Psychedelic Drugs and Spiritual Experiences

[Bernard Gui]

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

Quote

A full analysis of the outcomes will take place after a one-year follow-up with the participants, whose identities are being kept anonymous. “It is too early to talk about results, but generally people seem to be getting a deeper appreciation of their own religious heritage,” he said. “The dead dogma comes alive for them in a meaningful way. They discover they really believe this stuff they’re talking about....."

Others are more openly enthusiastic about the broader, non-medical, uses of psychedelic drugs. “My wild fantasy is that, probably some time after I’m long dead, these drugs are used in seminary training, rabbinical training,” said Richards, who began research into psychedelics in the 1960s. “Why shouldn’t the opportunity be there to explore deeply spiritual states of consciousness in a legal way?”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/08/religious-leaders-get-high-on-magic-mushrooms-ingredient-for-science

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

[Darren10]

I think there's some relation with religious experiences and drug use. Drugs/chemicals is how our body experiences sensations and both drug hse and religious experiences are euphoric. I think it prudent not to conflate the two or to use one to enhance theother. Exceptions, I think, should be made for medical reasons, such as using spirituality to help with depression, chronic sadness, or to deal with other severe medical situations. 

As for the study, I cannot place legitimacy upon it until all information is disclosed. My guess is that some of these religious leaders are already drug users and want to legitimize their usage. 

Edited July 9, 2017 by Darren10

[Bobbieaware]

6 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

Back in 1970, I knew a non-member of the LDS Church and conversed with him one morning while he was still under the influence of a high dose of LSD. He was extremely excited to tell me he had just received a revelation of eternal truth that revealed to him the meaning of life. I asked if he would share what he had learned and he said he would. He explained to me that with the help of the drug he had come to the realization that existence and reality are affirmed on the immutable principle of there being a diametric and eternal opposition in all things. He went on to say that the only reason why anything exists, and the only reason why life has any meaning, is because there indeed is eternal opposition in all things. I remember him saying that if it weren't for this principle of opposition and contrast in all things that nothing could exist and life would have no meaning. He also cited examples of the principle such as good vs evil, light vs darkness, love vs hate and happiness vs misery. It was a memorable conversation as he was so very excited to share what he had learned. Later, he gave up on drugs and joined the Church. He's been an active TBM member ever since.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Gray]

5 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

It's an interesting topic. All spiritual experiences must have corresponding chemical processes going on in the brain, otherwise they wouldn't be something we could experience. I've heard before that hallucinogenics can enhance spirituality. I don't know that I'd participate though. At least not as a grown up and a dad with a job that keeps me quite busy.

I'm sure it would be possible to replicate any spiritual experience, given the right conditions.

[longview]

5 hours ago, Darren10 said:

I think there's some relation with religious experiences and drug use. . . .

Beware of counterfeits.  There is a reason for the Word of Wisdom to warn against ingesting stimulants.  There is no substitute for people to experience (as directly as possible) the convictions of the spirit and to try to walk with God.  "Pleasuring" with drugs in your system sends a false message and actually divert the drug user away from God.  Causing some to fall into "forbidden paths" and become lost.

[rodheadlee]

5 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

1. I already have with LSD, mushrooms and mescaline. I visited Pluto , I visited with the animals in a closed zoo (they knew I wasn't suppose to be there). I never saw God, The Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ. This was back in the 60's long before I was LDS. It's very dangerous you can go on a trip and never come back and it it usually requires experienced baby sitters that can talk a person down. I had a fragile psych make up in those days, your experience may very according to your make up.

2. No

3.No

4. I have no idea but sure i'd subject it to testing.

[Bobbieaware]

43 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

1. I already have with LSD, mushrooms and mescaline. I visited Pluto , I visited with the animals in a closed zoo (they knew I wasn't suppose to be there). I never saw God, The Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ. This was back in the 60's long before I was LDS. It's very dangerous you can go on a trip and never come back and it it usually requires experienced baby sitters that can talk a person down. I had a fragile psych make up in those days, your experience may very according to your make up.

2. No

3.No

4. I have no idea but sure i'd subject it to testing.

😉 Back during the time period covered in your answer to question 1.,  who were your favoiite musical groups and what what were your favorite songs?

