The headline of a feature article in The New Yorker (February 5, 1915) reports with some breathlessness that after several years of university investigation, “Research into psychedelics, shut down for decades, is now yielding exciting results.”
The less breathless author of the excellent and lengthy article, journalist Michael Pollan, describes the history of psychedelic research and reports on new clinical trials at New York University in which “psilocybin—the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms—was being administered to cancer patients in an effort to relieve their anxiety and ‘existential distress.’” One participant had applied to the study after reading that under the influence of the hallucinogen, “individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states . . . and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance.” (That sounds oddly familiar…do you hear it?)
The NYU project is “part of a renaissance of psychedelic research taking place at several universities in the United States, including Johns Hopkins, the Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center, and the University of New Mexico, as well as at Imperial College, in London, and the University of Zurich.”
Pollan notes that “The first wave of research into psychedelics was doomed by an excessive exuberance about their potential” (which also sounds familiar). He quotes Stanislav Grof as saying that psychedelics ‘“loosed the Dionysian element’ on America, posing a threat to the country’s Puritan values that was bound to be repulsed. (He thinks the same thing could happen again.)”
The threat to conventional values and hierarchical structures was perceived as so great that forty-five years ago, Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act prohibited the use of most psychedelics in the US for any purpose and effectively closing down research. With these new studies here and in the UK and Switzerland, governments are guardedly allowing limited study to resume, introducing a new generation of scientists to the mysteries of psychedelics.
This is exceptionally good news and about time.But keep listening.
Pollan notes that with the Act, “what had been learned was all but erased from the field of psychiatry.” An early-middle-aged leader of the NYU study says, “By the time I got to medical school, no one even talked about it.”
What is language for, if not to pass on what earlier generations have learned?
“Many researchers I spoke with,” said Pollan, “described their findings with excitement, some using words like ‘mind-blowing.’” Here are some other quotes from the NYU scientists:
“I felt a little like an archeologist unearthing a completely buried body of knowledge,…Some of the best minds in psychiatry had seriously studied these compounds in therapeutic models, with government funding.”
“I thought the first ten or twenty people were plants—that they must be faking it.…They were saying things like ‘I understand love is the most powerful force on the planet,’ or ‘I had an encounter with my cancer, this black cloud of smoke.’ People who had been palpably scared of death—they lost their fear. The fact that a drug given once can have such an effect for so long is an unprecedented finding. We have never had anything like it in the psychiatric field.”
“People don’t realize how few tools we have in psychiatry to address existential distress. Xanax isn’t the answer. So how can we not explore this, if it can recalibrate how we die?”
A follow-up study…found that the psilocybin experience also had a positive and lasting effect on the personality of most participants. This is a striking result, since the conventional wisdom in psychology holds that personality is usually fixed by age thirty and thereafter is unlikely to substantially change. But more than a year after their psilocybin sessions volunteers who had had the most complete mystical experiences showed significant increases in their “openness,” one of the five domains that psychologists look at in assessing personality traits.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘mind-blowing,’…but, as a scientific phenomenon, if you can create conditions in which seventy per cent of people will say they have had one of the five most meaningful experiences of their lives? To a scientist, that’s just incredible.”
~ ~ ~
Well, now. Quite frankly, I am still shaking my head.
What strikes me in reading Pollan’s superb article is the tone of utter astonishment in the researchers—astonishment equating with silo-bred ignorance not only of the years immediately preceding their arrival in the world but, as scientists, of what has been going on all along in related fields. What they are discovering has not been ‘a completely buried field of knowledge.” Stanislav Grof has never stopped his work on these states of consciousness. Life After Life has been selling well since 1975, piling up mountains of corroborating experience accounts saying exactly what these researchers are hearing from their study participants. How have they missed Eben Alexander? The whole field of Transpersonal Psychology emerged during those years. There has been no end of conversation and policy-making around psychedelics and spirituality. How did that all pass them by?
How is it possible they have not encountered these ideas in all their years of education?
Mind you, I am as guilty as the psychiatrists of living in the silo of my own life experience. It’s just that psychedelics had such a profound impact on the music, literature, awareness, and cultural shaping of the world they grew into, it seems insane that the subject could so thoroughly vanish. The article does at least notice Stanislav Grof, but only in passing.
