Religion, Mysticism, and Brain Chemistry

From the We-Know-So-Little-About-the-Brain-and-Mind department:   A particular hallucinogen has been shown to induce mystical experiences and positive life changes in many volunteers — but also to induce fearfulness and even paranoia in others. 

(This has been sitting in my stack of things to write about for several weeks.)

In a double-blind study at Johns Hopkins University, 36 volunteers took psilocybin (an active ingredient in "magic mushrooms"), while a control group took Ritalin as an active control.   Scientific American reports that 22 of the volunteers in the test group described the psilocybin experience as a mystical one, with 24 ranking it "as among the most meaningful of their lives, comparing it with the birth of a first child or the death of a parent."  

The Scientific American article quotes the study's principal investigator, Roland Griffiths, as saying that in follow-up work, those test subjects who had a positive experience with psilocybin "continue to report positive changes in attitude and behavior" and that "the experience continues to be personally and spiritually meaningful to them."

(Griffiths also warned against recreational use of psilocybin, however, because of its severe negative effects in some test subjects.)

In a Q&A paper posted on the Johns Hopkins Web site, Griffiths said:

Q 2: Do you have any sign that the same brain "machinery" affected by psilocybin is identical to what people experience in spiritual epiphanies that occur without drugs?

That work hasn’t been done yet, though there is good reason to believe that similar mechanisms are at work during profound religious experiences, however they might be occasioned (for example, by fasting, meditation, controlled breathing, sleep deprivation, near death experiences, infectious disease states, or psychoactive substances such as psilocybin).

The neurology of religious experience, newly termed neurotheology, is drawing interest as a new frontier of study.  [Emphasis and paragraphing edited.]

Perhaps hoping to head off attacks from religious people, Griffiths also commented to the effect that his investigation wasn't trying to reduce God to a matter of brain chemistry:

We are attempting neither to validate nor to invalidate the truth of claims that some people have made about metaphysical realities as a consequence of their psilocybin experiences (or as a consequence of their meditation, fasting, or prayer experiences) - that’s beyond our purview as scientists.

It is within the purview of science to study the changes in mood, values, view of self, and behaviors that may follow such experiences.  [Paragraphing edited.]

Griffiths quotes religion scholar Huston Smith as approving of the study as part of an on-going investigation into how to help people to live good lives as part of their communities:

[Quoting Huston Smith]  In most cases, even the most extraordinary experiences provide lasting benefits to those who undergo them and people around them only if they become the basis of ongoing work.

That’s the next research question, it seems to me: What conditions of community and practice best help people to hold on to what comes to them in those moments of revelation, converting it into abiding light in their own lives? [Paragraphing edited.]

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Sources: 

• David Biello, Not Imagining It, Scientific American, Nov. 2006, p. 33. 
• Roxanne Khamsi, Magic mushrooms really cause 'spiritual' experiences, NewScientist.com, Jul. 11, 2006.
• Johns Hopkins University press releases.

Comments

[Roland]

Magic Mushrooms were used in the ancient ages by the maias, to achieve spiritual freedom and event to treat poeple with great success.