Do Magic Mushrooms Make You Mystical?

by Jessica Ruvinsky

Apparently, yes. Seventy-one percent of volunteers rated psilocybin asone of the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives.

THE STUDY "Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance," published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

THE PROBLEM After psilocybin, the active ingredient in magicmushrooms, was outlawed in the mid-1960s, hallucinogen researchersquit cold turkey. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicinepsychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths thinks the drug deserves asecond look as a medical treatment. "This class of compounds producesprofound changes in human perception and consciousness, andessentially it's been taken off the clinical research bench for 40years—it's almost unthinkable," he says.

THE FINDINGS 36 healthy, well-educated, psychologically stablemiddle-aged adults who had never used hallucinogens volunteered forthe study. Griffiths and his colleagues also recruited a psychologistand a social worker familiar with altered states of consciousness toact as monitors and prepare each participant with 8 hours ofindividual counseling.

Accompanied by the monitors, volunteers entered "an aestheticliving-room-like environment designed specifically for the study" witha couch, Persian rug, abstract art on the walls, classical music, andeyeshades and took an unidentified blue capsule that contained eitherpsilocybin or Ritalin. Ritalin was used as a control because, likepsilocybin, it increases heart rate and blood pressure within 30 to 60minutes. It also has similar side effects—like excitability,nervousness, and good mood.

Each volumteer was given a 100-item mystical "states of consciousness"questionnaire 7 hours after taking the drugs, in which they were askedto rate their experience on a 6-point scale in each of 7 domains:transcendence of time and space, ineffability, sacredness orreverence, infinite love, intuitive knowledge of ultimate reality,pure awareness, and unity of all things.

According to Griffiths, 61 percent of the participants had answersindicating a "complete mystical experience" after psilocybin comparedwith only 11 percent after Ritalin. Two months later, 71 percent ofthe volunteers rated psilocybin as one of the five most spirituallysignificant experiences of their lives; 79 percent said it increasedtheir long-term sense of personal well-being or life satisfaction. Only 8 percent ranked Ritalin among the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives, and 21 percent said itincreased their long-term sense of personal well-being or life satisfaction.

But it wasn't all good. After tripping on psilocybin, 30 percentreported experiencing strong or extreme fear; 17 percent of thesereported paranoia. Two volunteers compared it to being in a war and 3said they would never want to do anything like it again. None reportedsignificant fear after Ritalin.

THE RESEARCHERS Roland Griffiths has never 'shroomed, and he doesn'tthink you should either. "I think I can best serve the research by notbeing a user-advocate," he says, heeding a healthy number of studiesthat show the drug can precipitate psychiatric illnesses likeschizophrenia and cause people to engage in lethal behavior likejumping off buildings. Nonetheless, he says, the drug might have afuture treating depression and anxiety. He also cites studies thatshow it increases abstinence in alcoholics.