What is language for, if not to pass on what earlier generations have learned?
Granted, the intensity of grad school professional training pushes everything else to the side. But how have these educated people managed to bypass the media attention to near-death experience? An amazing agility, perhaps. As pleased as I am for them and their excitement, I do a doubletake at the sense that they have planted their own flag claiming this as new territory, and all theirs. Neurospirituality!
This all reminds me of another story, from the 1990s when University of New Mexico psychiatrist Rick Strassman, author of the groundbreaking DMT: The Spirit Molecule had received unprecedented government and university approval for a study of the possibility that the endogenous (natural) psychedelic DMT might play a role in triggering mystical experience. Over five years, Strassman administered roughly 400 doses of DMT to sixty volunteer subjects to chart the range of their psychological experiences.
The experiences they reported ranged from brief episodes that were like full-fledged psychotic episodes with paranoid fantasies to sessions that seemed to be mystical experiences—bliss, ineffability, timelessness. However, it was also evident that for individuals unprepared for the possible effects of DMT, the effects could be terrifying.
Almost half of Strassman’s sample encountered otherworldly beings, described as clowns, elves, robots, insects, E.T.-style humanoids, or “entities” that defied description. They were not always friendly. One of Strassman’s subjects claimed to have been eaten alive by insectoid creatures. In part out of concern about this negative experience, Strassman discontinued his research.
Shinzen Young, the American Buddhist teacher of mindfulness meditation, has a quote which throws a curious and remarkable light on Strassman’s findings. In one of the teaching sessions on his CD series titled The Science of Enlightenment, Shinzen talks about the terrifying images that may appear in advanced meditation—grotesque, otherworldly, demonic, even insectoid (my italics)—just like the images reported by Strassman’s volunteers.
Here is what Shinzen says about the images:
[T]hey are best interpreted as part of a natural process of release from the deep archetypal levels of the mind. Such upwelling visionary material is a natural function of human consciousness and should not be cause for the slightest concern: You are not going crazy. You are not going to get weird. You are not going to be possessed by devils, assailed by Satanists, or devoured by monsters. You are not going to be sucked into another world. However, if you have a history of prior mental illness, you should discuss these phenomena both with your meditation teacher and a therapist.
Unfortunately, psychiatric and meditative silos apparently have no shared communication. Strassman evidently had not heard of anything like Shinzen Young’s analysis, for that might have saved a major research project and provided useful information to study participants. The difficult experiences in the Strassman study contribute background to the worried reactions today, which are mentioned in the Pollan article. (University of New Mexico is one of the renaissance research sites.)
Now, once again, we hear researchers believing they have discovered something altogether unique, exciting yet possibly dangerous. They will devote their energies and their funding to an exploration of the biochemistry of psilocybin and LSD and whatever other psychedelics they are permitted to study.
I hope their silo has windows through which they can see their relationship with the decades of work of Carl Jung and Stanislav Grof, demonstrating that something about the human psyche functions as a gigantic warehouse with the “deep archetypal levels” Shinzen mentions. I hope they can have some connection with the work of Charles Tart and Ken Wilber. I hope they find Shinzen Young.
The new generation of research seems likely to identify the chemistry of those deepest levels, what Jung called the “collective unconscious,” the repository of humanity’s symbols and icons and most moving images (and sometimes the most horrifying). But why? How? What do they mean? Are mystical/spiritual experiences only drug responses?
Not even the new batch of biochemical studies can answer those questions. That’s for the rest of us to deal with. Let us be very certain our silos have a clear view of the entire landscape.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/05/psychedelic-drugs-like-lsd-could-be-used-to-treat-depression-study-suggests]
Nancy, I really can’t add much to your well thought, well written article that contains your tongue-in-cheek humor! (Always love to read your thoughts!)
In any event, the use of psychotropic drugs to obtain enlightenment can be dangerous unless under the guidance of experienced shamans and the like. To do this to overcome the fear of death…well…if it is a “bad trip” it could create more fear!
