Not that I’m an advocate of taking a pill to solve life’s problems… but a drug that could help dying people arrive at a place of serenity and acceptance? So they truly enjoy their last months and are able to say their good-byes and leave loved ones feeling peaceful, too? Now that could be an incredible gift for mankind… most especially for those whose lives are being cruelly cut short by, say, a disease that causes pain and suffering.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University — along with others at New York University and University of California, Los Angeles — are making great progress with a drug that can be used to help produce intense, mystical insights that almost always create a spiritually uplifting, transcendent experience and put seriously ill patients at ease about facing their mortality.
If you’re thinking this sounds something like that used to be called “dropping acid,” you’re not far off. The drug is called psilocybin and yes, it is the active agent in “magic mushrooms,” and it produces effects quite similar to those of LSD, mescaline and ayahuasca. I had a fascinating conversation about it with the lead author of a new study on the effectiveness of the drug. Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, a psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins, has spent the last decade studying how psilocybin might be put to good use, not only for end-of-life care but also for those who are deeply distressed over a cancer diagnosis. A longtime practitioner of meditation, Dr. Griffiths told me that having experienced something akin to transcendence through his personal meditation practice, he wondered if there might be a medically safe way to induce such experiences therapeutically.
Before we go any further, it’s important to note that we’re not talking about recreational use of this (or any) potent drug. It is being explored in scientific clinical trials in which the drug is administered under carefully controlled and medically supervised conditions, Dr. Griffiths said. The doses administered are precise, and volunteers are supervised by trained professionals who provide reassurance and guidance if negative side effects (such as anxiety, panic or paranoia) arise. And this can sometimes happen. Equally important, people with a history of schizophrenia (their own or a family member’s) are screened out, because in rare cases psilocybin may trigger a psychosis.
All that said, in Dr. Griffiths’s view, psilocybin has the potential to literally transform our culture’s approach to death and dying. “I am convinced,” he told me, “that there is an important, replicable phenomenon here that is remarkable — and it has important implications on many levels.”
He isn’t the first to study psilocybin scientifically — in fact, earlier research demonstrated that psilocybin can predictably lead to certain types of insights, which Dr. Griffiths characterized as “transcendent and spiritual, leading to the recognition that all people and things are interconnected.” Explaining that the insights and their meaning vary from person to person, he said that some patients are able to see their experience of life as more sacred and meaningful… others understand their life experiences as part of a larger story and feel a sense of continuity with what will happen after they’re gone. “In some instances,” he said, “a person might say that though he or she doesn’t know what happens at death, he now has a sense of a larger picture and a feeling that all of life is beautiful and working just as it should.”
This latest study, published June 15 in the online medical journal Psychopharmacology, explored the effects of several different doses of psilocybin on healthy adults. Dr. Griffiths said that about 75% of the study volunteers had what qualified as a “complete mystical experience.”
A full year later, 94% of the study participants recalled their psilocybin sessions as among the top five most — or as the topmost — spiritually significant experience of their lives. And very significantly, the effects of psilocybin were shown to be “predictable and dose-related,” in screened participants, Dr. Griffiths said. The effects got more positive as dose was increased until participants reached the highest dose studied — 30 mg/70 kg body weight. At that dose, there was a sharp rise in negative side effects, including extreme fear and delusions. The study also showed that the best effects occurred when participants received lower psilocybin doses before the higher doses. These participants were more likely to have long-lasting positive changes in attitudes and behavior — such as improved relationships with family and others, increased physical and psychological self-care, and increased devotion to spiritual practice.
Interestingly, Dr. Griffiths told me that there is some evidence that use of psilocybin in the form of mushrooms dates back as far as 7000 BC. But, he said, the most reliable evidence traces it back to the time when the Spanish explorers conquered Mexico, adding that mushrooms were used by other South American cultures and by Native Americans for sacramental and religious purposes. He said that natural forms of psilocybin-like drugs, from mushrooms, peyote cactus and ayahuasca, have been used in a structured manner by many different cultures. LSD, on the other hand, is man-made and “notorious, perhaps iconic in representing what can go wrong when these substances are used irresponsibly.”
If you or someone in the circle of people you care about is struggling with a potentially life-threatening cancer diagnosis, you may be interested to know that Dr. Griffiths’s team is actively recruiting volunteers for a national study on the use of psilocybin to ease distress in this specific situation. You can learn more about this clinical trial at www.Cancer-Insight.org.