[Bernard Gui]

2 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Back in 1970, I knew a non-member of the LDS Church and conversed with him one morning while he was still under the influence of a high dose of LSD. He was extremely excited to tell me he had just received a revelation of eternal truth that revealed to him the meaning of life. I asked if he would share what he had learned and he said he would. He explained to me that with the help of the drug he had come to the realization that existence and reality are affirmed on the immutable principle of there being a diametric and eternal opposition in all things. He went on to say that the only reason why anything exists, and the only reason why life has any meaning, is because there indeed is eternal opposition in all things. I remember him saying that if it weren't for this principle of opposition and contrast in all things that nothing could exist and life would have no meaning. He also cited examples of the principle such as good vs evil, light vs darkness, love vs hate and happiness vs misery. It was a memorable conversation as he was so very excited to share what he had learned. Later, he gave up on drugs and joined the Church. He's been an active TBM member ever since.

God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

It's an interesting topic. All spiritual experiences must have corresponding chemical processes going on in the brain, otherwise they wouldn't be something we could experience. I've heard before that hallucinogenics can enhance spirituality. I don't know that I'd participate though. At least not as a grown up and a dad with a job that keeps me quite busy.

I'm sure it would be possible to replicate any spiritual experience, given the right conditions.

What would those conditions be? For example, my engagement to Sister Gui resulted from an unexpected and profound spiritual manifestation that we both experienced simultaneously. How could that be replicated in a laboratory?

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, longview said:

Beware of counterfeits.  There is a reason for the Word of Wisdom to warn against ingesting stimulants.  There is no substitute for people to experience (as directly as possible) the convictions of the spirit and to try to walk with God.  "Pleasuring" with drugs in your system sends a false message and actually divert the drug user away from God.  Causing some to fall into "forbidden paths" and become lost.

Do you suppose the chemical processes are the same?

[Gray]

3 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

What would those conditions be? For example, my engagement to Sister Gui resulted from an unexpected and profound spiritual manifestation that we both experienced simultaneously. How could that be replicated in a laboratory?

Discover the chemical processes going on in each of your brains at the time and replicate the conditions, I would guess.

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

1. I already have with LSD, mushrooms and mescaline. I visited Pluto , I visited with the animals in a closed zoo (they knew I wasn't suppose to be there). I never saw God, The Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ. This was back in the 60's long before I was LDS. It's very dangerous you can go on a trip and never come back and it it usually requires experienced baby sitters that can talk a person down. I had a fragile psych make up in those days, your experience may very according to your make up.

 

Would you say the chemical and religious feelings are the same?

[Bernard Gui]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

Discover the chemical processes going on in each of your brains at the time and replicate the conditions, I would guess.

How could one time such a test

.

[CV75]

7 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

1. I would not participate. 2. I think there might be a valid way to test the physical manifestations of what one self-identifies as a spiritual experience. 3. I think practices such as prayer, reading scripture, etc. can be tested and replicated, but there is no guarantee the Spirit is the catalyst of the physical manifestations that are measured. 4. I would subject my practices to testing but would not presume that the Spirit would be present, especially since I would only do it if I got paid enough LOL

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Later, he gave up on drugs and joined the Church. He's been an active TBM member ever since.

I suggest this was because he could not replicate the drug-induced experience.

[MiserereNobis]

Interesting topic and one that came up briefly in the Nietzsche thread. I'm glad to see some people responding who have some experience with psychedelics. It definitely is a class of drugs that can be quite different from all the others and there are a lot of myths and misunderstandings surrounding them.

I have used a variety of psychedelics in a variety of situations. There have been purely recreational times just hanging out with friends, quasi-ritualistic times (Grateful Dead shows), intense individual spiritual experiments (months of using mushrooms multiple times a week to explore consciousness and spirituality), and religious ritual (peyote ceremonies with the Native American Church).

It is interesting that most religions prescribe some sort of activity aimed to change consciousness, such as fasting, meditation, ascetic practices, etc. Think about the whirling dervishes in Sufism.

Timothy Leary was trying very hard to make spiritual experience able to be studied in some sort of scientific way via psychedelics. If you actually read him and ignore the public straw man (which he enjoyed playing into, honestly) you'll find he's got some interesting ideas. He tried running a variety of experiments similar to what is in the OP, such as the very famous Marsh Chapel Experiment:

Quote

The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was a 1962 experiment conducted on Good Friday at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary and the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin (the active principle in psilocybin mushrooms) would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.

Here's the conclusion:

Quote

Almost all of the members of the experimental group reported experiencing profound religious experiences, providing empirical support for the notion that psychedelic drugs can facilitate religious experiences. One of the participants in the experiment was religious scholar Huston Smith, who would become an author of several textbooks on comparative religion. He later described his experience as "the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced."

