I think there’s a logical place for psychedelics both in mental health treatment and spiritual practices, but hysteria has shut down open debate on the subject:
NEW YORK — In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project. She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like her heart was ripping open. But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that it has helped her to this day.
“I feel more centered in who I am and what I’m doing,” said Osborn, now 66, of Providence “I don’t seem to have those self-doubts like I used to have. I feel much more grounded (and feel that) we are all connected.”
Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience.
Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they’d ever had.
Though we supposedly have “freedom of religion,” a ‘convert’ cannot legally partake in the sacred ceremonies that Native Americans do to acheive a chemically induced altered state.
My experiences with altered states makes me think of the words of the late philosopher Alan Watts who once said, “Cosmic consciousness is the feeling that you love people but can’t explain why.”