Voyage in the Depths of the Soul - a study of drug induced mystical states and experiences

摘要

The use of hallucinogenic plants has throughout human history been used for religiouspurposes, in order to induce mystical states of mind, often interpreted as meeting with godsand spirits. In recent years, this practice has been taken up by people interested in theexploration of their psyche and spiritual side. This group of people, referred to as“psychonauts”, communicate with each other through internet based forum, where theyshare their experiences in so called “trip reports”. The aim of this study was to see whatrole psychedelic drugs can play when used in a spiritual/religious context, and whetherthese sorts of mystical states of mind could tell us about more traditional mysticalexperiences. Eleven trip reports from the Swedish psychonaut forum 'Magiska Molekyler'were analysed to see how the psychedelic mystical experience was described, what centralthemes were present, and in what way it correlated with definitions of traditional mysticalexperiences. Seven central themes were found; ego and death of the ego, a feeling of unity ofboth inner and outer kind, fractal hallucinations, passivity and acceptance, relativization, adistorted sense of space, time and the ability to associate, and finally a therapeutic effect. Ofthese themes, five were found to be collateral to the first theme, death of the ego, while thelast theme, the therapeutic effect was found to be a consequence of the aftermath of the sametheme. The nature of the psychedelic trips were found to correlate pretty well withdefinitions of traditional mystical experiences. The differences found are likely due to thefact that drug induced effects are active under a prolonged time, that they occur withoutregard to the psychonaut's state of mind, which is not the case with the traditional mystic,and that the psychonaut writes to an audience presumed to already be familiar with themystical experience. Due to the hermeneutic nature of the analysis, it is certainly possible tofind other present themes if the reports were to be read in another way.