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Magic Mushrooms & Spirituality
Hallucinogenic mushrooms, long valued by Central American cultures for their mystical qualities, may enhance the spirituality of people of faith, according to a new study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Volunteer subjects reported conversing with God, experiencing ''ultimate transcendence'' and being suspended in a ''tactile field of light.''
According to the study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Council on Spiritual Practices, subjects who took doses of psilocybin, a drug found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, reported sustained spiritual and religious benefits 14 months after ingestion.
Sixty-seven percent of participants rated the experience as one of the five most spiritually significant events in their lives, while 64 percent said it had increased their well-being or life satisfaction.
The 36 volunteers had no previous exposure to hallucinogens, and all identified themselves as regularly engaging in religious or spiritual activities.
Participants came from a mix of predominantly Christian backgrounds. Researchers said the results showed no correlation between an individual's denomination and the drug's spiritual effects.
The report is a follow-up to the group's 2006 study in which volunteers were given a single dose of psilocybin once during a two-month period and asked to rate their experience in a series of questionnaires.
Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who led the study, said researchers are ''just scratching the surface'' of the relationship between spirituality and science. Griffiths cautioned that psilocybin is not tantamount to ''God in a pill.''
''There are some people who say this is the meaning of spirituality or God, and it's not,'' Griffiths said. ''These kinds of observations cannot address the ultimate existential question of the existence of God or the existence of a higher power.''
Psilocybin has been used for centuries by indigenous cultures in North and South America but is illegal in the United States. The federal government classifies the drug as a Schedule 1 substance with no medical value. In recent years, research has been conducted to determine whether doses of psilocybin may have beneficial effects for patients with terminal illnesses or severe addictions.
''There are dangers even in a supervised setting,'' warned David Murray, chief scientist for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Murray compared taking psilocybin to playing Russian roulette, saying it can cause fear, joy, elation or weeping, depending on the subject's mental state.
''You never know what you're going to get,'' Murray said. ''It's dangerous.''
Some proponents of the drug argue that psilocybin and other psychoactive substances used in religious ceremonies - known as entheogens - produce chemical changes no different from severe illness or prolonged fasting, which have been known to produce spiritual awakenings.
The Rev. Ken Barnes, a California United Church of Christ pastor and former director of the Council on Spiritual Practices, said bans on psychoactive drugs are part of a larger problem.
''I believe that in our secular society, we've moved away from primary religious experiences,'' said Barnes. ''Entheogens can introduce the spirit in a very dramatic way. I see them mainly as inductors into the spiritual world.''
Barnes expressed optimism that psilocybin would someday follow the same path to legalization as peyote, a hallucinogen found in cactus which was legalized for religious use in 1994. Hallucinogenic mushrooms, long valued by Central American cultures for their mystical qualities, may enhance the spirituality of peopl... more -
July 17th Full Moon: Something Extraordinary Happening
Something quite extraordinary is going to happen on July 17th according to Yogi Dattarea Siva Baba. You must watch this video to find out about all the details. This is a very special day many of us have been waiting for; for a long time.
Apparently there is going to be a huge amount of Grace being transmitted to the entire world and it is going to spread a spiritual light to open the third eye and impart a tremendous amount of compassion, love, and transformation energy.
It will be a complete phenomenon.
Please watch the video and be inspired. And learn about what and how things will happen on the 17th and beyond.
Something quite extraordinary is going to happen on July 17th according to Yogi Dattarea Siva Baba. You must watch this video to find ... more -
Are Believers Less Likely to Vote?
"People who believe that God is involved in worldly affairs are less likely to participate in national elections than others, according to a new survey.
The study, which included nearly 1,700 U.S. men and women with an average age of 53, suggests that a person's view of God is a variable that determines whether he or she will donate money to a campaign, read political news, or even vote..."
The article does go back and forth a bit- what do you think?
How does your religious/spiritual/philosophical view change the way you participate in society?
