Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

Doblin administered the same questionnaire used in the original experiment and found that there was still a significant difference between the two groups as to the reported effects of the experience. After twenty-five years, the psilocybin group’s characterization of their mystical experiences had actually strengthened (or matured). Also, whereas the control subjects who had received the placebo could barely remember the day in question, the psilocybin group still had clear memories of that eventful day. For instance, Reverend K. B. remembered:

It left me with a completely unquestioned certainty that there is an environment bigger than the one I am conscious of. I have my own interpretation of what that is, but it went from a theoretical proposition to an experiential one. {10} 10 1. Doblin, “Pahnke’s ‘Good Friday Experiment,’” 14.

Reverend Y. M. recalled:

I closed my eyes and the visuals were back… and it was as if I was in an ocean of bands, streams of color, streaming past me. The colors were brilliant and I could swim down any one of those colors. {11} 11 2. Ibid., 17.

More from Reverend K. B., who is more specific:

With my eyes closed I had an unusually vivid scene of the procession going by [from the Passion of Christ]. A scene quite apart from any imagining or anything on my part… kind of like watching a movie or something, it was apart from me but very vivid. {12} 12 3. Ibid., 18.

And further:

I’ve remained convinced that my ability to perceive things was artificially changed, but the perceptions I had were as real as anything else. {13} 13 4. Ibid., 19.

That this minister viewed psilocybin as an artificial catalyst is to be forgiven. Careful consideration reveals that psilocybin is a legitimate natural product of Nature, an unusual piece of biospherical fabric to be sure but no more artificial than the oxygen we breathe or the plants that we eat. Rarer perhaps, and not absolutely essential, yet certainly not artificial.

The Reverend K. B.’s description of the visionary experience as a kind of movie issuing from somewhere outside of one’s sense of self is one of psilocybin’s hallmark effects and could not be put more clearly. This is the overwhelming impression gained while in the visionary state that arises with eyes closed. One is confronted with a powerful communicatory flow of organized symbolic information that compels one to infer an intelligent presence of some kind as the issuer of the information. Although after such a profound experience one might question the grounds for inferring an “Other,” during the visionary episode itself one might well be utterly overwhelmed by a sense of intentional communication, leaving no room for doubt.

In a way, these animated superdreamscapes, charged as they are with striking metaphorical imagery, are akin to those vivid dreams we sometimes experience during sleep and that leave us momentarily in awe as we later recall them before they invariably fade away. However, during psilocybin-induced visions one is still very much conscious—more conscious and attentive in fact than normal—so that the visionary scenes are not forgotten, or at least their overall message, impact, and urgency are not forgotten.

Remarking on the sense of eternity that often accompanies the effects of psilocybin, Reverend S. J. remembers:

All of a sudden I felt sort of drawn out into infinity…. I felt that I was caught up in the vastness of Creation…. I did experience that… classic kind of blending…. The main thing about it was a sense of timelessness. {14} 14 5. Ibid., 16.

Again, these quite simple reminiscences show that psilocybin carries epistemological value, as it seems to elicit a special kind of knowledge not ordinarily available but that is of immeasurable value to us in terms of spirit and soul. Even the most dogged skeptic must concede that, at the very least, psilocybin taps deep realms of the unconscious or imagination, revealing a hitherto unknown and unrealized creative potential.

My claim is that a form of “higher intelligence” and wisdom is indeed accessed through the mushroom. Whether this “higher intelligence” stems from some unconscious psychological realm, that is, that deep within the psyche lie vast fields of highly organized information that are “released” into personal consciousness during the entheogenic state, or that one actually gets to communicate with a sentient presence—the transcendental Other as we can call it—is open to question, although both suggestions may be linked in some way.

For the time being, whatever we suspect underlies the visionary state, we can see that the psilocybin experience is a compelling area of study, since consciousness and perceived reality, the very ground of our lives, have the potential to exfoliate like some new, exotic flower. Our everyday awareness is seen to be constrained and bounded, as if we were, for most of the time, subroutine prisoners in some vast, Matrix-like computation that surges ever onward. Psilocybin temporarily dissolves these constraints, conferring on the experiencer an increased cognitive freedom, facilitating new directions of thought that are not normally available. The inner world becomes subject to pictographic myth, while the outer world reveals itself as the living structure of some divine being, even the most mundane objects suddenly acquiring a holy aura. This is the latent promise of the mushroom: to reveal psychological realms that can enrich our collective existence as living, breathing hominid creatures knitted together within the Earth’s evolving biosphere. Natural entheogenic agents like the psilocybin mushroom enable a particular type of knowledge to come to an individual, a type of knowledge that science and philosophy can barely approach, but which nonetheless bears heavily on our innermost nature.

The Good Friday Experiment took science as close as it is likely to get to mysticism, apart from analyzing the actual brain during the mystical state. Yet even that high-tech approach would dodge the main issue, which is the experience itself and what it tells us about consciousness and reality. One has a choice regarding strategies. One can try to map the brain to the nth degree in the laboratory or one can simply plunge into a direct confrontational experience. The mushroomic Miracle of Marsh Chapel indicates the latter endeavor as being the most attractive, rewarding, and adventurous option befitting the human spirit. At least to start with…

Objectivity forces me to disclose a mild downside to the aforementioned study. Doblin’s long-term follow-up showed that most of the psilocybin subjects reported some negative aspects to their experiences that were somewhat downplayed at the time of the original experiment. In other words, their inner worlds were not constantly flooded by divine light but rather there was a mixture of positive and negative aspects to the experience. Actually, psychological unease of one kind or another is somewhat inevitable if one engages with the mushroom. One sees oneself clearly without the superficial trappings of a contrived image and personality. The mushroom somehow amplifies the subconscious and the unconscious, forcing one to confront bad habits and neuroses. One is also made aware of any problematic relationships with friends, family, and associates. Nothing remains hidden to the mushroom, and this will often lead to a psychological “shake-up” to persons hitherto blind to self-knowledge. After all, the tenet “know thyself” is bound up in some way with all spiritual disciplines, suggesting that one must come fully to terms with oneself before one can begin to inwardly develop one’s state of consciousness. Psilocybin and other entheogens would seem to highlight this timeless truth to such an extent that further psychedelic experimentation will prove to be of negative value unless one has dealt adequately with one’s state of self-knowledge. The more balanced and healthily resolved one’s inner world, the more rewarding will the mushroom experience be.