So why are we so afraid of these experiences?




http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/01/s...ealth-drug.html

I'm no expert but your source goes on to say:

I tried shrooms once and didn't like them but that was a personal choice. I know others who have tried them and liked the experience. You should always know what your doing and do it responsibly, like anything that alters your consciousness you need to have someone who has been there help you through it. Lets not forget my source, The Discovery Channel, is not going to do an article like this without such a warning.

http://www.stevens.edu/csw/cgi-bin/blogs/s...urmudgeon/?p=31

In a previous post, “Tripping Down Memory Lane,” I mentioned the resurgence of research into the potential benefits of psychedelics. Today, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Scientist, The Independent and other media in the U.S. and Europe are now all over this heretofore underreported story. The newspeg?

A report by a team at Johns Hopkins University that psilocybin triggered profound spiritual experiences in two thirds of a group of 36 subjects participating in a double-blind study. One third of the subjects said the experience was the most meaningful of their lives, two thirds said it was among their top five experiences. The Washington Post starts its story thus: “Psilocybin, the active ingredient of ‘magic mushrooms,’ expands the mind. After a thousand years of use, that’s now scientifically official.”

Titled “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance,” the Johns Hopkins paper was published in Psychopharmacology along with astonishingly positive commentaries (albeit with the required warnings about risks, etc.) by four authorities on drugs, including two federal drug-war veterans: Charles Schuster, former head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and Herbert Kleber, formerly deputy director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.

As several pundits point out, the Johns Hopkins study recalls the legendary Good Friday experiment, in which the Harvard psychiatrist Walter Pahnke gave psilocybin to divinity students and professors in Boston’s Marsh Chapel on Good Friday, 1962. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the new study is that it was sanctioned and financed by the federal government during the most conservative regime in recent history. The Wall Street Journal warns that “the research is likely to stir controversy.” Ya think?

[snip]

Walter Pahnke was Timothy Leary's graduate student.

Learning about things like this can lead one to neurotheology, which I'm convinced like Darwin's original one, may turn out to be a very dangerous idea. Dangerous to certain dogmatic worldviews, anyway.

My first time was high-larry-us, I took an entire tube of hair gel and put it in my my, for a "Gelmet", then I put my tie die blanket on my ceiling fan with clothespins and turned it on while I lay on my bed beneath it, wow, so fucking funny, the second time was very subdued, not so fun, actually kinda boring. There was no 3rd time, I figured I peaked with #1. BTW that was 14 years ago.

Fascinating.

That sounds close to what I discovered.

You may or may not find it interesting to learn that my condition causes symptoms much like shroom use nearly every night.

You may or may not already know about RISPS. This is what causes my 'episodes' and frequent changes of personality.

I'm tempted to experiment with chemically induced hallucinations to compare them to my own. I'm worried about the long term effects on my condition. Surprisingly, I'm now at the point where I'm equally worried my condition could be "cured" by something like this, or aggravated. Either outcome would not be desirable to me. I've come to depend on experiencing death and being persons of different genders and races for my personal insight.

Nothing nearly as educational as taking a grenade in an alpine pass after surviving for weeks cut off from your squad, only to wake up in a lab.

I stood by and watched myself throw up on my first and only trip. I remember thinking "man he's really sick"
I'd much rather smoke good cannabis for my buzz.