Brain complexity: psychedelics and mysticism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 27, 2018, 19:21 (2311 days ago) @ David Turell

It is a real part of the brain or invented/caused by the drugs:

https://aeon.co/essays/is-psychedelics-research-closer-to-theology-than-to-science?utm_...

The mystical theory of psychedelics has five key tenets. The first is that psychedelics lead to a mystical experience of unitive, non-dual consciousness, in which all is one, you are united with It, God, the Tao, Brahman, etc. This experience is timeless, ineffable, joyful and noetic (you know that it is true).

Second, that the psychedelic experience is the same as the experience of mystics, found in all religions. Different religions use different terms for ultimate reality, but all mystics are really having the same non-dual experience. This is the theory of the ‘perennial philosophy’, promoted by Huxley and other perennialists. It’s known in religious studies as the ‘universal core of religious experience’ theory.

Third, that the mystical experience previously occurred mainly to ascetics such as St Teresa of Ávila, and was somewhat rare and unpredictable, therefore scientists dismissed it as ‘ego-regression’, ‘psychosis’ and so forth. But now psychedelics have revealed a predictable and replicable route to mystical experiences, so scientists can study them in the lab. They can measure them using brain-scans, or questionnaires such as the Hood Mysticism Scale, developed by the American psychologist Ralph Hood, which measures to what extent a person’s experience maps onto the ‘universal core’.

Fourth, that this scientific research will create an empirical spirituality or ‘neuro-theology’. It will prove, or at least make more credible, the transcendent insights of the mystics.

And finally, that this will change the world. Humanity will join a new scientific religion of mystical experience, beyond differences of language, nation, culture, religion, class, gender or ethnicity. We will all become liberal environmental progressives. We will all overcome our fear of death. After four centuries of materialism, Western culture will be re-enchanted, but in a predictable, rational and replicable way. Homo sapiens will be upgraded.

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Meanwhile, European psychedelic laboratories, such as those at Imperial College London or in Zurich, tend to frame psychedelics less in the language of ‘mystical experience’, and more in the secular Freudian language of ‘ego-death’ or ‘psychosis-like states’. Predictably enough, as Nicolas Langlitz points out in Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research Since the Decade of the Brain (2012), participants in European psychedelic trials report fewer mystical-type experiences than in US trials (though this might be partly because Johns Hopkins’ trials used larger doses of psilocybin).

This is the challenge faced by all research into ecstatic states of consciousness. The mind responds to our expectations, and to the script we bring to it, via what the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking calls ‘looping effects’. We take the mind’s responses as objective proof of our theory, when they are really just responses to the script.

We hope that we are discovering something objectively true about the brain, or about ultimate reality. And psychedelic neuroscience might discover certain common neural patterns underlying different types of psychedelic experience. But as for the subjective experience, how do we know if our trips reveal ‘ultimate reality’ or just the reflection of our subconscious?

Comment: Let's note that NDE's are just like psychedelic experiences. So, is this a built-in part of consciousness as NDE's suggest, or is it invented by the brain under the influence of the drugs and oxygen deprivation in NDE's?