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PARANTHROPOLOGY: JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE PARANORMAL VOL. 2 NO. 2 s i g n i f i c a n t r e l i g i o u s v a l u e i n contemporaneous solutions such as psychotropic drug use, although he did agree with Huxley somewhat by suggesting: ...by now it has become commonplace to observe that no beneficial effect can be expected from psychedelic drugs unless the set and setting are right, the atmosphere relaxed and friendly, and the session directed by an experienced 'guide' (Zaehner,1972:99) It was on this basis that Zaehner contended the essential criteria of drug induced experiences were contrary to the practice of religious contemplatives for whom the suppression of all sensory impressions was the first step on the mystic path. He contrasted the consciousness-expanding claims of those he describes as “drug enthusiasts and assorted occultists” with the spiritual discipline and principles of "real mystical experiences" (1972:99). For Zaehner, religious mysticism is the path leading from this world to the eternal world – to God or an impersonal Absolute. Nature mystics and users of psychedelic drugs relied for the most part, according to Zaehner, on experiences of short duration, on sudden flashes of illumination as opposed to the stages towards mystic union. According to Zaehner any comparison between drug-induced mystical experiences and religious mystical experiences is bound to be: “extremely hazardous...for just as there are 'varieties of religious experiences' and varieties of psychedelic experiences', so there are 'varieties of mystical experiences”. (Zaehner,1972:79) Since the early 1950's hallucinogens were thought to have some psychological therapeutic application, yet despite evidence that such substances might further the understanding of human consciousness and sensory perception, serious scientific research into the use of psychedelic compounds has been in decline. One reason for this is provided by Professor Griffiths of the Hopkins' Department of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioural Biology: “...[the] gap is large because, as a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time these last forty years”. (Melville, 2006:1) However, before its criminalisation, the psychiatrist Oscar Janiger gave d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to an estimated 1,000 volunteers between 1954 and 1962. He was particularly interested in its possible enhancement of creativity and potential tool in psychological therapy. In one study with 194 subjects Janiger reported 24% experienced phenomena that could be characterised as religious. At around the same time Keith Ditmam and Max Hayman carried out various studies into the effects and benefits of the drug. In one study of 74 subjects 32% reported experiences with religious value, and 42% reported feeling they were left with a greater awareness of God, of a higher power, or ultimate reality. (Smith, 1964:522) Perhaps the most famous study was published as a doctoral thesis by Walter Norman Pahnke in 1963 entitled Drugs and Mysticism: An Analysis of the Relationship between Psychedelic Drugs and the Mystical Consciousness. The research was conducted in 1962 and often referred to as 'The Miracle of Marsh Chapel'. The study was designed to test 44 PARANTHROPOLOGY: JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE PARANORMAL
PARANTHROPOLOGY: JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE PARANORMAL VOL. 2 NO. 2 the claims of the synthetic derivative of peyote as a psycho-chemical-religioussurrogate. Pahnke's intention had been to investigate the similarities and differences between experiences described by mystics and those induced by psychedelics (mindmanifesting) drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. Working with subjects who had some prior religious predisposition Pahnke used scientific methodology including a detailed questionnaire. The questionnaire was based upon the following well established typology of mysticism: Unity - a sense of cosmic oneness Transcendence of Time and Space Deeply Felt Positive Mood Sense of Sacredness Noetic Quality - a feeling of insight or illumination Paradoxicality - A person may realize that he/she is experiencing, for example, "an identity of opposites," yet it seems to make sense at the time. Alleged ineffability Transiency - the experience passes Persisting Positive Changes in Attitudes and Behaviour The study was placebo controlled with one group taking the placebo while the study group took the drug. On the basis of their reported experiences Pahnke determined those subjects receiving psilocybin experienced phenomenon indistinguishable from, if not identical with, the categories defined by the typology of mysticism cited. From this experiment Pahnke was able to postulate "when subjected to a scientific experiment, these characteristics proved to be identical for spontaneous and psychedelic mystical experiences" (Pahnke,1971). However, Pahnke maintained the psychedelic experience could be divided into five specific types: psychotic, psychodynamic, cognitive, aesthetic and psychedelic ‘peak’ or mystical. Each condition manifested different phenomena ranging from intense, negative, dysphoric (psychotic) to those of the religious/ mystical in form which were observed w i t h i n t h e p s y c h e d e l i c p e a k , transcendental or mystical experience. It is important to note during an address to a public symposium on LSD and Religious Experience (1967), Pahnke stated his findings clearly demonstrated the psychedelic drug was only a trigger; a catalyst or facilitating agent. He suggested the type of experiences facilitated were largely dependent upon extra-drug variables such as preparation, setting and the individual. Pahnke proposed content of the experience was impossible to predict and psychotic reactions were easier to produce than mystical experiences, of which there was no certainly even under the most optimal conditions. (1967:2) In a 2006 replication of Pahnke's experiment using the same methodology (including the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire) a rigorous study was carried out by Griffiths, Richards, McCann & Jesse of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The results were published in a research paper entitled 'Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance' in Psychopharmacology (2006). The paper presented a double-blind study that involved administering psilocybin under comfortable, structured, interpersonally supported conditions to volunteers who had reported regular 45 PARANTHROPOLOGY: JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE PARANORMAL
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Page 7 and 8: Putting the Psi Back Into Psychedel
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