30 Aug Mainstreaming Psychedelics
As Richards (2014) points out, the mainstreaming of psychedelics has opened the door for scientific researchers to explore and measure the mystical and ineffable. This will offer transpersonal psychology peer-reviewed empirical research studies to buoy up our own studies. Drugs offer reliability in a way previous forays into studying the transpersonal have not been able to. It is quite surprising to read someone out of Johns Hopkins assert, “We now know how to facilitate the occurrence of mystical forms of consciousness with maximum safety for many, if not most persons who desire them” (p. 6). Traditional universities did not used to engage in such inquiry.
Another benefit of the mainstreaming of psychedelics is that it has brought the awareness of mystical and peak states into mainstream conversation. However, as Kripal (2001) points out, the mystical will always have to do with what is secret.
It seems to me that another way we move toward integrating both streams of inquiry is in the language we use. In the YouTube video we heard Brother David Steindl-Rast (2019) tell a story that Maslow had originally used the term “mystical experiences” for what we now know as “peak experiences.” He had changed the term because people objected to the study of mysticism in psychology. This is done all the time, and we might continue to use regular language rather than the particular jargon of our field which tends to alienate people.
We can also bring our creativity and inspiration to our scientific work. Most often scientific work seems dry to those of us more familiar with the transpersonal, but it need not be. It is merely a different language used by those who are also curious about finding answers to the Mystery. Alex Grey (2021) said, “Each object carefully handmade with devotional energies can be a clear transmitter of spiritual light, a battery of soul-centered love energy.” Perhaps we hold our scholarly writing and papers in this light.
References
Alex Grey on Creativity as a Spiritual Practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWDHHNYAnnU
Kripal, J. J. (2001). Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism
Richards, W. A. (2014). Here and Now: Discovering the Sacred with Entheogens. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
The Mystical Experience – In Sufism, Judaism and Christianity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G3Oau9Q4uQ
© 2023 Catherine Auman
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