Other than this, I’m shaking me head along with you! 🙂
Lin, I should probably have given them more credit, at least for recognizing that the brilliant mystical trips are accompanied by some really disturbing ones. Would that distressing NDEs had that much recognition! But still…as you say, shaking the head. 🙂
Excellent observations, as usual, Nan.
I had an experience of my own (psilocybin) about 30 yrs ago that forever shaped my view of these kind of substances. I accidently double dosed, and though I followed the advice of more experienced friends and “tripped” outside in nature, the weather turned on me and I had to retreat to my house–I had been warned about tripping inside and how it isn’t conducive to a positive experience. The “trip” was not hallucinatory as much as introspective in nature– I initially was shown the uniqueness and positive qualities of “Steve”, then I went through ego death, which was wrenching! By evening I felt completely “straight”, yet sensed that something very subtle was missing–my responses to my environment were gone I soon discovered. I tried to eat, yet the food felt foreign in my mouth and I spit it out. I felt cold, so I started a fire in my stove only to find that it had no effect–the coldness was in my chest and I felt it as a cold void where my soul had been! I was shocked and horrified at this realization(feeling totally straight)–like walking death and w/no will to live, beyond my control–as if life had been torn from me– I thought “If this doesn’t change, and I can’t see why it will, since I’m clearly not tripping anymore, I will be found and committed to an institution for the balance of my life, force fed, as if I were totally catatonic–a vegetable! I realize that this may be hard to understand, that one would think that I surely had choice/ control over my life, but I assure you that this wasn’t the case–it was literally as if my soul had been taken from me! I cursed the “Shrooms” as I figured that they were the culprit even though I wasn’t “high”. I did eventually return to life, yet forever changed–never to have anything to do with these kind of drugs again.
Steve, do you suppose it might have made a difference if a trained facilitator had been there to talk you through when you were first aware of your “missing soul”? Or was the loss an integral part of the entire event? Very glad you have made the return.
Nan, regarding your question about having a trained facilitator there, in retrospect I believe it would have, but only if I was told that what I was experiencing wasn’t an anomaly, but that it was known to occur, and that it would pass soon. I’ve discussed this w/ a friend who regards these substances as sacred, and he felt that the blame can’t be placed on the drugs–that a positive response depends on ones inner equanimity or spiritual maturity. As strange as it may seem, I’m convinced that at this stage in my life I wouldn’t respond w/ horror, but as a detached observer, simply observing it all. This may be because I became disillusioned w/ life, regarding it as specious at best, thus became detached, rather than betrayed, which I became convinced was inevitable for all mortals who trust in life. Placing all of ones chips on the ephemeral doesn’t strike me as prudent.
Your friend’s (and others’) belief about inner equanimity or spiritual maturity I think is significant though possibly incomplete. I think that’s what most people believe–and that if you’re spiritually mature, you’ll have a positive experience, and ditto if you’re already in a state of equanimity. All of which means that a distressing experience involves a negative judgment of the individual. Pollan mentioned that people who knew something of what to expect had easier times with difficult material. Does that ‘knowing beforehand’ constitute spiritual maturity, or is it simply having adequate information? And where does that put someone like St. Teresa and her hellish visions? Spiritually immature? Besides, I’ve heard so many positive NDE accounts from people who were in anything but inner equanimity, which would seem to knock that out as a criterion for the type of experience one has. Mind you, my response comes from a long acquaintance with the reactions of those who associate positive experiences with characterological superiority and disturbing experiences with an equivalent inferiority, so I tend to be thin-skinned about this!
There’s a whole thread of conversations in your last two sentences. Why ‘specious’? And why ‘betrayed’? I do love the ‘placing all of one’s chips on the ephemeral.’
Nan, to clarify, I now feel freed from any such threat due to equanimity, via detachment, thus I’d concur that a psychoactive substance doesn’t produce a negative experience, per se. But this brings up a critical point: How can one possibly extricate themselves from the bondage of attachment to avoid my initial response to such an experience apart from detachment? This is so similar to the Void “NDE”: Ones soul, their whole world, is taken from them, leaving nothing but pure despair. Yet in the eyes of the detached there’s no threat, but equanimity in realizing that “He who has nothing, has nothing to loose”.