From my own experiences, I cannot deny that I had experiences that I would call spiritual while using psychedelics, especially when the entire intention was spiritually focused, such as in the Native American Church. I don't have any simple explanations or conclusions from this. There is obviously some relation between brain chemistry and spiritual experience, as Gray points out, since there is a relation between brain chemistry and any/all experience. Perhaps psychedelics/entheogens can create a situation where spiritual experience is possible, but not necessary, just like other religious practices that aim to change consciousness (the fasting, meditation, etc, that I mentioned earlier).

The problem with trying to study spiritual experience scientifically, is that science tends to focus on the physically objective aspects, such as brain waves, blood chemistry, etc. That misses the whole experience, since it is a subjective experience in your mind. Timothy Leary's analogy was to imagine scientists studying you while you make love to your wife, and telling you that your experience was just dopamine, endorphins, and hormones, when of course that was not the experience you had.

I don't think I would use psychedelics again, but not because I think they aren't useful on a spiritual quest. I think they helped me find my way, but now that I am on my way they are no longer necessary. They were like a boat I used to cross a river. It would be kinda silly to sit down in the boat on dry land now.

Edited July 9, 2017 by MiserereNobis

[MiserereNobis]

42 minutes ago, Bobbieaware said:

😉 Back during the time period covered in your answer to question 1.,  who were your favoiite musical groups and what what were your favorite songs?

A while back I started a thread on the Grateful Dead

 

[MiserereNobis]

7 hours ago, Darren10 said:

My guess is that some of these religious leaders are already drug users and want to legitimize their usage. 

While this could certainly be true, I want to say that my experience in the Native American Church was with some very dedicated and religious people. They were not there to just "get high" and would consider it a major disrespect to the medicine (what they call peyote) for someone to just want to party. There were also families there, including children.

[MiserereNobis]

28 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Would you say the chemical and religious feelings are the same?

In my experience, the chemically induced experiences generally were much more intense and blatant. It was not a "still small voice" but definitely tornadoes and earthquakes and fires. The thoughts, feelings, and insights were in the same category, though.

[Gray]

28 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

How could one time such a test

.

Well it's too late now. The experience is long gone. There's no way to measure what happened to you. But given the right conditions and information,  it should be possible to replicate any spiritual/emotional experience.

[Bobbieaware]

15 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I suggest this was because he could not replicate the drug-induced experience.

Interesting...

[RevTestament]

7 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

People are starved for spiritual experiences because they do not have a true relationship with their Lord. Having that I do not need to "find" meaning or God in mushrooms, because I already understand the nature of God. 

Quote

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

Having had profound spiritual experiences without drugs, my answer is no. I have never "done" drugs. I have never even used or desired psychotropic drugs. Even when I was on a morphine pump, I didn't really use it, and for the most part it sat unused so the doctor canceled it. When being "forced" into sleep with gas my mind did not like the feeling of losing control and resisted it.

Quote

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

Absolutely not. God will not subject Himself to human testing. I have never been able to replicate my experiences at will. They happen when God wants them to - when He has something to communicate to me - sometimes at very odd times. Once I was watching the Prince of Egypt, and the Spirit just began to come over me. It grew and grew in strength to the most incredible feeling of seeing at will. It was because it was time for God to communicate something to me. Although I have had an incredible spiritual experience since, nothing has replicated that experience.

Quote

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

There is no valid scientific way to replicate my experiences. I laugh at the idea.

[MiserereNobis]

3 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Having had profound spiritual experiences without drugs, my answer is no. I have never "done" drugs. I have never even used or desired psychotropic drugs. Even when I was on a morphine pump, I didn't really use it, and for the most part it sat unused so the doctor canceled it. When being "forced" into sleep with gas my mind did not like the feeling of losing control and resisted it.

While I understand this, I do want to point out that one of the problems is that since you haven't had a psychedelic experience, you don't know what it is like. I'm not saying people have to try them in order to have an opinion, but I am saying without the experience, the opinion doesn't hold too much weight. As an example, you mention a morphine pump and gas. Psychedelics are nothing like those drugs.

[MiserereNobis]

2 hours ago, longview said:

"Pleasuring" with drugs in your system sends a false message and actually divert the drug user away from God.

Some of my most insightful psychedelic experiences were actually not pleasurable at all. They were intensely difficult and required great work on my part, but when it was all over I had learned something about myself.

[rodheadlee]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Would you say the chemical and religious feelings are the same?

Not even close.

To expand on that a little the religious experiences  were more intense and cannot be replicated as my situation has changed. They involved things that were happening in my life at the time I had them.

Edited July 9, 2017 by rodheadlee