European PsychiatryApril 1, 2021Jackelyne Gabrielle Jesus de Miranda, Mario Barbosa, I. Figueiredo et al.
Introduction Classic psychedelics have been administered in sacramental contexts since ancient times. They were of prominent interest within psychiatry and neuroscience in the 1950s to 1960s, but the association between classic psychedelics and the emerging counterculture put an end to their research. Modern research with classic psychedelics has reinitiated interest in the treatment of both...
In the third article of the series publications on the topic “A. Blok and Vl. Solovyov”, the author considers the representation of the heritage of Western esoterism in Blok’s drama “The Rose and the Cross” on the example of the poet's appeal to the themes of Joachimism and Catharism, including the neo-mythological connection of the Cathars with the legend of the Holy Grail. The author analyzes...
Background: Despite tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)’s reputation for creating dramatic effects at high doses, empirical work rarely addresses cannabis’s impact on subjective responses common to the tryptamine psychedelics. We focused on these effects because they have preceded and covaried with the therapeutic impact of psilocybin in previous work. Aims: The current study examined if self-reported...
Background: Recent years have seen a resurgence of research on the potential of psychedelic substances to treat addictive and mood disorders. Historically and contemporarily, psychedelic studies have emphasized the importance of contextual elements ('set and setting') in modulating acute drug effects, and ultimately, influencing long-term outcomes. Nevertheless, current small-scale clinical and...
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a classic psychedelic capable of inducing short-lasting but profound changes in consciousness. As with other psychedelics, the experience induced by DMT strongly depends upon contextual factors, yet the neurobiological determinants of this variability remain unknown. We combined wireless electroencephalography and source imaging to map changes in neural...
Psychedelic drugs are increasingly being incorporated into therapeutic contexts for the purposes of promoting mental health. However, they can also induce adverse reactions in some individuals, and it is difficult to predict before treatment who is likely to experience positive or adverse acute effects. Although consideration of setting and dosage as well as excluding individuals with psychotic...
Abstract By the time of early modernity, a widely deployed tenet of Christian thought had begun to vanish. The divine ideas tradition, the teaching that all beings have an eternal existence as aspects of God’s mind, had functioned across a wide range of central Christian doctrines, providing Christian thinkers and mystical teachers with a powerful theological capacity: to illuminate the...
Background: Psilocybin is the psychoactive component in Psilocybe mushrooms (‘magic mushrooms’). Whether and how the quality of the psilocybin-induced experience might mediate beneficial health outcomes is currently under investigation, for example, in therapeutic applications. However, to date, no meta-analysis has investigated the dose-dependency of subjective experiences across available...
In this chapter, I classify the mystical experiences in two broad categories: spontaneous and intentionally sought. In the first belong those states that arise unexpectedly for largely unknown reasons. In the other belong those states that are sought deliberately by means of different behavioral and psychophysiological methods. The purpose of the distinction and comparison of the two types is...
In this chapter, I provide clear descriptions of the mystical states and I differentiate them from similar ones with which they are often confused (e.g. with beatific “visions” or “psychic” or “near death” experiences). In it, I also clarify the use of the concept of “understanding” as it applies to the “ineffable” mystical experiences. Finally, I comment on the metaphysical preconceptions with...