There has been an increasing interest in the use of classic psychedelics (such as psilocybin) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) for treating mental health conditions. Individuals often describe psychedelic sessions as among the most significant experiences in their lives, emphasizing the sense of awe, connectedness, and spiritual transformation ta...
Recent studies show that psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD can reliably occasion spiritual or “mystical-like” experiences under supportive conditions, and the spiritual dimension of these experiences may contribute to their reported mental health benefits. Scholars have begun exploring how such experiences might relate to spiritual growth within Christ...
This article presents the results of a Cognitive Linguistic analysis of metaphors used in a series of interviews by a single healthy volunteer following four moderate-to-high dosing sessions with psilocybin. The interviews were conducted by members of a human psychedelic research lab in a deep-sampling fMRI and EEG brain imaging study, allowing the participa...
CONTEXT: People living with serious illness frequently experience intense existential suffering related to awareness of finitude. Psychedelic-assisted therapies have been associated with reductions in death anxiety and existential distress, yet the experiential processes underlying transformations in the relationship with finitude remain insufficiently under...
Psychedelic drugs produce effects on the mind that manifest as an apparent expansion of consciousness often accompanied by hallucinations. Psychedelics, which act as agonists at serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in the brain, include psilocybin, 5-methoxydimethyltryptamine, and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (tryptamine derivatives), mescaline (a phenethylamine derivative)...
Can a guided psychedelic experience with psilocybin successfully treat refractory depression? In other words, setting aside any simple direct biological drug effect, can psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy1 alleviate suffering via what William James would call a mystical experience?2
In our original case report we provide detailed accounts of two research participants who reported the emergence of spontaneously recovered, previously forgotten traumatic memories of sexual assaults during psilocybin treatment. In their commentary of this article, Kangaslampi et al. argue that we preemptively label the experiences as dissociated traumatic m...
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is increasingly investigated as a treatment for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorder. In the United States (US) and European Union, esketamine has been approved for the treatment of depression, while psilocybin and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) have received Breakthrough T...
Current neuroscience research calls into question the binary model of anesthesia as a state of consciousness shifted by unconsciousness, replacing it with an idea of consciousness as a continuum created by interactions between large-scale cortex and subcortical regions.Meanwhile, psychedelic drugs are making a comeback as potential treatments for treatment-r...
For more than four decades, the emphasis in the academic study of world religions has been on differences over similarities, and comparative analyses allowing for commonalities have become increasingly rare. This article argues that similarities nonetheless exist and should be studied. After disclaiming the judgment of other scholars that Aldous Huxley attem...
In a recent Psychoactives article, Bor Luen Tang argues against psychedelic moral bioenhancement (PMBE)-the use of classic psychedelics such as psilocybin to foster moral growth in healthy individuals [...]
In their recent case report article, Peck and colleagues suggested that two patients recovered dissociated traumatic memories during psilocybin treatment for anorexia nervosa. These case reports are of clinical and scientific interest and confirm that psychedelics may induce vivid memory-like experiences. However, the reports warrant scrutiny. Here, based on...
Griffiths et al.'s recent "Effects of Psilocybin on Religious and Spiritual Attitudes and Behaviors in Clergy from Various Major World Religions" is an important study in the literature on psychedelic medicine and religious experience. In this commentary on the study, we argue: (1) The study design's implicit presupposition of perennialism in its conception ...
The meta-analysis of the 11-dimensional Altered States of Consciousness (11D-ASC) included three studies that contained duplicated data from other papers: Duerler et al. (2021), Lewis et al. (2017), and Preller et al. (2017). When these studies are removed from the analysis, the results are generally similar to the previously reported findings. Out of 33 com...
In a suburb of Vancouver, Canada, a nondescript three-story building sits alongside a strip of parking lots. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary commercial office space. But inside is something more extraordinary: rows of shelves stacked with plastic tubs full of magic mushrooms-mushrooms that contain the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybin. In a year...
