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Psychedelic Induced Transpersonal Experiences

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Abstract

This chapter presents a neurophenomenological model of psychedelic-induced transpersonal experiences, therapeutic processes that they induce, and their implications for transpersonal theory. The pharmacological effects of psychedelics also enable them to address a range of psychological and emotional maladies. In addition to indigenous and shamanic approaches, there are four main types of psychedelic sessions: psycholytic and psychedelic—which developed from Grof's work—entactogenic, and pharmacological. While it is safe to say that transpersonal psychology could exist without psychedelics, it may be just as safe to say that transpersonal psychology would not exist without psychedelics. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the multidisciplinary implications of psychedelics for the sciences and society.

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... -Can psychedelic substances promote genuine and lasting transpersonal (spiritual) identity development (Angelo, 2016;Friedman, 2006;Roberts, 2020) and, if so, then what kinds of psychological "sets" and environmental "settings" facilitate its occurrence (Fadiman & Kornfield, 2013;Johnson, Richards & Griffiths, 2008;Roberts & Winkelman, 2013)? ...
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The purpose of this article is to identify investigable areas with potential for development within Transpersonal Psychology as a human science. First, information resources are identified that can be used to select broad topical areas worth investigating. A variety of "Topics Awaiting Study" are then presented in the form of research questions accompanied by at least one published academic reference to provide a springboard for further research. The article concludes with a personal reflection about the task ahead for today's generation of researchers, scholars, and practitioners who want to do their own thinking about investigable questions on transpersonal issues within Transpersonal Psychology in the coming decades. Resumen El propósito de este artículo es identificar áreas de investigación con potencial de desarrollo dentro de la Psicología Transpersonal como ciencia humana. Primero, se identifican recursos de informa-ción que pueden usarse para seleccionar áreas temáticas amplias que vale la pena investigar. Luego se presenta una variedad de "Temas en espera de estudio" en forma de preguntas de investigación acompañadas de al menos una referencia académica publicada para proporcionar un trampolín para futuras investigaciones. El artículo concluye con una reflexión personal sobre la tarea que tiene por delante la generación actual de investigadores, académicos y profesionales que quieren pensar por su cuenta sobre la investigación en el área transpersonal dentro de la Psicología en las próximas décadas. Palabras claves: psicología transpersonal, investigación psicológica, problema de investigación, revisión de la li-teratura, hipótesis de investigación
... The ego boundary is one of the ego functions most often discussed in contemporary psychedelic research (Roberts and Winkelman, 2013;Preller and Vollenweider, 2016;Smigielski et al., 2020;Scheidegger, Bellak and Sheehy (1976). (Rabeyron, 2021). ...
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The ego is one of the most central psychological constructs in psychedelic research and a key factor in psychotherapy, including psychedelic-assisted forms of psychotherapy. Despite its centrality, the ego-construct remains ambiguous in the psychedelic literature. Therefore, we here review the theoretical background of the ego-construct with focus on its psychodynamic conceptualization. We discuss major functions of the ego including ego boundaries, defenses, and synthesis, and evaluate the role of the ego in psychedelic drug action. According to the psycholytic paradigm, psychedelics are capable of inducing regressed states of the ego that are less protected by the ego’s usual defensive apparatus. In such states, core early life conflicts may emerge that have led to maladaptive ego patterns. We use the psychodynamic term character in this paper as a potential site of change and rearrangement; character being the chronic and habitual patterns the ego utilizes to adapt to the everyday challenges of life, including a preferred set of defenses. We argue that in order for psychedelic-assisted therapy to successfully induce lasting changes to the ego’s habitual patterns, it must psycholytically permeate the characterological core of the habits. The primary working principle of psycholytic therapy therefore is not the state of transient ego regression alone, but rather the regressively favored emotional integration of those early life events that have shaped the foundation, development, and/or rigidification of a person’s character – including his or her defense apparatus. Aiming for increased flexibility of habitual ego patterns, the psycholytic approach is generally compatible with other forms of psychedelic-assisted therapy, such as third wave cognitive behavioral approaches.
... In any case, even if specific neurobiological processes can be identified in the induction of specific anomalous experiences, or even states, does not mean to say that a reductionist argument has prevailed, because as Huxley also stated, psychedelics are the occasion not the causethe ontology of the ensuing experience still needs fathoming whether the neurobiological mediating factors are determined or not. Ultimately, the importance of these anomalous experiences may be determined by what we can learn about ontology, consciousness and our identity as living organisms, and by what use they may be in psychotherapy, one's own spiritual quest, and as catalysts for personal transformation and healing (Roberts & Winkelman, 2013). ...