Conversely, He who has something(the “somethingness” of life), has everything to loose.
And just as that psychoactive substance is neutral, per se, so too is the Void”NDE”.
Was it not attachment alone that made the Void “negative”? So one doesn’t experience a “bad Void NDE” because they are “bad”–Though subjectively it seems so.
I’d argue that the Void”NDE” stands alone, being a ‘non-experience’–The others(good/bad) are sensory experiences. How would those “transformed” via a “positive” NDE fare in the ‘innocuous and neutral’ Void? And the Void is the only “NDE” that is always the same–Nothingness doesn’t vary a whole lot!
It’s a strong argument for the validity of both the Void and detachment: The “purpose” of life is to detach from it–let it go, so as to know the void as neutral, i.e.Equanimity–“Heaven” vs “Hell”
Regarding my view of life as “specious”, thus “betrayal”, you might relate if you recall how you felt when taunted by those impish representatives of “relative reality”(life), in the form of those Janus-faced yin/yang symbols. In light of this, doesn’t it all add up?
Do we really want to place all of our chips on the ephemeral, via attachment?
I experienced the “turn on tune out” period. The first time I got high on weed, it was like being in fairy land. Sounds, colors, and other sensations were insanely vivid. I was astounded.
The danger is that Nothing! will ever be as vividly revealing as that very first high, so go chase it.
18 years later, to demonstrate my character, iron resolve, and restraint, in the face of temptation, I gave it up.
In my first experience with LSD Trish, my girlfriend at the time, and I dropped acid, and spent the afternoon in Dinosaur Hall at the American Museum of natural History. Needless to say the Skeletons came to life. After that, we lucked out, because the planetarium show that day was all the ways The End Of The World could happen.
Refreshed, we went out into Central Park, and watched as the crevasses opened up, traveling toward the top of the hill, where we were sitting. Great afternoon.
I’d say the only difficult time I had was when I saw “JAWS” on Mescaline. I walked from midtown all the the way down to the Village because The subway entrances looked like giant open sharks mouths. No way was I going to disappear down that gullet.
Now that I’ve revealed the splendor of psychedelic spirituality to you, you can draw your own conclusions.
Try seeing “Fantasia” on really good hash. Spectacular! The mental eyes never forget.
I did. The smoke was so thick in the theater that you could hardly see the screen
I’ve never taken any psychdelic drugs. But I have used the mind machine for my mental trips. I wonder if this could provide an alternative for those people who love mind trips.
It’s good to see another excellent post from you, Nan. You make a terrific argument for cross-disciplinary studies. Btw, I enjoyed our email exchange. Thanks so much for writing back when you did.
Thanks, Judy, and welcome back!
I had to think about this one for a while. It’s a complex issue with lots of subtle curves and caveats, which explains why it’s so hard for mainstream medicine and the public at large to grasp a useful understanding of it. The same can be said about near-death experiences and other so-called paranormal phenomena.
I personally have misgivings about using any mood or mind altering drugs for spiritual growth if they’re used in lieu of meditation, soul searching, intellectual inquiry, community support and other more gradual measures.
However, what little research that has been allowed up to this point has shown that, under controlled conditions, psychedelic therapy can literally be a Godsend for certain individuals.
Psychedelic drugs have an added burden that Constitutionally protected approaches to spiritual growth and mental health (same thing in my opinion) don’t. In addition to the usual reductionist materialist/religious doctrine crossfire that independent spiritual seeking has grown accustomed to, psychedelic therapy has a massive body of laws to overcome. No one can stop us from entering a Buddhist temple, but we can go to prison for quite a while if we possess or ingest Ayahuasca or LSD, irregardless of lofty motives or academic credentials.
Thank you, Timothy Leary.
But times are changing. Hostile resistance to research in psychedelics is softening within the medical community, but I can already hear the deafening outcry from religious conservatives. The Red State thing is going to be the hard part.
After all, folks who seek the Divine on their own terms are hard to control, especially when they start making progress. They must be stopped “for their own good”. Just ask any near-death experiencer what it was like when they tried to go back to their Missionary Baptist church.