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Druid Utopia
We spend a day with a group of modern Druids as they welcome in the Spring with a ceremony at the Spring Equinox. The Druids were originally Celtic priests who venerated the natural world and celebrated the changing of the seasons throughout the year. We spend a day with a group of modern Druids as they welcome in the Spring with a ceremony at the Spring Equinox. The Druids were orig... more
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Emerging from the Drug War Dark Age
Here are a few excerpts from the article which I find telling and encouraging to anyone who has any opinion in this field. Please take the time to sit back and read some of this.
The return flight from Switzerland was a mix of hope and solemnity for Rick Doblin, the only American to attend the funeral of Dr. Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD who had just died at the age of 102. Doblin, a Harvard-educated Ph.D and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, an organization that conducts legal research into the healing and spiritual potentials of psychedelics and marijuana, had spent his entire career trying to break through the virtually impenetrable wall of obstinacy that surrounds psychedelic compounds and their potential benefits to society.
More than anyone else in his field, Doblin is all too familiar with what he refers to as the "40-year-long bad trip" that researchers like him have faced in dealing with the fallout from the introduction of LSD and other psychedelic compounds to the Western psyche in the mid 1960s. This 40-year intellectual Dark Age, Doblin says, has been characterized by "enormous fear and misinformation and a vested interest in exaggerated stories about drugs to keep prohibition alive."
A Return to Respectability
Much greater than usual media attention accompanied the most recent World Psychedelic Forum held in March in Basel, Switzerland, the home of Albert Hofmann. A headline in the May issue of the staid British medical journal The Lancet -- known for challenging the Pentagon's Iraq casualty numbers -- read, "Research on Psychedelics Moves into the Mainstream."
The Healing Potential of Psychedelics
Unlike other treatments, which have shown pitifully low success rates, psychedelic-assisted therapy focuses on the emotional context under which a patient suffers addiction, not the use of the drugs themselves. "This," says Tom Roberts, a professor of psychology at Northern Illinois University and the co-editor of a new two-volume compilation, Psychedelic Medicine, "is what makes them uniquely effective. They allow negative ideas and feelings -- where most addictions have their origins -- to surface into consciousness. With the guidance of a mental health professional, the person can let them go." Once these negative feelings are gone, Roberts says, the person no longer feels the need to deaden them with drugs or alcohol.
Here are a few excerpts from the article which I find telling and encouraging to anyone who has any opinion in this field. Please take... more -
Religious Charlatan Claims "Someone's getting a new spinal cord tonight."
I can't believe this kind of hustling is still going on in 2008. This guy claims to be healing people of cancer and "whose going to get a new spinal cord tonight" and who knows what other cures and remedies. He holds his revival out of a tent in Lakeland, Florida and is on the internet as well getting a lot of attention. It just amazes me that people believe in such a charlatan. I can't believe this kind of hustling is still going on in 2008. This guy claims to be healing people of cancer and "whose going to ge... more
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'Magic' mushrooms make you feel good - all year
In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore gave psilocybin (the active chemical found in 'magic' mushrooms) to 36 volunteers and asked them how it felt. Most reported having a "mystical" or "spiritual" experience and rated it positively.
However, more interestingly the feelings of general well-being or life satisfaction arising from this "spiritual" experience were reported to continue over a year after the original event.
"This is a truly remarkable finding," Griffiths said. "Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory." In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore gave psilocybin (the active chemical found in 'magic' mushrooms) to... more -
Psilocybin's Spiritual effects last a Year?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "spiritual" effects of psilocybin from so-called sacred mushrooms last for more than a year and may offer a way to help patients with fatal diseases or addictions, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
The researchers also said their findings show there are safe ways to test psychoactive drugs on willing volunteers, if guidelines are followed.
In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues gave psilocybin to 36 volunteers and asked them how it felt. Most reported having a "mystical" or "spiritual" experience and rated it positively.
Follow the link for the whole story. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "spiritual" effects of psilocybin from so-called sacred mushrooms last for more than a year and may offer a... more -
Long Trip: Magic Mushrooms' Transcendent Effect Lingers: Scientific American
People who took magic mushrooms were still feeling the love more than a year later, and one might say they were on cloud nine about it, scientists report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," comparing it with the birth of a child or the death of a parent, says neuroscientist Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who lead the research. "It's one thing to have a dramatic experience you say is impressive. It's another thing to say you consider it as meaningful 14 months later. There's something about the saliency of these experiences that's stunning."