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This article explores the nature of psychedelically induced anomalous experiences for what they reveal regarding the nature of “expanded consciousness” and its implications for humanistic and transpersonal psychology, parapsychology, and the psychology and underlying neuroscience of such experiences. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this essay reviews the nature of 10 transpersonal or parapsychological experiences that commonly occur spontaneously and in relation to the use of psychedelic substances, namely synesthesia, extradimensional percepts, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, entity encounters, alien abduction, sleep paralysis, interspecies communication, possession, and psi (telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance and psychokinesis).
... The unconstraining of cognitive patterns via psychedelics can lead to "mystical" experiences that encompass feelings of sacredness, interconnectedness with the world at large, joy, peace, collapse of time and space, ineffability, and a sense of numinous truth Hood, 2003;Richards, 2015;Stace, 1960). Phenomenological and religious descriptions typically characterize such experiences in terms of a revelatory breakdown of habitual cognitive frameworks that divide the world into categories such as self and other, body and mind, or space and time (Richards, 2015;James, 1902;Roberts, & Winkelman, 2013;Walsh & Vaughan, 1993). An influential early study, referred to by psychedelic researchers as the "Good Friday Experiment," sought to test whether psilocybin could catalyze mystical experiences in a controlled setting at the Marsh Chapel of Boston University (Pahnke, 1963). ...
Chapter
This chapter explores psychedelics as catalysts of spontaneous thought. Classic serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca can induce potent alterations in cognition and perception. The chapter reviews research on these substances through the lens of cultural neurophenomenology, which aims to trace how neurobiology and sociocultural factors interact to shape experience. After a decades- long hiatus, the scientific study of psychedelics is rediscovering the potential of these substances to promote creative insight, evoke mystical experiences, and improve clinical outcomes. Moreover, neuroimaging experiments have begun to unravel the influence of psychedelics on largescale connectivity networks of the human brain. Tapping perspectives from the social sciences, the chapter underscores how culture and context constrain the flexible cognitive states brought about by psychedelics. This integrative approach suggests that seemingly spontaneous psychedelic thought patterns reflect a complex interaction of biological, cognitive, and cultural factors- from pharmacology and brain function to ritual, belief, and expectation.
... It offers an overview of current therapeutic modalities in Transpersonal Psychology, including transpersonal perspectives on mental health and mental illness (Kaminker & Lukoff, 2013), the use of meditation in clinical settings (MacDonald, Walsh, & Shapiro, 2013), and psychedelicinduced therapies (T. Roberts & Winkelman, 2013). Somatic therapies (D. Johnson, 2013), hypnosis in therapy (Wickramaskera, 2013), and the use of dreams as a therapeutic technique (Deslauriers, 2013) are also discussed in the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook. ...
... Our very psychology as human beings was shaped by the experiences induced by the psychedelics and their intrinsically religious effects, as well as a range of other cognitive, social and personal dispositions they produced (Roberts & Winkelman, 2013). Shamanic practices in general and the healing traditions in particular were centrally shaped by these experiences and the powers released within the person by the pharmacological effects of the active ingredients of these plants. ...
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Shamanism and psychedelics are central to understanding the evolutionary roots of ecopsychology and its basic principles. The ancient ritual roots of shamanism constituted the context within which psychedelic experiences contributed selective influences to the evolution of human neuropsychology. Both shamanic psychology and ecopsychology involve a neuroepistemology that reflects the neurotransmitter effects of psychedelics on cognition. Shamanism contributed to the development of our ecopsychology through influences on psychological, social and cognitive evolution. Shamanism embodies the concept of animism, the notion of the spiritual essence of all nature which is recognized as the core of the oldest of humanity's religious beliefs. Shamanism provided the context within which this animistic attitude and the sense of the sentience of the many entities of the world were developed, especially in the relationship to animals. Animal species and their variant qualities provided a natural metaphoric system to structure psychological development and the evolution of social organization. Within the context of shamanism, the worlds of animal species and spirits intertwined in the creation of symbolic potentials for the differentiation of self – embodied in animal spirit powers – and the collective identity of society – embodied in totemic animals. This incorporation of the elements of nature into personal powers and social identity made shamanic ecopsychology a basic feature of human nature and culture.
... Our very psychology as human beings was shaped by the experiences induced by the psychedelics and their intrinsically religious effects, as well as a range of other cognitive, social and personal dispositions they produced (Roberts & Winkelman, 2013). Shamanic practices in general and the healing traditions in particular were centrally shaped by these experiences and the powers released within the person by the pharmacological effects of the active ingredients of these plants. ...
Book
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From ecodelic triplit, the peyoteros’ sense of place, interspecies communication and animistic healing to ecocentric entheogenic rituals, psychedelic bioregionalism, biogenetic structuralist ecopsychology and transpersonal ecosophy – this special issue of the EJE explores the verdant intersection between neurobiology and botany, shamanism and animism, and psychology and ecology, fusing mind with Nature in a boiling cauldron full of entheogenic insight.
