Mystics Under the Microscope

Until 2006, John Hayes, a psychologist and self-described Zen-Catholic, had never taken a hallucinogenic drug. In the 1960s, Hayes was a Franciscan friar watching with curiosity while the counter-culture used psychedelics with impunity. Through his own meditation and religious practice, Hayes believes he has had sensations that he would label mystical. But these mystical states—which he described to me as “moments of unitive experience” —were significant enough that when he heard about a surprising research project at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine he was more than intrigued. Doctors at JHU were investigating the effects of psilocybin—the active ingredient in the more common variety of hallucinogenic mushroom—and looking for volunteers.

After some considerable thought, he signed up. For three sessions Hayes is certain he received a placebo. Then, in the fourth session, something happened that had never happened before in all his years of prayer and meditation.

“It was like ‘All right, what’s the big deal?’ Then ba-boom!” he says. “There was a sense of moving in some sort of astral space with stars whizzing by me. It was like getting the big picture.”

There is no question that psychedelic drugs can produce extremely dramatic personal experiences. But whether or not these experiences can be called “mystical” has been the subject of some debate. More importantly, the possibility of chemically created mystical states, often induced outside of normative religious communities and contexts, raises an even thornier riddle: Is there a universal core mystical experience that is unmediated by tradition and culture? The research at Johns Hopkins might not offer a definitive answer, but it has helped frame the question in way that is impossible to ignore.

Read the rest at Search magazine here.