Griffiths gave 36 specially screened volunteers psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms. The compound is believed to affect perception and cognition by acting on the same receptors in the brain that respond to serotonin, a neurotransmitting chemical tied to mood.
Afterward, about two thirds of the group reported having a "full mystical experience," characterized by a feeling of "oneness" with the universe. When Griffiths asked them how they were doing 14 months later, the same proportion gave the experience high marks for transcendental satisfaction, and credited it with increasing their well-being since then.
But some scientists noted that this psilocybin study was just the first trip on a long journey of understanding. "We don't know how far we can generalize these results," cautions neuroscientist Charles Schuster of Loyola University Chicago and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "To attribute all of this to the drug, I think, is a mistake and to expect the same effects from simply taking the drug without this careful preparation in these kinds of people would be a mistake."
Herbert Kleber, who directs the division of substance abuse at Columbia University also notes that it is difficult to assess the mushroom's impact without detailed information on how individual lives were changed. For example, it remains unclear from the study whether volunteers really were more altruistic or simply claimed to be.
But the findings do seem to support reports of recreational users and what LSD guru and 1960s counterculture icon Timothy Leary made famous in his psychedelic lab at Harvard University.
Griffiths and Schuster are proponents of future research on psilocybin to determine whether it has long-term influence on the brain—and whether the reported mystical effects affect memory alone or stem from other physiological changes. This study is among the first of so-called "shrooms" in four decades, coming after the widespread, illegal use of hallucinogens as recreational drugs in the 1960s, which turned off corporate and academic researchers.
"I don't think the evidence is sufficiently strong for any beneficial effect in general for us to consider changing the legality of these substances until a great deal more research is done," Schuster says. "But the illegality should not interfere with this research."
For his part, Griffiths is now recruiting terminally ill cancer patients for a trial that will test whether psilocybin mitigates the existential anxiety that comes with facing death. Strangely enough, he says, it may also be a salve for alcoholism and drug addiction.
"It does sound counterintuitive," Griffiths says. But, "six of the 12 AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] steps are related to a higher power and surrendering to it. Many people don't engage fully into the 12-step program because they don't have a connection to a higher power. One can't help but wonder whether an experience like this might be useful." People who took magic mushrooms were still feeling the love more than a year later, and one might say they were on cloud nine about it... more -
Spirituality and Health in Late Life
( 58 minutes; 7/31/2006)
Dr. Michael Rabow is an internal medicine and palliative care specialist at UCSF Medical Center.
http://www.ucsfhealth.org/
He explores the impact of spirituality on health, particularly in later life.
For all programs in this series, visit:
UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public;
http://www.uctv.tv/series/index.asp?show=show&serie... ( 58 minutes; 7/31/2006) Dr. Michael Rabow is an internal medicine and palliative care specialist at UCSF Medical Center. ... more -
Krishna is The Reservoir of Pleasure
Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is an historical person who appeared on this earth in India 5,000 years ago. He stayed on this earth for 125 years and played exactly like a human being, but His activities were unparalleled.
In these Western countries, when someone sees the cover of a book like Krsna, he immediately asks, "Who is Krishna? Who is the girl with Krishna?" etc.
The immediate answer is that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. How is that? Because He conforms in exact detail to descriptions of the Supreme Being, the Godhead. In other words, Krishna is the Godhead because He is all-attractive. Outside the principle of all-attraction, there is no meaning to the word Godhead. How is it one can be all-attractive? First of all, if one is very wealthy, if he has great riches, he becomes attractive to the people in general. Similarly, if someone is very powerful, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very famous, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very beautiful or wise or unattached to all kinds of possessions, he also becomes attractive. So from practical experience we can observe that one is attractive due to 1) wealth, 2) power, 3) fame, 4) beauty, 5) wisdom, and 6) renunciation. One who is in possession of all six of these opulences at the same time, who possesses them to an unlimited degree, is understood to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In the Ninth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gita this science of Krishna consciousness is called the king of all knowledge, the king of all confidential things, and the supreme science of transcendental realization. Yet we can directly experience the results of this science of Krishna consciousness because it is very easy to practice and is very pleasurable. Whatever percentage of Krishna consciousness we can perform will become an eternal asset to our life, for it is imperishable in all circumstances. It has now been actually proved that today's confused and frustrated younger generation in the Western countries can directly perceive the results of channeling the loving propensity toward Krishna alone.
