December 2010 issue of Scientific American informed me that research is demonstrating the promise of hallucinogens for resolving serious psychological problems.

Also, inducing profound mystical experiences. Here's one person's description of her encounter with the Light. An excerpt:

With my eyes closed I was overwhelmed with glorious golden light, suffused with every color, prisms and rainbows everywhere like a shining hologram. The Light itself was alive, a radiant consciousness of ultimate intelligence, perfect integrity, singularity and purity. The Light pervaded everything. It composed everything. Its presence was benevolent, calm, and intense.

It was as if the Light were revealing to me the innermost workings of the universe. Without words, It informed me that It, as the Light, was the source of every physical manifestation and that each had its purpose: "Everything is in my perfect control. With this as Cause, there can be no mistakes." I knew It to be the substance of every particle in the microcosm and the overarching essence of the macrocosm. In that moment I intuitively understood how everything is being created anew each instant from Its emanation. Why, then, could we not see the Light completely composing and permeating all of creation? How could the shining substance of all things be hidden? Later I remembered what the sages have always told us. The only possible answer is that our sense perceptions are an illusion.

Faced with the reality and the glory of the Light, there is nothing to do but gape with the greatest reverence. There are no questions in its Presence, no desires, no resistance. I felt suspended in a clear and peaceful state and enjoyed a weightless sense of free-fall, without time and space, though I remembered that they existed elsewhere. Even my physical surges abated, as if their purpose had been accomplished. Occasionally I still felt a faint muscle spasm, like the echo of receding thunder.

Only the first part of the Scientific American article, "Hallucinogens as Medicine," is available online. Below I'll share some passages from the piece that relate to mystical experiences which are similar, if not identical, to those reported by meditators and other non-drugged seekers of higher consciousness.

If a hallucinogen can stimulate the brain to have these experiences, this calls into question whether they are truly "spiritual" in a nonphysical sense -- as believers in the supernatural usually assume.

The experiences may point to a valid understanding of reality, though. Alternative ways of comprehending the cosmos are commonplace in human history. Logic, objectivity, and detached analyses tell us a lot about the universe, but certainly not everything.

From the article:

At the end of the session, when the psilocybin effects had dissipated, Lundhal, who had never before taken a hallucinogen, completed more questionnaires. Her responses indicated that during the time spent in the session room she had gone through a profound mystical-like experience similar to those reported by spiritual seekers in many cultures and across the ages -- one characterized by a sense of interconnectedness with all people and things, accompanied by the feeling of transcending time and space, and of sacredness and joy.

At a follow-up more than a year later, she said she continued to think about the experience every day and -- most remarkably -- that she regarded it as the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant event in her life. She felt it had brought on positive changes in her moods, attitudes and behaviors, as well as a noticeable increase in overall life satisfaction.

...The mystical-like experiences brought about by hallucinogens interest researchers particularly because such experiences have the potential to produce rapid and enduring positive changes in moods and behavior -- changes that might take years of effort to achieve with conventional psychological therapy.

...One typical comment from a subject: "The sense that all is One, that I experienced the essence of the universe and the knowing that God asks nothing of us except to receive love. I am not alone. I do not fear death. I am more patient with myself."

...In 1964 Eric Kast of Chicago Medical School, who administered LSD to terminal patients with severe pain, reported that the patients developed "a peculiar disregard for the gravity of their situations and talked freely about their impending death with an affect considered inappropriate in our Western civilization but most beneficial to their psychic states."

...Imaging of the brain areas involved in the intense emotions and thoughts people have under the drugs' influence will provide a window into the underlying physiology of mystical-type experiences produced by hallucinogens. Further research may also yield non-pharmacological approaches that work more quickly and effectively than traditional spiritual practices such as meditation or fasting to produce mystical experiences and desired behavioral changes.

...Understanding how mystical experiences can engender benevolent attitudes toward oneself and others will, in turn, aid in explaining the well-documented protective role of spirituality in psychological well-being and health. Mystical experiences can bring about a profound and enduring sense of the interconnectedness of all people and things -- a perspective that underlies the ethical teachings of the world's religious and spiritual traditions.

A grasp of the biology of the classic hallucinogens, then, could help clarify the mechanisms underlying human ethical and cooperative behavior -- knowledge that, we believe, may ultimately be crucial to the survival of the human species.

Comments

[Willie R.]

I am a few months shy of my 62nd birthday, and I have considerable experience with psychedelics, which I abandoned permanently in 1973. The preponderance of my experiences involved LSD - the kind which was produced in makeshift laboratories by enthusiastic post-graduate chemistry students - and practically the only kind the "man on the street" could ever obtain.
Segregating the LSD-25 molecule from the chemical soup in which it is found is a painstaking process which requires sophisticated equipment and great skill. There was LSD-25 in the street acid available way back when, but it was mostly molecules that were similar which made up the average dose. One of the molecules was strychnine - otherwise known as rat poison. This tended (in my experience) to make the typical acid trip a tad uncomfortable, physically. One of the lasting memory impressions I have is that it felt like I had ingested uncountable millions of tiny chain saws that were tearing me up at the cellular level - it felt a bit like the lactic acid burn that you feel when you work muscles really hard. Another observation was that it felt like I swallowed a basketball or other large object.

The physical discomfort was, mercifully, transitory and mostly confined to the onset stage, before the mental phenomena took hold.

To make a long story short - I personally confirmed the metaphysical suspicions of all of the sages, gurus, yogis, shamans and trippers that ever were.

"Reality" - or, whatever it is that "is", is completely impersonal. It has no interest in how people feel. It does what it does without sanction or approval.

The ultimate non-survival of the human species has always been a foregone conclusion.

[tucson]

From ingestion of psychoactive substances I understood:

1. Everything is OK just as it is including what may be perceived as disharmonious, uncomfortable and evil.

2. Everything is moving toward harmony and unfathomable brilliant unity, and in fact is now. All is this One great energy, consciousness or spirit.

3. Consciousness (spirit) is inherent in all things including supposedly inanimate things such as minerals, stones and gems.

4. It is possible to communicate psychically with animals and people in a visceral direct way that surpasses the symbology of language.

5. It is possible to see the future.

6. What I am you are. What you are I am.

...if I remember correctly

[Willie R.]

tucson - all the above are garden-variety insights.

Reality is far more profound than that!

[tucson]

Willie R,

I forgot to include #7 of what I understood from the use of psychoactive substaces...

An afternoon of frisbee throwing is as valid a means to "realization" as a lifetime spent performing kundalini yoga.

[Blogger Brian]

tucson, if throwing a frisbee while under the influence of psychoactive substances leads to enlightenment, I definitely should have reached the peak of self-realization.

Thanks for the comment. It threw me into a flashback of many pleasant frisbeeing hours on grassy (in more ways than one) California open spaces -- mostly on the campus of San Jose State College (now University).