{"id":4883,"date":"2011-06-28T23:02:33","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T04:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=4883"},"modified":"2011-06-28T23:02:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T04:02:33","slug":"fine-tuning-the-mystical-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/06\/28\/fine-tuning-the-mystical-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Fine-tuning the mystical experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time<\/em> magazine’s Healthland<\/em> supplement summarizes<\/a> a recent clinical study of 18 healthy, spiritually inclined adults who were administered a certain drug over 5 eight-hour sessions. Among the results:<\/p>\n

Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Critically, however, the participants themselves were not the only ones who saw the benefit from the insights they gained: their friends, family member and colleagues also reported that [X] had made the participants calmer, happier and kinder.<\/p>\n

What’s “[X],” and the medicine it involved? “The psilocybin experience.”<\/p>\n

That means that 7 out of the 18 participants had the<\/em> experience of their lives, and 17 out of 18 had at least a “top five” experience. What I’d like to know is why the last fellow didn’t<\/em>. What others things has he or she done to beat it?<\/p>\n

It’s worth reading the article through to the end, where Jerome Jaffe, America’s first “drug czar,” asks if “properly-informed citizens” should “be allowed to receive psilocybin for its possible spiritual benefits”? Pinch me.<\/p>\n

The original research article can be found in the journal Psychopharmacology<\/a><\/em>. You can listen to an interview with the lead researcher, Johns Hopkins University’s Roland Griffiths, at The Secular Buddhist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The journal Nature<\/em> provides further background on the topic here<\/a>, along with an article<\/a> about a related study.<\/p>\n

H\/t The Neurocritic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time magazine’s Healthland supplement summarizes a recent clinical study of 18 healthy, spiritually inclined adults who were administered a certain drug over 5 eight-hour sessions. Among the results: Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691847],"tags":[25032,25033,16875],"class_list":["post-4883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality","tag-findings","tag-mysticism","tag-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1gL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13578,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/04\/05\/the-death-trip-and-sciences-experiential-blind-spot\/","url_meta":{"origin":4883,"position":0},"title":"The death trip and science’s experiential “blind spot”","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The study of so-called \"near-death experiences\" is fascinating, as it is one of those areas that remain most mysterious to science, yet which empirical evidence suggests is very consequential to those who undergo it. By now we've all likely heard of the countless reports of people journeying through tunnels toward\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science & society"","block_context":{"text":"Science & society","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/science\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11507,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/01\/15\/why-three-ecologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":4883,"position":1},"title":"Why three ecologies?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"French philosopher and psychoanalyst F\u00e9lix Guattari, in his The Three Ecologies, was the first to articulate the threefold nature of ecology, but he failed to provide a clear articulation of why there should be three and only three ecologies -- not two, not one, not four or more. 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Stay tuned.","rel":"","context":"In \"Nonhuman Turn\"","block_context":{"text":"Nonhuman Turn","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/tag\/nonhuman-turn\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1034,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/26\/immanent-naturalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":4883,"position":5},"title":"Immanent naturalism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Immanent naturalism\" is political theorist William E. Connolly's term for a tradition of thought that doesn't seek ultimate explanations, ahistorical forces, or transcendental frameworks to give meaning to the world; rather, it finds meaning enough in the world as it is experienced by mortals like us. The general idea is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4883"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4892,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions\/4892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}