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Therapeutic applications of the psychedelics or hallucinogens found cross-culturally involve treatment of a variety of physical, psychological, and social maladies. Modern medicine has similarly found that a range of conditions may be successfully treated with these agents. The ability to treat a wide variety of conditions derives from variation in active ingredients, doses and modes of application, and factors of set and setting manipulated in ritual. Similarities in effects reported cross-culturally reflect biological mechanisms, while success in the treatment of a variety of specific psychological conditions points to the importance of ritual in eliciting their effects. Similar bases involve action on the serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitter systems that can be characterized as psychointegration: An elevation of ancient brain processes. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. All rights are reserved.
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The use of psychedelic substances for medicinal and therapeutic purposes has been around for many thousands of years. These practices are closely related to shamanism, which has an antiquity stretching back to the dawn of modern human cultural capacities. Shamanism and the ritual use of psychedelic plants co-evolved deep in prehistory, as hunter-gatherer diets inevitability included psychedelic mushrooms, contributing to selection for the characteristics of our evolved psychologies and ideal set and setting. Clinical management of psychedelic medicines is central to shamanic healing traditions which are repositories of millennia of clinical experience and knowledge regarding the best applications of these substances. These ethnomedical traditions constitute a clinical science with important guidelines relevant to contemporary applications of these substances, providing a range of strategies and "best uses" approaches regarding the application of psychedelic medicines. This knowledge includes ritual structures in preparation for their use, guiding their application and producing optimal effects; conceptual frameworks for managing these entheogenic experiences, and preparatory practices that enhance their psychoactive effects and therapeutic processes.
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This book examines shamanism from evolutionary and biological perspectives to identify the origins of shamanic healing in rituals that enhance individual and group function. What does the brain do during "soul journeys"? How do shamans alter consciousness and why is this important for healing? Are shamans different from other kinds of healers? Is there a connection between the rituals performed by chimpanzees and traditional shamanistic practices? All of these questions and many more are answered in Shamanism, Second Edition: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing. This text contains crosscultural examinations of the nature of shamanism, biological perspectives on alterations of consciousness, mechanisms of shamanistic healing, as well as the evolutionary origins of shamanism. It presents the shamanic paradigm within a biopsychosocial framework for explaining successful human evolution through group rituals. In the final chapter,"the author compares shamanistic rituals with chimpanzee displays to identify homologies that point to the ritual dynamics of our ancient hominid ancestors.
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This presentation looks at some provisional evolutionary, and related cultural (Dual inheritance), based perspectives regarding the initiation of drug abuse including classical plant derived substances and Novel Psychotropic Substances (NPS). It reviews a range of “Ultimate” as well as “Proximate” reasons as to why humans use psychotropic substances e.g. medical, for pleasure, for transcendent and psychedelic purposes as well as blocking aversive reactions. Evolutionary aspects of the following are considered:- • Traditional use of plant substances including pharmacophagy and for medicinal purposes • How drugs may increase positive or decrease negative feelings • How drugs can lead to emotional systems becoming decoupled from important aspects of the external environment including environmental opportunities, success or threats • Recreational and other uses of psychotropic drugs in youngsters, looking at some possible trade-off advantages, including consideration of reproduction at the expense of health • Use of drugs from costly signalling and handicap perspectives • Placebo effects, rituals and changes in functioning and healing with attendant evolutionary advantage • Evolutionary ideas regarding spirituality, religion, group cohesion and culture. • The role of (Psychedelic) drugs in shamanism, psychonauts and religion. This presentation involves integrating theories, perspectives and ideas from a wide range of disciplines in addition to psychiatry including:- genetics, epidemiology, psychology (cognitive and psychodynamic), developmental biology and psychology, paleoanthropology, zoology and sociology. The importance of these concepts regarding human psychotropic drug use and their combination and synthesis into a unified working model from an evolutionary perspective is considered, especially regarding the potential for future research and treatments.
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A number of medication trials at major U.S. research universities are now, once more, legally exploring psychedelics' vast potential for treating various physical and psychological problems. These studies have been approved based on a medical model that considers psychedelics' effects as primarily biochemical, but some are also addressing wider humanistic and transpersonal implications for research and praxis. These studies may challenge the prevailing medical model of psychopathology that not only reduces humans to just their biology but also has led to widespread medical treatments through formularies that predominantly constrict, rather than enhance, human potential. Psychedelics offer great potential as tools for researching elusive areas within humanistic and transpersonal psychology, as well as powerful ways to facilitate humanistic and transpersonal growth.
