| Azrael 2006-07-16, 8:26 am |
|
MissSouth wrote:
> Get ready for new heights of spirituality and mind expansion. Don't be
> left out!
>
> =====
> "Drug's Mystical Properties Confirmed"
>
> "36 [D.C.] Area Adults Took Psilocybin in Study; Many Called Experience
> Spiritual"
>
> By David Brown
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Tuesday, July 11, 2006; A08
>
> Psilocybin, the active ingredient of "magic mushrooms," expands the
> mind. After a thousand years of use, that's now scientifically
> official.
>
> The chemical promoted a mystical experience in two-thirds of people who
> took it for the first time, according to a new study. One-third rated a
> session with psilocybin as the "single most spiritually significant"
> experience of their lives. Another third put it in the top five.
>
> The study, published online today in the journal Psychopharmacology, is
> the first randomized, controlled trial of a substance used for
> centuries in Mexico and Central America to produce mystical insights.
> Almost no research on a psychedelic drug in human subjects has been
> done in this country since the 1960s. It confirms what both shamans and
> hippies have long said -- taking psilocybin is a scary, reality-bending
> and occasionally life-changing experience.
>
> The researchers say they hope the experiment opens a door to the study
> of a class of compounds that alter human perception and erode the
> boundaries of self -- at least in some users. They hope it will provide
> new insight into how the brain works and what neurochemical events
> underlie moments of mystical rapture.
>
> If the generally positive effects of the drug are confirmed by other
> studies, the research is likely to raise the question of whether people
> should be allowed access to psilocybin for self-improvement or
> recreation.
>
> Rigorous study of these substances has been shunned since the 1960s,
> although it is not legally prohibited. Research on them was a casualty
> of the muddled mix of science and advocacy by people like Timothy
> Leary, the LSD guru and former Harvard psychologist once called the
> "most dangerous man in America" by President Richard M. Nixon.
>
> "Our study has shown we can conduct a study of this type safely, and
> that the effects produced are really quite interesting," said Roland R.
> Griffiths of Johns Hopkins university School of Medicine, who ran the
> experiment. "There is a clear neuroscience agenda to understand those
> effects, and clear clinical applications that could be pursued."
>
> Other brain researchers hailed the experiment as much for the fact that
> it was done at all as for its findings.
>
> "These are some of the most potent compounds we know of that can change
> consciousness," said David E. Nichols, a professor of medicinal
> chemistry at Purdue university who has studied the effects of
> psychedelics on rats and cultured cells. "It's kind of peculiar they
> have just been kind of sitting on the shelf for 40 years. There is no
> other class of biologically active substances I am aware of that have
> been ignored like that."
>
> The study, which involved 36 middle-aged adults from the
> Baltimore-Washington area, was conducted over five years. The subjects
> were chosen from 135 people who answered newspaper ads. All said they
> were members of a religious organization, practiced meditation or took
> part in other spiritual activity.
>
> The study was designed to minimize the effects of anticipation and
> group enthusiasm, which might color a person's response. It also sought
> to examine the delayed, as well as immediate, effects of the drug.
>
> The volunteers were randomly assigned to take either 30 milligrams of
> psilocybin (chemically synthesized, not extracted from mushrooms) or 40
> milligrams of methylphenidate, the stimulant sold as Ritalin. The
> sessions lasted eight hours in a room where a person could listen to
> music, relax on a couch with eyeshades or talk with two monitors always
> in attendance. Each subject then took the other drug in a different
> session two months later.
>
> Of the 36 people, 22 had a "complete" mystical experience as judged by
> several question-based scales used for rating such experiences.
> Two-thirds judged it to be among their top five life experiences, equal
> to the birth of a first child or death of a parent. Two months after a
> session, the people who had taken psilocybin reported small but
> significant positive changes in behavior and attitudes compared with
> those who had taken Ritalin.
>
> One-third of the subjects, however, said they experienced "strong or
> extreme" fear at some point in the hours after they took the
> hallucinogen. Four people said the entire session was dominated by
> anxiety or psychological struggle.
>
> Nichols thinks that last finding should give people pause.
>
> "I think these drugs are potentially very dangerous," he said. "I would
> be very disappointed if in any sense these results were used to
> encourage recreational use of these compounds. I wouldn't want to take
> responsibility for anyone under unmonitored conditions coming up with
> those feelings."
>
> Alan Leshner, who headed the National Institute on Drug Abuse for seven
> years and now leads the American Association for the Advancement of
> Science, was both wary and excited about psilocybin's reported effects.
>
> "If it is ultimately shown to be benign but enriches people's lives,
> who could object to that? But I don't have that level of confidence at
> this point, given the paucity of research on it," he said.
>
> A scholar of mysticism, G. William Barnard of Southern Methodist
> University, suspects that most mystical traditions would not object to
> the idea that a chemical could allow a person to tune into a
> preexisting state of consciousness, usually ignored, just as fasting,
> prayer, yoga and other activities can. But there is less enthusiasm for
> the idea that this kind of research will unlock the mechanism of
> mystical insight.
>
> "Most people I suspect would say that the neurochemistry is not the
> full cause of these experiences," he said.
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ence/index.html
About damn time.
-Azrael
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