The Good Friday Experiment Revisited
July 11th, 2006 by John Horgan, The Scientific Curmudgeon
In a previous post, "Tripping Down Memory Lane," I mentioned the resurgence of research into the potential benefits of psychedelics. Today, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Scientist, The Independent and other media in the U.S. and Europe are now all over this heretofore underreported story. The newspeg? A report by a team at Johns Hopkins University that psilocybin triggered profound spiritual experiences in two thirds of a group of 36 subjects participating in a double-blind study. One third of the subjects said the experience was the most meaningful of their lives, two thirds said it was among their top five experiences. The Washington Post starts its story thus: "Psilocybin, the active ingredient of 'magic mushrooms,' expands the mind. After a thousand years of use, that's now scientifically official." Titled "Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance," the Johns Hopkins paper was published in Psychopharmacology along with astonishingly positive commentaries (albeit with the required warnings about risks, etc.) by four authorities on drugs, including two federal drug-war veterans: Charles Schuster, former head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and Herbert Kleber, formerly deputy director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy. As several pundits point out, the Johns Hopkins study recalls the legendary Good Friday experiment, in which the Harvard psychiatrist Walter Pahnke gave psilocybin to divinity students and professors in Boston's Marsh Chapel on Good Friday, 1962. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the new study is that it was sanctioned and financed by the federal government during the most conservative regime in recent history. The Wall Street Journal warns that "the research is likely to stir controversy." Ya think?
