Revived Research Flashcards
Which establishments have pioneered the revival of research?
Johns Hopkins, N.Y.U., Harbor-U.C.L.A, University of New Mexico, Imperial College London, University of Zurich
LSD versus Psilocybin?
Similar effects but the latter “carries none of the political and cultural baggage of those three letters”. LSD is also stronger and longer lasting and is considered more likely to produce adverse reactions.
Roland Griffiths’ groundbreaking first research and article?
Born New York 1946. Joined John Hopkins University and started studying psychedelics in 1994.
July 2006 in Psychopharmacology magazine: “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance”. Griffiths et al.
Opened the door for others.
Two-thirds of the 36 volunteers, none of whom had ever taken an hallucinogen, rated the session among the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives; a third ranked it top.
He believed that the long-term effectiveness of the drug is due to its ability to occasion a transformative experience, as opposed to changing the brain’s long-term chemistry, as per a conventional psychiatric drug such as Prozac.
He was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. The doctor was now the patient, and Griffiths was facing his own mortality. He died on 16 October 2023 at the age of 77.
How can the “completeness” of a mystical experience be measured?
One option, used by Griffiths, is the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire based on William James’ writing in “The Varieties of Religious Experience”.
Measures feelings of unity, sacredness, ineffability, peace, and joy, as well as the impression of having transcended space and time and the “noetic sense” that the experience has disclosed some objective truth about reality.
Noetic from the Greek meaning inner wisdom. Defined by philosopher, William James, in 1902, as referring to “states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority…”
How does Dennis McKenna describe psychedelic plants?
As ambassadors from Gaia
How do psychedelics interact with the brain’s default mode network (DMN)?
The DMN is associated with self-referential thought - the brain’s hub for the narrative self. Psychedelics reduce activity within the DMN while increasing activity between the DMN and other regions of the brain. Trial participants often report things like “I was everything, I was every possible concept in my mind”. Connectedness, unity, oceanic boundlessness.
What is Santo Daime?
A Brazilian religion of the forest founded in 1930 that uses ayahuasca (a psychoactive brew containing DMT) as a sacrament in psychedelic rituals.
Theories of reduced meaning in today’s society and resultant impacts?
There is a long line of philosophers and sociologists who have warned that life in industrialised, technological societies is undergoing a process of impoverishment of meaning. Leading to rising stress, loneliness, depression and the decline of civil society - from religion to bowling leagues.