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Although psilocybin has been used for centuries for religious purposes, little is known scientifically about its acute and persisting effects. This double-blind study evaluated the acute and longer-term psychological effects of a high dose of psilocybin relative to a comparison compound administered under comfortable, supportive conditions. The participants were hallucinogen-naïve adults reporting regular participation in religious or spiritual activities. Two or three sessions were conducted at 2-month intervals. Thirty volunteers received orally administered psilocybin (30 mg/70 kg) and methylphenidate hydrochloride (40 mg/70 kg) in counterbalanced order. To obscure the study design, six additional volunteers received methylphenidate in the first two sessions and unblinded psilocybin in a third session. The 8-h sessions were conducted individually. Volunteers were encouraged to close their eyes and direct their attention inward. Study monitors rated volunteers' behavior during sessions. Volunteers completed questionnaires assessing drug effects and mystical experience immediately after and 2 months after sessions. Community observers rated changes in the volunteer's attitudes and behavior. Psilocybin produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes rated by community observers. When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences. The ability to occasion such experiences prospectively will allow rigorous scientific investigations of their causes and consequences.
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This introductory chapter looks at psychedelic medicine from a cross-cultural perspective, illustrating the therapeutic and spiritual interpretations of their uses in many societies. The cross-cultural similarities in their use and interpretation reflect a biological foundation for their uses and effects. The chapter addresses some of the standard interpretations of these substances' mechanisms of action in the serotonergic neurotransmitter system. The author's analyses of the systemic effects of serotonergic transmission, and the interaction of the psychedelic medicines with serotonergic mechanisms, provide the basis for characterizing their effects as psychointegrative. Psychedelics produce a disinhibition of informational, emotional, and visual processes and stimulation of the integration of limbic system processes within the neocortex. This in effect integrates behavioral and emotional dynamics with the rational processes of the symbolic brain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Psilocybin is a classic psychedelic drug that has a history of use in psychotherapy. One of the rationales for its use was that it aids emotional insight by lowering psychological defences. To test the hypothesis that psilocybin facilitates access to personal memories and emotions by comparing subjective and neural responses to positive autobiographical memories under psilocybin and placebo. Ten healthy participants received two functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (2 mg intravenous psilocybin v. intravenous saline), separated by approximately 7 days, during which they viewed two different sets of 15 positive autobiographical memory cues. Participants viewed each cue for 6 s and then closed their eyes for 16 s and imagined re-experiencing the event. Activations during this recollection period were compared with an equivalent period of eyes-closed rest. We split the recollection period into an early phase (first 8 s) and a late phase (last 8 s) for analysis. Robust activations to the memories were seen in limbic and striatal regions in the early phase and the medial prefrontal cortex in the late phase in both conditions (P<0.001, whole brain cluster correction), but there were additional visual and other sensory cortical activations in the late phase under psilocybin that were absent under placebo. Ratings of memory vividness and visual imagery were significantly higher after psilocybin (P<0.05) and there was a significant positive correlation between vividness and subjective well-being at follow-up (P<0.01). Evidence that psilocybin enhances autobiographical recollection implies that it may be useful in psychotherapy either as a tool to facilitate the recall of salient memories or to reverse negative cognitive biases.
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Retrospective analysis of definitions published 35 years suggests the major subject areas of the field can be summed up in three themes: beyond-ego psychology, integrative/ holistic psychology, and psychology of transformation. Theme frequency analysis reveals that early emphasis on alternative states of consciousness hasmoderated into a broader approach to human transcendence, wholeness, and transformation. This expanded definition of transpersonal psychology suggests the field has much in common with integral psychology. As a comprehensive, historically based content summary, this tripartite definition contributes a small but vital piece to the foundation of a transpersonal vision that is spreading across the globe. While transpersonal psychology still needs to embody the inclusiveness and diversity that it represents, its vision is one of great relevance to the contemporary human condition.
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A large body of evidence, including longitudinal analyses of personality change, suggests that core personality traits are predominantly stable after age 30. To our knowledge, no study has demonstrated changes in personality in healthy adults after an experimentally manipulated discrete event. Intriguingly, double-blind controlled studies have shown that the classic hallucinogen psilocybin occasions personally and spiritually significant mystical experiences that predict long-term changes in behaviors, attitudes and values. In the present report we assessed the effect of psilocybin on changes in the five broad domains of personality - Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Consistent with participant claims of hallucinogen-occasioned increases in aesthetic appreciation, imagination, and creativity, we found significant increases in Openness following a high-dose psilocybin session. In participants who had mystical experiences during their psilocybin session, Openness remained significantly higher than baseline more than 1 year after the session. The findings suggest a specific role for psilocybin and mystical-type experiences in adult personality change.
