Study: Psylocibin produces "mystical effects"

[Miss Modular]

This article is a few days old, but I was taken aback that this was a legitimate study on the effects of the drug.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071001304.html

Drug's Mystical Properties Confirmed

36 Area Adults Took Psilocybin in Study; Many Called Experience Spiritual

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; A08

Psilocybin, the active ingredient of "magic mushrooms," expands the mind. After a thousand years of use, that's now scientifically official.

The chemical promoted a mystical experience in two-thirds of people who took it for the first time, according to a new study. One-third rated a session with psilocybin as the "single most spiritually significant" experience of their lives. Another third put it in the top five.

The study, published online today in the journal Psychopharmacology, is the first randomized, controlled trial of a substance used for centuries in Mexico and Central America to produce mystical insights. Almost no research on a psychedelic drug in human subjects has been done in this country since the 1960s. It confirms what both shamans and hippies have long said -- taking psilocybin is a scary, reality-bending and occasionally life-changing experience.

The researchers say they hope the experiment opens a door to the study of a class of compounds that alter human perception and erode the boundaries of self -- at least in some users. They hope it will provide new insight into how the brain works and what neurochemical events underlie moments of mystical rapture.

If the generally positive effects of the drug are confirmed by other studies, the research is likely to raise the question of whether people should be allowed access to psilocybin for self-improvement or recreation.

Rigorous study of these substances has been shunned since the 1960s, although it is not legally prohibited. Research on them was a casualty of the muddled mix of science and advocacy by people like Timothy Leary, the LSD guru and former Harvard psychologist once called the "most dangerous man in America" by President Richard M. Nixon.

"Our study has shown we can conduct a study of this type safely, and that the effects produced are really quite interesting," said Roland R. Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who ran the experiment. "There is a clear neuroscience agenda to understand those effects, and clear clinical applications that could be pursued."

Other brain researchers hailed the experiment as much for the fact that it was done at all as for its findings.

"These are some of the most potent compounds we know of that can change consciousness," said David E. Nichols, a professor of medicinal chemistry at Purdue University who has studied the effects of psychedelics on rats and cultured cells. "It's kind of peculiar they have just been kind of sitting on the shelf for 40 years. There is no other class of biologically active substances I am aware of that have been ignored like that."

The study, which involved 36 middle-aged adults from the Baltimore-Washington area, was conducted over five years. The subjects were chosen from 135 people who answered newspaper ads. All said they were members of a religious organization, practiced meditation or took part in other spiritual activity.

The study was designed to minimize the effects of anticipation and group enthusiasm, which might color a person's response. It also sought to examine the delayed, as well as immediate, effects of the drug.

The volunteers were randomly assigned to take either 30 milligrams of psilocybin (chemically synthesized, not extracted from mushrooms) or 40 milligrams of methylphenidate, the stimulant sold as Ritalin. The sessions lasted eight hours in a room where a person could listen to music, relax on a couch with eyeshades or talk with two monitors always in attendance. Each subject then took the other drug in a different session two months later.

Of the 36 people, 22 had a "complete" mystical experience as judged by several question-based scales used for rating such experiences. Two-thirds judged it to be among their top five life experiences, equal to the birth of a first child or death of a parent. Two months after a session, the people who had taken psilocybin reported small but significant positive changes in behavior and attitudes compared with those who had taken Ritalin.

One-third of the subjects, however, said they experienced "strong or extreme" fear at some point in the hours after they took the hallucinogen. Four people said the entire session was dominated by anxiety or psychological struggle.

Nichols thinks that last finding should give people pause.

"I think these drugs are potentially very dangerous," he said. "I would be very disappointed if in any sense these results were used to encourage recreational use of these compounds. I wouldn't want to take responsibility for anyone under unmonitored conditions coming up with those feelings."

Alan Leshner, who headed the National Institute on Drug Abuse for seven years and now leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was both wary and excited about psilocybin's reported effects.

"If it is ultimately shown to be benign but enriches people's lives, who could object to that? But I don't have that level of confidence at this point, given the paucity of research on it," he said.

A scholar of mysticism, G. William Barnard of Southern Methodist University, suspects that most mystical traditions would not object to the idea that a chemical could allow a person to tune into a preexisting state of consciousness, usually ignored, just as fasting, prayer, yoga and other activities can. But there is less enthusiasm for the idea that this kind of research will unlock the mechanism of mystical insight.

