Psychedelic therapy has the potential to become a revolutionary and transdiagnostic mental health treatment, yielding enduring benefits that are often attributed to the experiences that coincide with peak psychedelic effects. However, there may be an underrecognized temporal structure to this process that helps explain why psychedelic and related altered states of consciousness can have an...
Abstract Background and Aims Networks of so-called underground, or illegal, psilocybin mushroom practitioners are popularly known to exist, though few systematic investigations of their practices have been conducted. We sought to uncover the experiences of a hidden community of psilocybin practitioners in order to inform scientific and policy dialogues about safe and effective practices in this...
"There has been a renewed and growing interest in psychedelic drugs in the 21st century. Drawing on social-phenomenology, cognitive sociology, and ‘set and setting’ theory, I delineate how individuals use socially defined frameworks of understanding to attribute meaning to psychedelic experiences. These frameworks refer to the ‘ready-made’ schemes that structure subjective experience of...
MindfulnessFebruary 1, 2025Lena Ramstetter, Johannes Klackl, Eva Jonas et al.
Abstract Objectives Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. However, current policies are insufficient to keep climate change at manageable levels. In the United States, this is partly because attitudes and opinions on climate change have become increasingly divided along political party lines, making effective policymaking difficult. The existing literature has focused...
The term 'cosmic consciousness' is mostly used either as an ontological fundamental in metaphysics or to name a mystical experience (event). It was first popularized as a psychological state, an evolutionary attainment following the event, while extension of the mystical experience over time comprises another state, for which the term is also used. Drawing on a personal journey of discovery...
Esketamine is an FDA-approved treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) or major depression with acute suicidal ideation or behavior (MDSI). This analysis addressed the lack of data on real-world characteristics of patients with TRD and MDSI or prescribed esketamine. Data were derived from the Adelphi Real World Depression Disease Specific Programme a cross-sectional survey of...
Psilocybin (a psychoactive compound found in "magic mushrooms" or "shrooms") has been gaining increased attention in research and popular culture as a number of clinical and observational studies have demonstrated that it may have potential for improving mental wellbeing. Relatedly, there has been a substantial uptick in naturalistic (e.g., real-world, non-clinical) psilocybin use in the United...
What leads poets into mystical, hermetic and occult studies? How do these traditions shape their poetic practice, and conversely, how do their poems deepen our understanding of the enduring power of these bodies of thought, belief, and ritual? In response to these questions, this paper focuses on Robert Duncan’s study of Kabbalah, especially Kabbalistic language mysticism, which he reads as...
Most work on working memory development has children remember a set of items as well as they can. However, this approach sidesteps the extended mind, the integration of external information with memory. Indeed, adults prefer to use external resources (e.g., lists, models) but will remember more as the cost to access them increases. Here, in our shopping game, we investigated this trade-off in...
In this article, I will touch on the ethical and moral possibilities of mysticism. On the one hand, I discuss the kinds of ethical work required to open and cultivate experiences of the divine. On the other hand, I look at how those experiences of the divine create new opportunities for kinds of ethical relationships to oneself, to others, and to the divine. In doing so, I connect the practices...