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In a matter of hours, mind-altering substances may induce profound psychological realignments that can take decades to achieve on a therapist's couch
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Case reports indicate that psychiatrists administered ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) as a catalyst to psychotherapy before recreational use of MDMA as 'Ecstasy' resulted in its criminalization in 1985. Over two decades later, this study is the first completed clinical trial evaluating MDMA as a therapeutic adjunct. Twenty patients with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder, refractory to both psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, were randomly assigned to psychotherapy with concomitant active drug (n = 12) or inactive placebo (n = 8) administered during two 8-h experimental psychotherapy sessions. Both groups received preparatory and follow-up non-drug psychotherapy. The primary outcome measure was the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, administered at baseline, 4 days after each experimental session, and 2 months after the second session. Neurocognitive testing, blood pressure, and temperature monitoring were performed. After 2-month follow-up, placebo subjects were offered the option to re-enroll in the experimental procedure with open-label MDMA. Decrease in Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale scores from baseline was significantly greater for the group that received MDMA than for the placebo group at all three time points after baseline. The rate of clinical response was 10/12 (83%) in the active treatment group versus 2/8 (25%) in the placebo group. There were no drug-related serious adverse events, adverse neurocognitive effects or clinically significant blood pressure increases. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can be administered to posttraumatic stress disorder patients without evidence of harm, and it may be useful in patients refractory to other treatments.
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Neurobiological models of drug abuse propose that drug use is initiated and maintained by rewarding feedback mechanisms. However, the most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins that evolved to punish, not reward, consumption by animal herbivores. Reward models therefore implicitly assume an evolutionary mismatch between recent drug-profligate environments and a relatively drug-free past in which a reward centre, incidentally vulnerable to neurotoxins, could evolve. By contrast, emerging insights from plant evolutionary ecology and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochrome P450, indicate that animal and hominid taxa have been exposed to plant toxins throughout their evolution. Specifically, evidence of conserved function, stabilizing selection, and population-specific selection of human cytochrome P450 genes indicate recent evolutionary exposure to plant toxins, including those that affect animal nervous systems. Thus, the human propensity to seek out and consume plant neurotoxins is a paradox with far-reaching implications for current drug-reward theory. We sketch some potential resolutions of the paradox, including the possibility that humans may have evolved to counter-exploit plant neurotoxins. Resolving the paradox of drug reward will require a synthesis of ecological and neurobiological perspectives of drug seeking and use.
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Edited by two preeminent scholars, this book provides coverage of the policy issues related to the increasingly diverse treatments, practices, and applications of psychedelics. Hallucinogenic substances like LSD, mescaline, peyote, MDMA, and ayahuasca have a reputation as harmful substances that are enjoyed only by recreational users committing criminal acts. But leading international researchers and scholars who contributed to this book hold that the use of psychedelic substances for health, religious, intellectual, and artistic purposes is a Constitutional right—and a human right. Based on that conclusion, these scholars focus on policy issues that regulate the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, religion, personal life, and higher education, arguing that existing regulations should match current and anticipated future uses. This volume has two parts. The first surveys research on the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, religion, and truth-seeking, following these topics through history and contemporary practice. The second section treats government policices that regulate the psychological, physiological, biochemical, and spiritual aspects of research and experience in these fields. The Psychedelic Policy Quagmire: Health, Law, Freedom, and Society challenges medical and legal policy experts, ethicists, scientists, and scholars with the question: How can we formulate policies that reduce the dangers of psychedelics' misuse and at the same time maximize the emerging diverse benefits?
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Ayahuasca, Ritual and Religion in Brazil examines the emergence of religious groups in the Brazilian Amazon who constitute their systems of ritual, myth and principles around the use of a psychoactive brew known by diverse names, one of which is the Quechua term ‘ayahuasca’. Although the study of these religious movements has seen much development in recent decades there are still few publications in English, especially in the area of anthropology. This collection, containing many articles previously published only in Portuguese, explains the research conducted in Brazil. It shows a representative sample of the main types of approaches that have been used and also offers an overview of the historical development of this field of research in Brazil, especially from the perspective of the human sciences. This volume makes explicit what the study of the ayahuasca religions can contribute to classical and contemporary issues in anthropology. It presents a varied set of ethnographic approaches employed in the initial mapping of this phenomenon, establishing its historical and cultural origins. It also provides a basis to develop future work on these religions, both in their original contexts and in their expansion throughout Brazil and the world.
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In more than 15 years of observing and researching the phenomena termed altered states of consciousness, I have been repeatedly impressed with the incredible range of phenomena encompassed by that term and with the high degree of unrelatedness of most of these phenomena. Hundreds of people have given me reports of radical alterations in the functioning of their consciousness, not only about such relatively familiar things as the changes caused by sleep and dreaming or by strong emotional states, but about changes associated with more exotic techniques, like various meditations, hypnosis, marijuana intoxication, intoxication with major psychedelic drugs, mediumistic trance states, out-of-the-body experiences, a variety of idiosyncratic states that seem to be unique to given persons, states that seem to be socially shared by groups of practitioners of particular spiritual disciplines, and experiences of that category that we vaguely label mystical experiences.
