Mysticism Under the Microscope: Psilocybin Studies

July 17, 2006

Do mushrooms really induce mystical experiences? Yes, according to research done at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

In a double-blind trial, researchers found that psilocybin can create "substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance" that lasts even after the initial experience ends.

Since the era of Timothy Leary some 40 years ago, relatively few studies have rigorously investigated the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. This study by Roland Griffiths, PhD, and colleagues, used established psychological tests to quantify participants’ experience of psilocybin. Results were published in Pharmacology online and reported by MedPage Today on July 12.

Study results showed that 61% of participants taking psilocybin, derived from the Psilocybe mushrooms, had a "full mystical experience," according to Dr Griffiths. Of the 36 study participants, two-thirds said the psilocybin experience was either the most meaningful experience, or one of the top five most meaningful experiences, of their lives.

The effects appeared to linger: 79% of participants reported a moderately to greatly improved sense of well-being or life-satisfaction two months after taking psilocybin, compared with the placebo group. Additionally, most participants receiving psilocybin reported that their mood, attitudes and behaviors had improved to a statistically significant degree.

"Under very defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person," Dr Griffith said, according to MedPage Today. "It’s an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people."

Psilocybin is a tryptamine alkaloid that acts primarily at serotonin 5-HT2A/C receptor sites. It is classified as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.

The researchers suggested that psilocybin may be useful in treating various conditions, such as intractable pain, anxiety or depression.

Clinical Trial

The study included 36 participants aged 24-64 years, most with university educations. None of the participants had previously used hallucinogenic drugs, and over half of them were active in spiritual groups.

In total, 30 participants randomly received psilocybin (30 mg per 70 kg of body weight) or Ritalin (40 mg/70 kg [methylphenidate hydrochloride]).

The “drug-sessions” comprised two eight-hour periods, two months apart, during which participants were in a comfortable room, with classical music, in the company of a monitor (a medical professional experienced in observing drug-study participants). The other six participants underwent three eight-hour sessions. One of these participants received Ritalin and two received unblinded psilocybin.

The separate group was included so as to obscure the study-design to participants and monitors; data from these six participants was excluded in the final analysis. Previous such drug studies have been hampered by investigators’ and participants’ foreknowledge of which drug (or placebo) they were receiving. In this study, neither participants nor monitors knew which drug was being used – a process that appeared, at least partly, to work – in total, monitors were wrong about which drug was used in 23% of sessions, and even the most experienced monitor misclassified the sessions in 17% of sessions.

Fear was a notable adverse affect in these sessions: 11 participants rated their "experience of fear" at some point during the drug-session as "strong" or "extreme". None of the participants receiving Ritalin had a fear response.

The fears in some cases involved anxiety, paranoia or dysphoria and were "readily managed with reassurance". None of the fear responses lasted beyond the drug sessions, Dr Griffiths and colleagues reported.

Commentary

The study was a "landmark", according to Charles Schuster, PhD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which funded the research together with the Council on Spiritual Practices.

In an accompanying commentary in Psychopharmacology online, Dr Schuster said the report proves that "we can objectively study the experiences reported by many to be profoundly spiritual and meaningful," in addition to examining their longer-term consequences.

Dr Schuster also noted that drugs such as psilocybin may one day be useful in treating addictions to other drugs, presumably drugs that – unlike psilocybin – are addictive.

"Human consciousness in its ever-changing state is a function of the ebb and flow of neural impulses interacting in the various regions of the brain -- the very substrate that drugs such as psilocybin act upon," Dr. Schuster said. "Understanding the brain mechanisms mediating these effects is clearly within the realm of neuroscience and deserves further intensive investigation."

Sources:
Psilocybin Viewed as Therapy or Research Tool (CME/CE), MedPage Today, July 12, 2006.
Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. RR Griffiths et al, Psychopharmacology, 2006.
Towards a science of spiritual experience. Harriet de Wit, Psychopharmacology, 2006.
Commentary on: Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance by Griffiths et al. Charles R. Schuster, Psychopharmacology, 2006.

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