How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [28]
CAN YOU FIND GOD BY SWALLOWING A PILL?
What about drug-induced spiritual experiences? Can they help you find God? For centuries hallucinogenic plants like peyote and ayahuasca have been used as a means to interact with spiritual entities and forces. When LSD became popular in the 1960s, proponents of the drug believed they had found a fast way to reach spiritual and psychological enlightenment. But it was extraordinarily unpredictable, and psychologists soon realized that people with unstable personalities could plummet into a “bad trip”—a nightmare reality that might last for days, weeks, or months.
Experts in nearly every field of psychology and religion believe that drug-induced spiritual experiences do little to create a spiritual foundation from which to live one's life.34 But some researchers disagree. They believe that certain drugs can stimulate profoundly meaningful experiences by disrupting malfunctioning neurological circuits. For example, marijuana alters the human cerebellar clock,35 which may aid in slowing down hyperactivity.36 However, as four new studies conducted in 2008 found, marijuana use tends to impair many cognitive functions,37 and the same is true for MDMA, the popular drug known as Ecstasy.38 Meditation enhances cognition, memory, and the ability to concentrate on specific tasks without creating any health risks to your brain.
Hallucinogenic substances like peyote, mescaline, ayahuasca, and LSD stimulate many centers of the brain, producing visions and perceptual phenomena that occasionally have religious connotations. In a recent cross-cultural study comparing psychedelic drug users to marijuana and alcohol users, psychedelic users scored significantly higher on mystical beliefs, spiritual life values, and the ability to feel empathy toward others. In addition, the researchers found that “users of nonpsychedelic illegal drugs scored significantly lower on a measure of coping ability.”39
Another study found that users of psychedelic drugs were more imaginative and empathic. They tended to fantasize more, but were more likely to act out their feelings and possess more unconscious hostility than nondrug users.40 Whereas meditation mildly increases activity in the frontal lobes while reducing activity in the emotional centers, psychedelics create excessive stimulation throughout the brain, similar to what is found when people experience acute psychotic episodes.41 Thus, it is far more difficult to incorporate drug-induced experiences in a practical or meaningful way.
However, a highly publicized study conducted at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine challenged this perspective.42 Thirty-six subjects who had never taken psychedelics were given two different drugs on separate occasions: psilocybin (the active ingredient found in psychedelic mushrooms), and Ritalin, the stimulant prescription drug used to treat attention-deficit disorders. They were not told what they were given. With psilocybin, subjects reported significant increases in their feelings of unity, sacredness, intuitive knowledge, and ineffability. Two months later the participants continued to associate the experience with increased feelings of altruism, positive emotions, and constructive behavior. In fact, over 70 percent of the respondents stated that it was one of the top ten experiences in their lives. Approximately one-third said it was the single most spiritually significant experience in their