Article
In their letter soliciting contributions to this book, the editors wrote, "we came to the conclusion that psychedelic drugs have influenced both the lives of individual users and society in general more than is usually acknowledged—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. " I was delighted to receive their invitation, since these words almost exactly expressed my own conclusions after 8 years of psychiatric clinical and research work. For 5 of those 8 years I have worked in areas such as the nature of psychological well-being, non-Western psychologies and religions, consciousness, and the effects of meditation. I have also undertaken a personal study of meditative and non-Western traditions, and I thus have had the opportunity of meeting, interviewing, and studying with a wide range of people in these related disciplines. Whenever I came to know these people closely, the same story would emerge: that although they rarely acknowledged it in public, the psychedelics had played an important role in introducing them to and facilitating their passage through these disciplines. It occurred to me that this might well be a case of what social scientists call "plurality ignorance:" a situation in which each individual thinks he or she is the only one doing something, although in fact the practice is widespread. In this case, what seemed to be widely unrecognized was that large numbers of people appear to have derived, at least from their own point of view, significant benefits from psychedelics, despite popular media accounts of their devastating dangers. This suspicion was deepened by an encounter with the editor of a prominent psychological journal. In an extensive review of various Western and non-Western psychologies, I discussed the data on psychedelics and concluded that there was evidence suggesting that in some cases people might find them beneficial. The journal editor was willing to accept the paper provided I removed any reference to positive effects of psychedelics; he thought that the journal could not afford to be associated with such statements. I am familiar with this particular editor's work and know that he is exceptionally open-minded. It appears that we have in our culture, even in the scientific and professional literature, a bias towards reporting only the negative effects of psychedelics. How, then, can we get a picture of the effects of psychedelics when they are used for personal exploration and psychological growth? One approach suggested by Abraham Maslow, but as yet apparently untried in the area of psychedelics, is to ask people who are exceptionally healthy and use them as bioassayers. Maslow's technique was to identify those individuals who seemed to be most fully actualizing their potential; he called them self-actualizers. (1) He listed 13 characteristics, such as a deep involvement in work, peak experiences, and a good sense of humor, which identify individuals who have attained exceptional psychological well-being. While this approach has many advantages, it is not without its drawbacks and limitations. The concept and criteria of self-actualization are by no means clear, and they are largely lacking in research data and support; individuals are chosen subjectively, with all the possible biases which that 1 / 6 Psychedelics and Self-Actualization Written by Roger Walsh Thursday, 07 January 2010 17:30 -Last Updated Saturday, 25 December 2010 21:06 entails. (2) However, in the absence of good empirical tests of high level well-being, we are left for the present with subjective judgments. My research has given me the extraordinary gift of meeting some very remarkable people: mental health professionals, advanced meditators, teachers, gurus, holy people of both East and West who have devoted a large part of their lives to mental training and psychological growth. I have spent considerable time with some of them, interviewing and being interviewed, receiving instruction on various meditative practices, listening to their talks, and socializing. As might be expected, there is a wide range of personalities and psychological maturity. I was able to interview in depth five of the very healthiest Westerners who fit Maslow's criteria and are also successful and eminent in their disciplines. These four men and one woman range in age from their mid-thirties to their forties. All have university degrees; three are psychologists, and the other two are highly sophisticated psychologically. Four are teachers, either of psychology or of one of the consciousness disciplines such as meditation or Buddhism. All have strong national reputations, and most have international reputations; all have published at least one book. I included the criterion of professional eminence in order to insure that the people were competent and would not be dismissed as irresponsible or as dropouts of any sort.