It is said in the Bhagavad-gita that even a little effort expended on the path of Krishna consciousness can save one from the greatest danger. Hundreds of thousands of examples can be cited of people who have escaped the greatest dangers of life due to a slight advancement in Krishna consciousness. We therefore request everyone to take advantage of this great transcendental literature. One will find that by reading one page after another, an immense treasure of knowledge in art, science, literature, philosophy and religion will be revealed, and ultimately, by reading this one book, Krsna, love of Godhead will fructify. ... more -
What Good is the Church?
"Two of the world's most cherished Christian teachers discuss the role and relevance of the Church in the modern world, and how it was originally created in order to preserve the teachings of Christ--with the singular purpose of helping to bring people into the exact same relationship with God that Christ himself had, leading humanity into a space that is truly both "fully human and fully divine."" "Two of the world's most cherished Christian teachers discuss the role and relevance of the Church in the modern world, and how it was... more
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Realizing Ordinary Mind
"Patrick Sweeney continues his beautiful discussion of nondual consciousness, the nameless, effortless, self-liberating quality of awareness in which all distinctions between self and other, this and that, inside and outside fall away completely, leaving only the brilliant clarity of this very Moment, exactly as it is." "Patrick Sweeney continues his beautiful discussion of nondual consciousness, the nameless, effortless, self-liberating quality of awa... more
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Mormons enters gay marriage fight in California
The LDS Church will work with a coalition of churches and other conservative groups that put the Californai Marriage protection act on November 4 ballot to assure its passage
There are more than 750.000 mormons in California according to a church almanac.
In a letter sent to Mormon Bishops and signed by church president Thomas S. Monson and his two top counselors calls on Mormons to donate "means and time" to the ballot measure
"We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment........."
"Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage."
Now, we need all Muslims, Boudhists, Indus, all people of faith to join the coalition.
The LDS Church will work with a coalition of churches and other conservative groups that put the Californai Marriage protection act on... more -
Islamic scholar voted worlds no.1 thinker
Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar has been voted the world's top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers.
The scholar attracted a massive half a million votes according to the survey organised by a British (Prospect) & an American magazine (Foreign Policy).
The top 10 individuals were all Muslim and included two Nobel laureates, the novelist Orhan Pamuk, who is also Turkish, at No 4, and the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, in 10th.
Gülen has been praised in the West for promoting dialogue & condemned Osoma Bin Laden as a monster after 9/11. Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar has been voted the world's top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers. ... more -
92% of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit
"Ninety-two percent of those interviewed for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey said they believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, and 58% said they pray privately every day. But California, like other states along the country's two coasts, resisted the prevailing national tendencies...
Californians are less likely than other Americans to consider religion "very important" in their lives or to be "absolutely certain" in their belief in God...
Californians pray less than others in many parts of the country. They are less inclined to take the word of God literally. And they are ready to embrace "more than one true way" of interpreting their religious teachings."
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ironically, i've also heard California, and particularly the Bay Area, described as the world nexus of spirituality today. and compared to the other places i've been, the Bay Area glimmers most vividly with an alive, loving, respectful, joyful quality--these are the qualities of people who are spiritually developed.
it bugs me to no end that "belief in higher entity" is conflated with Religion in studies like this. or even using the word belief... it's not about belief, it's about awareness.
this article has an interesting take on this subject too:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/sound_against_flame_the_...
"Ninety-two percent of those interviewed for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey said they believe in the existence of God or a univer... more -
One Million Names to the Moon
One million and counting!
