DRUG'S MYSTICAL PROPERTIES CONFIRMED

36 Area Adults Took Psilocybin in Study; Many Called Experience
Spiritual

Psilocybin, the active ingredient of "magic mushrooms," expands the
mind. After a thousand years of use, that's now scientifically official.

The chemical promoted a mystical experience in two-thirds of people
who took it for the first time, according to a new study. One-third
rated a session with psilocybin as the "single most spiritually
significant" experience of their lives. Another third put it in the
top five.

The study, published online today in the journal Psychopharmacology,
is the first randomized, controlled trial of a substance used for
centuries in Mexico and Central America to produce mystical insights.
Almost no research on a psychedelic drug in human subjects has been
done in this country since the 1960s. It confirms what both shamans
and hippies have long said -- taking psilocybin is a scary,
reality-bending and occasionally life-changing experience.

The researchers say they hope the experiment opens a door to the study
of a class of compounds that alter human perception and erode the
boundaries of self -- at least in some users. They hope it will
provide new insight into how the brain works and what neurochemical
events underlie moments of mystical rapture.

If the generally positive effects of the drug are confirmed by other
studies, the research is likely to raise the question of whether
people should be allowed access to psilocybin for self-improvement or
recreation.

Rigorous study of these substances has been shunned since the 1960s,
although it is not legally prohibited. Research on them was a casualty
of the muddled mix of science and advocacy by people like Timothy
Leary, the LSD guru and former Harvard psychologist once called the
"most dangerous man in America" by President Richard M. Nixon.

"Our study has shown we can conduct a study of this type safely, and
that the effects produced are really quite interesting," said Roland
R. Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who ran
the experiment. "There is a clear neuroscience agenda to understand
those effects, and clear clinical applications that could be pursued."

Other brain researchers hailed the experiment as much for the fact
that it was done at all as for its findings.

"These are some of the most potent compounds we know of that can
change consciousness," said David E. Nichols, a professor of medicinal
chemistry at Purdue University who has studied the effects of
psychedelics on rats and cultured cells. "It's kind of peculiar they
have just been kind of sitting on the shelf for 40 years. There is no
other class of biologically active substances I am aware of that have
been ignored like that."

The study, which involved 36 middle-aged adults from the
Baltimore-Washington area, was conducted over five years. The subjects
were chosen from 135 people who answered newspaper ads. All said they
were members of a religious organization, practiced meditation or took
part in other spiritual activity.

The study was designed to minimize the effects of anticipation and
group enthusiasm, which might color a person's response. It also
sought to examine the delayed, as well as immediate, effects of the
drug.

The volunteers were randomly assigned to take either 30 milligrams of
psilocybin (chemically synthesized, not extracted from mushrooms) or
40 milligrams of methylphenidate, the stimulant sold as Ritalin. The
sessions lasted eight hours in a room where a person could listen to
music, relax on a couch with eyeshades or talk with two monitors
always in attendance. Each subject then took the other drug in a
different session two months later.

Of the 36 people, 22 had a "complete" mystical experience as judged by
several question-based scales used for rating such experiences.
Two-thirds judged it to be among their top five life experiences,
equal to the birth of a first child or death of a parent. Two months
after a session, the people who had taken psilocybin reported small
but significant positive changes in behavior and attitudes compared
with those who had taken Ritalin.

One-third of the subjects, however, said they experienced "strong or
extreme" fear at some point in the hours after they took the
hallucinogen. Four people said the entire session was dominated by
anxiety or psychological struggle.

Nichols thinks that last finding should give people
pause.

"I think these drugs are potentially very dangerous," he said. "I
would be very disappointed if in any sense these results were used to
encourage recreational use of these compounds. I wouldn't want to take
responsibility for anyone under unmonitored conditions coming up with
those feelings."

Alan Leshner, who headed the National Institute on Drug Abuse for
seven years and now leads the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, was both wary and excited about psilocybin's reported effects.

"If it is ultimately shown to be benign but enriches people's lives,
who could object to that? But I don't have that level of confidence at
this point, given the paucity of research on it," he said.

A scholar of mysticism, G. William Barnard of Southern Methodist
University, suspects that most mystical traditions would not object to
the idea that a chemical could allow a person to tune into a
preexisting state of consciousness, usually ignored, just as fasting,
prayer, yoga and other activities can. But there is less enthusiasm
for the idea that this kind of research will unlock the mechanism of
mystical insight.

"Most people I suspect would say that the neurochemistry is not the
full cause of these experiences," he said.