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TWO TYPES OF LEARNING, EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC, ARE DESCRIBED. INTRINSIC LEARNING INVOLVES THOSE PROCESSES WHICH CAN HELP PEOPLE BECOME ALL THAT THEY ARE CAPABLE OF BECOMING. INTRINSIC LEARNING IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF ALL EDUCATION, INCLUDING ADULT EDUCATION, AND IS ALSO THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF COUNSELING. SELF-ACTUALIZING PEOPLE LEARN THROUGH THE PROCESSES OF INTRINSIC LEARNING. SELF-ACTUALIZING PEOPLE ARE DESCRIBED AS THOSE WHO LISTEN TO THEIR OWN VOICES, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, ARE HONEST, AND WHO WORK. THEY ARE INVOLVED IN A CAUSE OUTSIDE OF THEMSELVES. THEY EXPERIENCE FULLY, VIVIDLY, AND SELFLESSLY WITH FULL CONCENTRATION AND ABSORPTION. AT THE VARIOUS CHOICE POINTS PRESENTED TO THEM, THEY MAKE THE CHOICE FOR GROWTH. THE INTRINSIC LEARNING MODEL IS ESPECIALLY ADAPTIVE IN WORKING WITH ADULTS SINCE THEY ALREADY HAVE CAPACITIES, TALENTS, DIRECTIONS, MISSIONS, AND CALLINGS. THE COUNSELOR'S JOB, THEREFORE, IS TO HELP THEM TO BECOME WHAT THEY ALREADY ARE MORE PERFECTLY AND TO REALIZE WHAT THEY POTENTIALLY CAN BE. THIS ADDRESS WAS PRESENTED AT THE CONFERENCE ON THE TRAINING OF COUNSELORS OF ADULTS (CHATHAM, MAY 22-28, 1965). (RM)
Article
Recently, 36 people who had never taken hallucinogens before gave them a try. The pill they took launched a daylong psychedelic journey, sometimes fantastic, sometimes frightening. When it was over, a few who took the drug said it was the most meaningful experience of their lives, as momentous as the birth of a first child or the death of a parent. Others wished never to repeat. The drug they took was psilocybin, the hallucinogenic molecule found in "magic" mushrooms. This article deals with a study at the Johns Hopkins University Bayview Medical Center that explored the drug's ability to induce a mystical state. In this article, the author also discusses other studies on psilocybin, such as those from Timothy Leary, a psychologist at Harvard University and Dr. Charles S. Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Article
Discusses 4 major categories of LSD experiences, reflecting information drawn from almost 5,000 psychedelic sessions and emphasizing the category called "perinatal experiences." Freudian interpretation of these data is extended to sociopolitical analysis. Proposals for research and application, both psychological and interdisciplinary, are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Documents various historical, psychological and philosophical uses of the term "transpersonal" and reports on the original construction and use of the term by American philosopher and psychologist William James. It is asserted that, like much of James's work, the current transpersonal perspective is an experience and knowledge-based search for an understanding of human psychological life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Presents 10 anthropological field studies of the use of psychotropic mushrooms and other hallucinogens by primitive peoples (e.g., aborigines) in the ancient practice of invoking a trance state to perceive and manipulate supernatural forces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Developed an objective self-report instrument, the Self-Expansiveness Level Form (SELF). Construction and validation of SELF are described. SELF was administered to 166 undergraduates who were also administered a selection of other tests, including the Self-Description Inventory, the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, and the Mystical Experience Scale. A 2nd phase of validation was conducted with 2 groups composed of those supportive of transpersonal approaches: 13 yoga students (mean age 38.8 yrs) and 20 members (mean age 40.7 yrs) of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. SELF showed high test–retest reliability. A clear personal and Transpersonal Factor emerged from the factor structure. Convergence with other scales indicates that SELF measures an aspect of integration of the person at the here-and-now level of traditional mental health. Validity studies support the ability of Transpersonal Scale of SELF to differentiate between known-transpersonal groups and a student group. Findings support a stability of pattern in the transpersonal area. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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The International Transpersonal Association (ITA) was formed in 1978 for the purposesof promoting education and research in transpersonal subjects, as well as sponsoring global conferences for the international transpersonal community. The association was subsequently dissolved in 2004, but is now in the process of being reactivated and revitalized. As background for this development, this paper reviews the history of ITA including its international conferences and noteworthy presenters, the organization’s definition, strategies, and specific goals, and details of its contemporary revival.
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Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was synthesized in 1938 and its psychoactive effects discovered in 1943. It was used during the 1950s and 1960s as an experimental drug in psychiatric research for producing so-called "experimental psychosis" by altering neurotransmitter system and in psychotherapeutic procedures ("psycholytic" and "psychedelic" therapy). From the mid 1960s, it became an illegal drug of abuse with widespread use that continues today. With the entry of new methods of research and better study oversight, scientific interest in LSD has resumed for brain research and experimental treatments. Due to the lack of any comprehensive review since the 1950s and the widely dispersed experimental literature, the present review focuses on all aspects of the pharmacology and psychopharmacology of LSD. A thorough search of the experimental literature regarding the pharmacology of LSD was performed and the extracted results are given in this review. (Psycho-) pharmacological research on LSD was extensive and produced nearly 10,000 scientific papers. The pharmacology of LSD is complex and its mechanisms of action are still not completely understood. LSD is physiologically well tolerated and psychological reactions can be controlled in a medically supervised setting, but complications may easily result from uncontrolled use by layman. Actually there is new interest in LSD as an experimental tool for elucidating neural mechanisms of (states of) consciousness and there are recently discovered treatment options with LSD in cluster headache and with the terminally ill.
