The psychedelic religion of mystical consciousnessReviews

The term 'psychedelic' remains the most salient label for a class of drugs that have been called everything from 'schizotoxic' to 'entheogenic,' each term supported by subjective evidence and rating scales that frame the drug effect as either psychotomimetic or mystical-type. The mysticomimetic model, which highlights similarities between psychedelic effects and mystical literature, is gaining popularity in clinical studies, especially at Johns Hopkins University under Roland Griffiths and William Richards. This model originated in the 1960s at Spring Grove research center, where researchers including Richards, Walter Pahnke, and Stanislav Grof showed promising results with LSD and N,N-dipropyltryptamine for addictions and end-of-life despair, before research ended in the early 1970s due to regulatory burdens and other factors.

Study at a glance

Abstract

With an extreme range of terms for psychedelic drugsfrom "schizotoxic" to "entheogenic" -"psychedelic," nonetheless remains the most salient one.These substances manifest or disclose aspects of the mind of those who take them as well as the mind of those who study them.Proponents for the innumerable terms for these drugs are all able to adduce supportive evidence.Necessarily, this evidence is a subjective experience, but in the research world, rating scales provide statistical support for one's beliefs about the nature of the drug effect: "psychotomimetic" (Gouzoulis-Mayfrank et al., 1998) or "mystical-type" (Griffiths, Richards, McCann, & Jesse, 2006).The mysticomimetic modelwhich emphasizes the similarities between psychedelic drug effects and those described in the "mystical" literatureis increasingly popular in the renewal of clinical psychedelic studies.The primary site for the practice and promulgation of the mysticomimetic protocol is Johns Hopkins University, where Roland Griffiths is the principal investigator and William Richards the lead psychotherapist.The publication of Richards' Sacred Knowledge and his subsequent interviews and lectures shed light on the model from which devolves this successful protocol.This model originated with Richards and colleaguesincluding Walter Pahnke and Stanislav Grofat the Spring Grove research center outside of Baltimore in the 1960s.These researchers demonstrated promising initial results with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and N,Ndipropyltryptamine in treating addictions and end-of-life despair.However, this research ended in the early 1970s for reasons additional to the onerous regulatory burdens that the Controlled Substances Act placed on human studies at that time.I learned of these additional factors from Eberhardt Uhlenhuth in the mid-1980s, several years before, I began the DMT and psilocybin projects at the University of New Mexico.Dr.