Psychedelic Priests

A Catholic Priest, a Rabbi and a Buddhist walk into a bar and order some magic mushrooms.

Although this reads like the first line of a bad joke, the scene played out in real life, not in a bar but a laboratory, when one of the first scientific experiments of its kind examined the effects of psychedelic drugs on religious experience.

Neuroscientists have long nursed a special interest, some might say obsession, about how religious beliefs and experiences affect the brain so some time back two dozen religious leaders made-up of Catholic, Orthodox and Presbyterian priests, a Zen Buddhist and several rabbis participated in a study conducted by scientists from John Hopkins University.

Still, it is difficult to understand why people volunteer as test subjects in a field at risk of abuse by special interest groups, when the MK Ultra Mind Control Project rolled out by the CIA over forty years springs to mind.

It is also a given the soft sciences as they are known, fall under the Neuroscience umbrella, and are more prone to ideological manipulation.

The volunteers were administered two powerful doses of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, ‘known to commonly induce profound mystical experiences’ in the words of John Hopkins psychologist-Dr William Richards.

The experiment was to assess whether transcendental experience made religious leaders more effective and confident and if it altered their religious thinking in any way.

While Muslim imams and Hindu priests did not participate in the trial, a broad sample of other groups did.

The trial started with administering the test subjects with two dosages of psilocybin in two sessions, exactly one month apart.

The backdrop of the experiment took place in a living-room-like setting at the University with two guides present.

Once given the drug participants spent time lying on a couch, wearing eyeshades and listening to religious music on headphones.

“Their instruction was to go within and collect experiences,” said Richards.

Based on his reasoning having a religious experience rests on serene surroundings and induced feelings of euphoria.

In the 1960’s, such states were referred to as ‘trips’ by LSD users but they certainly weren’t religious experiences in any understood sense of the word.

Christians testifying experiencing the transcendent don’t report euphoric emotions as central to such episodes, in fact, the expression “I was not prepared for it in any way” might sound clichéd but that is exactly how they claimed it happened.

According to Richards, people had a deeper appreciation of their heritage when “The dead dogma comes alive for them in a meaningful way.”

Yet this experiment seemed to be about instilling a type of interfaith experience with Richards saying; “they get a better appreciation for other world religions, or other ways up the mountain, if you will”.

I mean seriously, just how would he know?

Hello Aldous Huxley is that you? Your predictions of servile people spaced out of their minds on mind- altering drugs resonate with this test study.

If Richards had just said the purpose of the experiment was to get subjects ‘high’ then record their reactions he would have been more honest.

Researchers concluded that after their psychedelic journey, religious leaders’ ideas about religion shifted away from the sectarian towards something altogether universal.

Therefore, a good rabbi can encounter the Buddha within according to Richards.

Apparently, the notion that hallucinogenic drugs can bring about mystical experiences is not new as there was a Harvard study known as the “Good Friday Experiment” although this is the first experiment of its kind involving different faiths.

The burning question: Is this work really science.

Of course, Richards argues, saying the team is using detailed psychological questionnaires and independent raters (sic) in their assessments.

However, with the criterion biased toward achieving a specific result it certainly sounds more like predictive conditioning.

Ben Sessa, a clinical psychological and researcher at Imperial College London offered these pearls of wisdom.

He’s urged journalists to focus on the “rigorous science” saying; are you going to focus on the tie-dye and the dreads, or are you going to look at the cutting- edge neuroscience here?”

Well dude, maybe the difficulty is seeing the wood of rigorous science in the trees of tie-dye, dreads and the psychedelic acid trips of Woodstock.

Richards wild, inner hippie fantasy, he began his research into psychedelic drug use in the sixties, is that these ‘magic mushrooms’ be used in seminary and rabbinical training as it offers an opportunity to explore deeply spiritual states of consciousness in a legal way.

It seems as if Neuroscience is morphing into something more Zen-like by the day.

This is likely the predicted spiritual revolution in neuro-science spoken of some years back.

According to Biocentrism the world of non- materialism teaches life and consciousness is central, even informing the universe, incidentally a main belief of Zen Buddhism.