Sacred Mushrooms Make for Fun Guys (honk!)
By John Bolton
Eating mushrooms could put you a step closer to God.
Some might question the scientific benefits (and ethical implications) of systematically studying the effects of hallucinogens. It all sounds like an after-hours undergraduate research project that would later result in said students being arrested for outraging public decency.
But the ability to manipulate human consciousness is something we’d probably all like to harness, and research conducted by the John Hopkins Medical Institutions has uncovered an active agent in “sacred mushrooms” which does just that.
This agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, has been found to mimic the effect of seratonin in the brain by changing perception and cognition, producing a “primary mystical experience” in test subjects.
These experiences, as measured against established psychological scales, have in some subjects been “the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes”. The effects were not all positive, of course: some subjects in the experiment reported feelings of fear and paranoia.
Roland Griffiths, the study’s lead researcher, has said that the hallucinogen is not known to be physically harmful and is virtually non-addictive. But that will be of little consolation to those who would rather such matters were brushed under the carpet and not, by contrast, submitted to lengthy scientific study.
Whatever your stance on this contentious issue, Griffiths has high hopes for his alkaloid. It is expected that following this study, psilocybin could be used to treat advanced depression and drug dependence.
Some might question the scientific benefits (and ethical implications) of systematically studying the effects of hallucinogens. It all sounds like an after-hours undergraduate research project that would later result in said students being arrested for outraging public decency.
But the ability to manipulate human consciousness is something we’d probably all like to harness, and research conducted by the John Hopkins Medical Institutions has uncovered an active agent in “sacred mushrooms” which does just that.
This agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, has been found to mimic the effect of seratonin in the brain by changing perception and cognition, producing a “primary mystical experience” in test subjects.
These experiences, as measured against established psychological scales, have in some subjects been “the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes”. The effects were not all positive, of course: some subjects in the experiment reported feelings of fear and paranoia.
Roland Griffiths, the study’s lead researcher, has said that the hallucinogen is not known to be physically harmful and is virtually non-addictive. But that will be of little consolation to those who would rather such matters were brushed under the carpet and not, by contrast, submitted to lengthy scientific study.
Whatever your stance on this contentious issue, Griffiths has high hopes for his alkaloid. It is expected that following this study, psilocybin could be used to treat advanced depression and drug dependence.
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