Henry, another instance of why we’ve come to look to you for this kind of cogent commentary! The usual thanks, and more.
I totally agree With rabbit Dog,and I for one, have been there done that. It’s a fake easy way out to think psychedelic drugs will get you there.
Nancy,
very interesting thought provoking article. My only experience with a psychedelic drug was many years ago back in my foolish teenage years.
I had been with a friend who introduced us to some kind of substance that belonged to a drug category found in the “far east”…I believe now this substance was a psychedelic drug of some type. (How crazy as I think back on this that I would ingest a unknown substance! Like I said, I was young. Sigh.)
Yes, I believe it triggered a gateway experience to the spiritual world, but it was not necessarily pleasant either.
However at the end of this initial experience, which once triggered lasted the summer with aftereffects, I came away knowing for certain that there was a spiritual world out there, and consequently, I knew that the reverse must also be true (as my encounter was not with a friendly), that God or a Greater Being must then also exist. From there a spiritually transcendent experience happened.
I am skipping alot of the details, but from my own experience, I do believe these drugs can at times be a gateway drug.
The article above raises more questions for me, such as these “altered states of consciousness” which is in effect what one is trying to achieve.
After reading on my own many different viewpoints on how the spiritual or nonphysical world interacts/intersects with our own, these altered states appear to be a bridge in some form no matter how you try to achieve them, (ie, mediation, Gregorian
Chant, QiGong, African Drumming ceremonies, The Monroe Institute’s Gateway program, etc.)
An aside: One of the interesting tidbits I came across when researching alternative states was a video on Youtube. It is a Qigong master demonstrating an energy bubble to the Shaghai Police dept. It was very enlightening to view
Search Term for Youtube:
Energy Bubble Demonstration
Performed by Lama Dondrup Dorje
I liked that this video included the teacher’s thoughts / philosophies and wasn’t just show of strength using PSI.
Thanks, Laurie. Loved the energy bubble!
A good resource for those interested in psychedelic research is: http://www.maps.org/ (MAPS being the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic studies, a research organisation dedicated to looking into psychiatric uses of psychdelic therapy).
I have to say, some of the responses in this comments section are disappointingly similar to responses to this topic I’ve heard from conservative Christian friends- specifically the idea that psychedelics are a “fake easy way out”- t the contrary, I respect the courage of those people who take part in something like an Ayahuasca or Ibogaine ceremony, and it certainly isn’t something anyone would do for fun.
But it’s important to note that there’s a reason why psychonauts talk so much about “set and setting”- they’re very important, and the taking of psychedelics is not something that should be done on a whim.
That said, I’m also glad to see there are also no alarmist responses like those of my Christian friends (who attempted to hold an intervention merely because I was sharing articles about psychedelics, and not actually taking them).
Personally I see psychedelics as a tool or a technique, just like meditation or flotation tanks
Achyut, thank you mille fois for this informed, thoughtful contribution! “Set and setting” are infinitely important.
Just to let you know that I posted a five-star review of your book on Amazon. It’s an edited version of the fan letter I sent you a couple of months ago. The review’s title uses the words “negative NDE,” although I know that’s not your preferred term, because I wanted to create a parallel with the second half of the title.
Here’s journal article on this subject that gives Stanislav Grof more credit. Personally, I’d like adults diagnosed with potentially terminal diseases to be offered psilocybin before deciding on conventional treatments. At the very least, this might reduce their anxiety enough to make better decisions for themselves.
http://www.cancerjournal.net/search-result.asp?search=&author=Varsha+Dutta&journal=Y&but_search=Search&entries=10&pg=1&s=0&sabs=y
Let’s see if this works:
http://www.cancerjournal.net/article.asp?issn=0973-1482;year=2012;volume=8;issue=3;spage=336;epage=342;aulast=Dutta
It worked.
I’m not saying psilocybin is the answer, but a 50 percent relief of angst while making important decisions is worth considering.
Here is a cancer journal article on this subject
http://www.cancerjournal.net/article.asp?issn=0973-1482;year=2012;volume=8;issue=3;spage=336;epage=342;aulast=Dutta