"Most people I suspect would say that the neurochemistry is not the full cause of these experiences," he said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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More info about the research and the researcher here:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press...thspsilocybinQ

[kahljorn]

I might be crazy here but I think this has been known for a long time. The first thing I thought of when I read this thing was timothy leary, have any of you guys read his books? Beyond most of the drug talk his methods of diagnoses were pretty complex, which you'd think is necessary in any medical or psychological field. He had a sort of four dimensional diagnoses system.

he's also known for the 8th circuit model of consciousness, which not only combines jungian and freudian concepts, but expands on them in general, especially as far as jung goes. This scale also encompasses, along side the psychological 'circuit', the responses drugs can cause which are all sorted relative to their individual circuit. I.E. There's certain drugs that would be more useful treating anal or oral complex psychosis-which are the first two, and as you may or may not know are responsible for alot of your core behaviorisms.
The part where it actually gets interesting is actually after the fourth circuit, preceeded by the third or logic circuit, which is the socio-sexual circuit. After this it all becomes relative to spirituality and mind expansiveness. Some involving the ability to change your perception of reality at will and providing explainations of buddha, jesus etc. or so called enlightened states. The method is practically the same, and when compared with the '8-fold path' of buddhism or the 8 steps of yoga you find a slight similarity, and really any form of mind liberation from the natural confines of reality stems from this same basic concept-disassociating, attaining objectivity.

Personally I found DMT to be interesting(which there's plenty of studies on), especially in crystal form. 15 minutes of crazy hallucinations and extreme vibrations, it's hard to explain but most people can't walk, it becomes difficult to hold the pipe and everywhere you look is a hallucination, generally hallucinations involve intricate patterns and your thought process is usually very strange and mystical. Some people say they receive messages from aliens, and this is a pretty big complex that abounds. It's probably best known for inspiring alot of the art for tool, Alex Grey. The pictures are actually very good depictions of some of the things you can see.

Jimson weed/thorn apple/hell's bells is fun but too crazy, but everyone I've known who has taken it communed with devils or something similar, including me. Whereas I've only had faint exposure on dmt to something that could've been alien, I usually find it hard to fall into preconceived notions. With this though it flowed pretty effortlessly into a "Mythical experience". My dmt trip was also incredibly mystical, relatively.
In fact DMT has a long history of mystical usage among south america tribes, who supposedly have experiences nobody else can mimic. Jimson weed also has alot of usage, in europe as a "Witches brew" and in america by native americans, examples can be seen in Carlos canstenada's writings, which also details alot of peyote usage. His first time using peyote is hilarious. I think it's the teachings of don juan where he meets him and has his first peyote trips and meets "Mescalito", a pretty common mystical charicature.

Personally my favored experiences have been on DXM, the chemical inside of common over-the-counter cough syrup. Not because it's readily available, because mescaline, psilocybin and DMT are all pretty easily available as well. It's a disassociative experience, to say the least.
The first few times I did it I drank one bottle of 8oz bottle of 15mg active DXM(Only DXM, nothing else as some of them can be extremely fatal in large dosages) robitussin, or a 4oz bottle of vicks 44 30mg active dose. Of course, as a precursor to it you shouldn't eat for a while, never be on a full stomach on it(or any other drug that I've discussed, really). One eight ounce bottle will fuck you up, and it will probably be the most hallucinatory experience you'll ever have. The visuals are known as close-eye visuals, so they sort of mimic dreams in a sense, as such it's best to do it at night with no light, and maybe some good music. The trip also lasts all night(like many others) and involves you not moving usually. Characterized by almost OBE/astral type trips at high doses. You really can feel your body moving around as responding to your hallucination, I think it's because it's an opiate so it numbs your physical body.
I can't explain the experience, but just make sure you haven't been doing anything too habitual, too much routine for too long can make your trip part of that routine. It's a boring waste. One 4oz bottle is good, but two is better, but naturally start slow. There's also pure dxm available. Not that I'm reccomending you do any drugs, just talking about the experience.


Anyway, this article is ridiculous. Timothy leary and a TON of other scientists, doctors, journalists etc. have been doing studies on this shit forever, and they have a long history of indeginous usage. Dr. John C. Lilly is another name, who wrote programming in the biohuman computer or something like that. Aleister Crowley is very popular for similar experiences as well, and you could say in some instances it's the crux of his experiments.

Timothy leary's experiments were legitimate, most of these drugs were legal for a long time, and don't forget Timothy Leary was a DOCTOR. Most people claim he was a Political prisoner, and sweeden even had him released as one. I believe the claim was that, amidst all the "dangerous man in the world"(dangerous because of his science of disassociating) he was arrested for having a joint, and held in prison for a long time, but that's not really that relevant, or what happened to Wilhelm Reich(even if he was a bit of a quack genius sort). I guess the point there is that the government smeared him for his work, because they thought the idea of it was dangerous.

Speaking of which a similar charicature is Hassan-I-sabbah who supposedly used marijuana to brainwash(or liberate/empower, depending on interpretation) infamous assassins.