Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism?

Stolaroff, Myron J.

doi:10.1177/0022167899391009

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Over time, I think it inevitable that psychedelics will have tremendously increasing impacts on Western culture, whether or not they become legalized for professional use, such as their potential for radically altering contemporary religions. For example, a large number of Westerners have felt called to practice Buddhism as a result of psychedelic experiences (Stolaroff, 1999). Psychedelics have also been widely used in nonreligious contexts for facilitating individual spiritual growth, such as by those who privately use them as a transpersonal sacrament (Merkur, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Renewal of Psychedelic Research: Implications for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

Friedman¹

2006

The Humanistic Psychologist

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A number of medication trials at major U.S. research universities are now, once more, legally exploring psychedelics' vast potential for treating various physical and psychological problems. These studies have been approved based on a medical model that considers psychedelics' effects as primarily biochemical, but some are also addressing wider humanistic and transpersonal implications for research and praxis. These studies may challenge the prevailing medical model of psychopathology that not only reduces humans to just their biology but also has led to widespread medical treatments through formularies that predominantly constrict, rather than enhance, human potential. Psychedelics offer great potential as tools for researching elusive areas within humanistic and transpersonal psychology, as well as powerful ways to facilitate humanistic and transpersonal growth.Psychedelics, a term which means mind-manifesting, was first used in 1956 by Humphry Osmond to define a group of substances with potent psychoactive properties that had previously been called by more pejorative names, such as hallucinogenics (i.e., causing hallucinations) and psychotomimetics (i.e., mimicking psychoses; Williams, 1999). Grinspoon and Bakalar (1979) defined psychedelics as nonaddictive substances that do not cause major physiological or psychological disturbances while reliably producing strong changes in mood, perception, and thought in a fashion similar to what is sometimes found in dreams, memory flashbacks, psychoses, and religious ecstasy. Although the boundary between psychedelics and other substances that may alter consciousness is not always clearly delineated, current consensus broadly includes a number of substances that are

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Renewal of Psychedelic Research: Implications for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

Friedman¹

2006

The Humanistic Psychologist

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“…Spontaneous enhancements in trait mindfulness have also been reported following the administration of various psychedelics, even outside of a mindfulness-enhancing context ( 40 , 52 , 56 – 59 ). These results (summarised in Table 2 ) suggest that psychedelics could be utilised as a useful adjunct to aid mindfulness meditation training in novices, but also to deepen the meditation practise of long-term practitioners ( 150 ). However, these results remain preliminary and inconclusive, as most studies suffer from very small sample sizes and lack a control group.…”

Section: Evidence For Synergistic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Potential Synergistic Effects Between Mindfulness Training and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Eleftheriou

Thomas

2021

Front. Psychiatry

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Mindfulness-based interventions and psychedelic-assisted therapy have been experimentally utilised in recent years as alternative treatments for various psychopathologies with moderate to great success. Both have also demonstrated significant post-acute and long-term decreases in clinical symptoms and enhancements in well-being in healthy participants. These two therapeutic interventions share various postulated salutogenic mechanisms, such as the ability to alter present-moment awareness and anti-depressive action, via corresponding neuromodulatory effects. Recent preliminary evidence has also demonstrated that psychedelic administration can enhance mindfulness capacities which has already been demonstrated robustly as a result of mindfulness-based interventions. These shared mechanisms between mindfulness-based interventions and psychedelic therapy have led to scientists theorising, and recently demonstrating, synergistic effects when both are used in combination, in the form of potentiated therapeutic benefit. These synergistic results hold great promise but require replication in bigger sample groups and better controlled methodologies, to fully delineate the effect of set and setting, before they can be extended onto clinical populations.

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“…An integral ontology that incorporates this fact posits the only viable Thus, the following section does not conceptualize the subject as the object of a given science, or even as the object of a holistically constructed multi-scientific epistemological nexus, but as the absolute "source" of reality. As the experiencing subject's existence "does not come from [its] antecedents, 15 Interestingly, various studies indicate that similar modifications of consciousness and phenomenal fields may be temporarily facilitated by near death experiences, certain kinetic techniques, and the incorporation of a multitude of naturally occurring substances and synthesized analogues (Stolaroff 1999;Strassman 2001;Walsh 2001;Sessa 2005).…”

Section: P Conrad Kotzementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Nature of an Integral Sociology: An Exploration in Theory and Practice

Kotze

2017

QSR

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This article is the first in a series of three installments representing a doctoral project carried out at the University of the Free State in South Africa. The aim of this article is to establish an apodictic ontic and epistemic foundation for the construction of an integral framework for sociological practice. To this end, manifest reality is meditated upon in a realist phenomenological manner, thus yielding an etiological framework aimed at reflecting reality in itself, and not as the object of a specific scientific paradigm. Situated against the backdrop of the ontological turn in the social sciences, the argument is developed that contemporary science represents an ill-founded attempt at empirically describing a reality that is fundamentally trans-empirical. It is posited that any scientific enterprise which is founded exclusively on an empirical analysis of “objective” reality can ultimately yield only partial truths. To remedy this situation, the role of intersubjectively constructed meaning-frameworks and subjectively constituted qualia of manifestation during the generation of reality are acknowledged, facilitating an account thereof that enlivens the positivistic “world-as-described” by integrating it with the hermeneutically navigable “world-as-agreed-upon” and the individually encountered/embodied “world-as-witnessed.” The resulting etiological framework facilitates a grasp of the higher order unity of these “worlds” by facilitating the emergence of an aperspectival mode of being that transcends the empirico-perspectival mental consciousness structure characteristic of modern and postmodern epistemologies. In so doing, a universally valid layer of knowledge is laid bare which can serve as a contextualizing point of reference for the continued perspectival exploration of particular conditioned aspects of reality.

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Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism?

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

The Renewal of Psychedelic Research: Implications for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

The Renewal of Psychedelic Research: Implications for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

Examining the Potential Synergistic Effects Between Mindfulness Training and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

On the Nature of an Integral Sociology: An Exploration in Theory and Practice

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