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The psychedelic religion of mystical consciousnessReviews

Rick J. Strassman

Journal of Psychedelic Studies May 10, 2018 DOI: 10.1556/2054.2018.003 (opens in new tab)

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AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Historical analysis Peer reviewed
Topics Mysticism
Keywords Psychoanalysis
Citations 9
Key points Argues that the mysticomimetic model, which emphasizes similarities between psychedelic drug effects and mystical literature, originated at the Spring Grove research center in the 1960s and is now increasingly popular in clinical psychedelic studies, with Johns Hopkins University as its primary site.

Abstract

With an extreme range of terms for psychedelic drugsfrom "schizotoxic" to "entheogenic" -"psychedelic," nonetheless remains the most salient one.These substances manifest or disclose aspects of the mind of those who take them as well as the mind of those who study them.Proponents for the innumerable terms for these drugs are all able to adduce supportive evidence.Necessarily, this evidence is a subjective experience, but in the research world, rating scales provide statistical support for one's beliefs about the nature of the drug effect: "psychotomimetic" (Gouzoulis-Mayfrank et al., 1998) or "mystical-type" (Griffiths, Richards, McCann, & Jesse, 2006).The mysticomimetic modelwhich emphasizes the similarities between psychedelic drug effects and those described in the "mystical" literatureis increasingly popular in the renewal of clinical psychedelic studies.The primary site for the practice and promulgation of the mysticomimetic protocol is Johns Hopkins University, where Roland Griffiths is the principal investigator and William Richards the lead psychotherapist.The publication of Richards' Sacred Knowledge and his subsequent interviews and lectures shed light on the model from which devolves this successful protocol.This model originated with Richards and colleaguesincluding Walter Pahnke and Stanislav Grofat the Spring Grove research center outside of Baltimore in the 1960s.These researchers demonstrated promising initial results with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and N,Ndipropyltryptamine in treating addictions and end-of-life despair.However, this research ended in the early 1970s for reasons additional to the onerous regulatory burdens that the Controlled Substances Act placed on human studies at that time.I learned of these additional factors from Eberhardt Uhlenhuth in the mid-1980s, several years before, I began the DMT and psilocybin projects at the University of New Mexico.Dr.

Comparable studies

Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience 2000 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis 1983 Theoretical or philosophical paper
The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy 1993 Edited collection of essays
Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century 2020 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. 2016 Theoretical or philosophical paper

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Cited by 9

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Mysticism Addiction DMT LSD Meditation Mystical experience Psilocybin