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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

Many (most?) people taking this substance report having some sort of mystical/spiritual experience. I doubt they are actually convening with the divine, but whether/how/why the substance causes that affect in people is certainly a part of "science".

I also don't think the spiritual journey aspect should be dismissed so lightly. Its being investigated to help depression. Perhaps inducing a "spiritual" state in people is part of the cause of action of the drug.

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>I doubt they are actually convening with the divine.

I appreciated your comment overall but this statement stood out to me. May I ask what guided this choice of words? Why would you have an opinion on it one way or the other?

Its based on my personal beliefs. I don't have much to back it up one way or another (maybe occam's razor at most). Metaphysical claims usually come down to i believe what i believe because i believe it, and i am no exception.

The main reason i included it was because psybin's comment which i was responding to was very dismissive of "spirituality", and i think there is still valid things to talk about related to spiritual "journeys" regardless of if you think there is some metaphysical force you are connecting to, or if you believe its simply a drug-induced altered state.

Please can you provide sources?

A source that people believe that psilocybin helps them achieve a mystical state? Or a source about something else?

Isn't the defining feature of a mystical experience that the participant feels that they had one (its a concept about subjective internal states, not an objective thing to measure beyond i guess self-reported surveys). Given that its going to be self reported anyways, i think the general acedotes about psilocybin inducing spirtual "states" is pretty compelling.

Anyways, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772431/ is a study on the effect of psilocybin induced mystical experiences.

I'm interested in a scientific study of how it was somehow linked to spiritual. I'm aware of drugs in general changing mental states of people that suffer from different illnesses. I've tried shrooms before and the high was similar to cannabis for me. I'm not a spiritual person at all and maybe that is why I didn't really care for it. I can imagine psilocybin helping a person in general from the effects but I just don't understand why someone would link it to spiritual unless they were deluded.

Johns Hopkins research has shown a single dose having clinically significant improvement in depression for at least 6 months in 80% of participants; such results are unprecedented in psychiatry:

https://youtu.be/81-v8ePXPd4