Did you say one million? That’s how many names have been submitted to blast off on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft.
Since May 1, NASA has invited the public to join the excitement of the first mission in NASA's exploration program to return humans to the moon by 2020. LRO, which is scheduled to launch later this year, will map the lunar surface in extraordinary detail and help future human missions to the moon locate safe landing sites and vital resources on the moon.
There is still time to be part of the adventure and send your name on a mission to the moon.
Participants can submit their names at the LRO web site and print a certificate. The names will be placed on a microchip that will be installed on the LRO spacecraft and travel to the moon. The deadline for submitting names is June 27, 2008.
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php
One million and counting! ... more -
The New Hippies
Intellectual, transformational, open, psychedelic, and inside. Check out Daniel Pinchbecks's reality sandwich and take a bite.
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Do You Believe In Life After Death ?
If you think that life is temporary, can you share what you are living for ?
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Turtle Island Project Director Some rich view Indigenous Peoples as "expendable co...
TIP Dir. Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard:
I think we have here two different forms of religion. Ands its this religion of my ancestors that I participate in that I think really has been the problem. I think we have to come to understand that religious consciousness evolves just like anything else does. It's not just the material world that evolves but also our cultural world evolves and the realm of the concept evolves. We are going now, as a people - there was a time from prehistorical religions to historic religions. the religions of the book Judaism, Christianity, Islam to this historic period. Now I think that is transending to this transrational understanding of spirituality. And as part of this transrational understanding of spirituality is an appropriation of this knowledge and spirituality of Earth-based cultures. I think we have to be open now to what John Trudell called ‘spirit making and escape.’ I love this idea. My spirit needs to make an escape from my religious consciousness. The racial and cultural genocide that still goes on today inside this country . Judaism is an inherently ethical religion except you have to be a Canaanite. You may get your ass kicked or your head cut off but basically it's OK. But sky Gods and cultures that worship sky Gods are traditionally barbaric - Read the Old Testament - Wow! Talk about patriarchy. But we are in a war. It is not a war of my choosing.But we are in a war I truly believe that - a war fore our hearts and our minds. We have to continually fight.It's multi-generational. We fight against great principalities and powers. It's amazing. If you stick your head up out of the foxhole just a little bit and you start speaking on behalf of the poor. Those bullets are flying. I said something about a corporation. I said we created these corporations and political structures that aren't moral entities because you have to say things like: ‘I'm sorry. I made a mistake.' You have to admit your humanness. When's the last time your heard a politician ever admit a mistake unless they were forced to? ‘I did not have sex with that woman - I did not inhale - yes I smoked but I did not inhale' And I said corporations are liked this too - they are not moral entities because they cannot do these things like apologize. Well, good Lord that's attacking a sacred cow - there's a guy in my congregation who just went ballistic - who quit the church because he had spent his entire life benefiting from, working for, a non-moral entity. I did not say all corporations were liked this - I just said some corporations are like this. Well that's all you have to say. Rev. Hubbard said Americans and all people who call Earth home need to protect the environment. He said we have lost the sense of the sacred - a lesson that can be learned from Native Americans and other Indigenous peoples. I understand this because I feel desperate. What John Trudell was talking about is the same way. We've lost our way. We do not have any spiritual sense because we have lost any sense of the sacred. A great historian of the religions Mircea Eliade who was at the University of Chicago where I for many years - I did his funeral. Mircea Eliade had this notion that in order to have a hierophany, an experience of the sacred, you have to have sacred space. If this Earth is not sacred to you, which it isn't to Mickey Mouse, then you can't have an experience of the sacred. I deal with people every day in my congregation who have lost or are losing any sense of the sacred. And it's not only - like you were saying this relationship between Earth and women - and the earth and man. If you do not have power in a capitalistic society, you become part of and you are thought of in terms of the Earth. Women who have less economic power, children who don't have any power at all unless somebody gives it to them, Indigenous communities, you are all thought of as expendable commodities. TIP Dir. Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard: ... more
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Spirituality