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According to a conventional evolutionary perspective, the human propensity for substance use is the product of a 'mismatch' between emotional mechanisms that evolved in a past without pure drugs or direct routes of drug administration, and the occurrence of these phenomena in the contemporary environment. The primary purpose of this review is to assert that, contrary to the conventional view, humans have shared a coevolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances that is millions of years old. We argue that this 'deep time' relationship is self-evident both in the extant chemical-ecological adaptations that have evolved in mammals to metabolize psychotropic plant substances and in the structure of plant defensive chemicals that have evolved to mimic the structure, and interfere with the function, of mammalian neurotransmitters. Given this evidence, we question how emotional mechanisms easily triggered by plant toxins can have evolved. Our argument is also supported with archeological and historical evidence of substance use in antiquity suggesting that, for people in the past, psychotropic plant substances were as much a mundane everyday item as they are for many people today. Our second, and more speculative objective is to suggest provisional hypotheses of human substance-using phenomena that can incorporate the evolutionary implications of a deep time relationship between psychotropic substances and people. We discuss hypotheses of selective benefits of substance use, including the idea that neurotransmitter-analog plant chemicals were exploited as substitutes for costly, nutritionally constrained endogenous neurotransmitters. However, even if substance seeking was adaptive in the environment of our hominid ancestors, it may not still be so in the contemporary environment. Thus, the implications of our argument are not that the mismatch concept does not apply to human substance-using phenomena, but that it must be reconsidered and extended to incorporate the implications of a substance-rich, rather than substance-free, evolutionary past.
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It is the central hypothesis of this paper that the mental states commonly referred to as altered states of consciousness are principally due to transient prefrontal cortex deregulation. Supportive evidence from psychological and neuroscientific studies of dreaming, endurance running, meditation, daydreaming, hypnosis, and various drug-induced states is presented and integrated. It is proposed that transient hypofrontality is the unifying feature of all altered states and that the phenomenological uniqueness of each state is the result of the differential viability of various frontal circuits. Using an evolutionary approach, consciousness is conceptualized as hierarchically ordered cognitive function. Higher-order structures perform increasingly integrative functions and thus contribute more sophisticated content. Although this implies a holistic approach to consciousness, such a functional hierarchy localizes the most sophisticated layers of consciousness in the zenithal higher-order structure: the prefrontal cortex. The hallmark of altered states of consciousness is the subtle modification of behavioral and cognitive functions that are typically ascribed to the prefrontal cortex. The theoretical framework presented yields a number of testable hypotheses.
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Hallucinogens (psychedelics) are psychoactive substances that powerfully alter perception, mood, and a host of cognitive processes. They are considered physiologically safe and do not produce dependence or addiction. Their origin predates written history, and they were employed by early cultures in a variety of sociocultural and ritual contexts. In the 1950s, after the virtually contemporaneous discovery of both serotonin (5-HT) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), early brain research focused intensely on the possibility that LSD or other hallucinogens had a serotonergic basis of action and reinforced the idea that 5-HT was an important neurotransmitter in brain. These ideas were eventually proven, and today it is believed that hallucinogens stimulate 5-HT(2A) receptors, especially those expressed on neocortical pyramidal cells. Activation of 5-HT(2A) receptors also leads to increased cortical glutamate levels presumably by a presynaptic receptor-mediated release from thalamic afferents. These findings have led to comparisons of the effects of classical hallucinogens with certain aspects of acute psychosis and to a focus on thalamocortical interactions as key to understanding both the action of these substances and the neuroanatomical sites involved in altered states of consciousness (ASC). In vivo brain imaging in humans using [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose has shown that hallucinogens increase prefrontal cortical metabolism, and correlations have been developed between activity in specific brain areas and psychological elements of the ASC produced by hallucinogens. The 5-HT(2A) receptor clearly plays an essential role in cognitive processing, including working memory, and ligands for this receptor may be extremely useful tools for future cognitive neuroscience research. In addition, it appears entirely possible that utility may still emerge for the use of hallucinogens in treating alcoholism, substance abuse, and certain psychiatric disorders.
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The extension of scientific method to the essential phenomena of altered states of consciousness is proposed.
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Until very recently, comparatively few scientists were studying hallucinogenic drugs. Nevertheless, selective antagonists are available for relevant serotonergic receptors, the majority of which have now been cloned, allowing for reasonably thorough pharmacological investigation. Animal models sensitive to the behavioral effects of the hallucinogens have been established and exploited. Sophisticated genetic techniques have enabled the development of mutant mice, which have proven useful in the study of hallucinogens. The capacity to study post-receptor signaling events has lead to the proposal of a plausible mechanism of action for these compounds. The tools currently available to study the hallucinogens are thus more plentiful and scientifically advanced than were those accessible to earlier researchers studying the opioids, benzodiazepines, cholinergics, or other centrally active compounds. The behavioral pharmacology of phenethylamine, tryptamine, and ergoline hallucinogens are described in this review, paying particular attention to important structure activity relationships which have emerged, receptors involved in their various actions, effects on conditioned and unconditioned behaviors, and in some cases, human psychopharmacology. As clinical interest in the therapeutic potential of these compounds is once again beginning to emerge, it is important to recognize the wealth of data derived from controlled preclinical studies on these compounds.