Understanding Mystical Experience
Throughout human history, people have reported powerful experiences in which their sense of individual self dissolves and they feel connected with something timeless and vastly larger than themselves. Such experiences have often been described within religious traditions, philosophical reflections, and spiritual practices. In recent decades, they have also become an object of scientific research, particularly within psychology and neuroscience.
Conversion of Saint Paul by Caravaggio (Rome) – Detail (source: Wikimedia Commons)
Mystical experiences are typically described as moments of profound insight, unity, sacredness, or transcendence. Although they are subjective and difficult to measure, they can have lasting effects on individuals’ attitudes, behaviour, and worldview. Modern research has begun to investigate whether such experiences can be studied systematically, for example in controlled experiments involving psychedelic substances.
”But the greatest men who have been philosophers have felt the need both of science and of mysticism: the attempt to harmonise the two was what made their life, and what always must, for all its arduous uncertainty, make philosophy, to some minds, a greater thing than either science or religion.”
— Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (1914)
Experiences of Unity
Personal insights concerning the tyrannical nature of one’s own inner self and experiences of the unity of life are extremely important for anyone. The sujective experiences collected in psychedelic research appear similar to the powerful spiritual awakenings and other mystical experiences that have been recorded within different religious traditions. The American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) was among the first modern scholars who attempted to understand the psychology of religious experience.
In his work The Varieties of Religious Experience (1914), which was based on a lecture series delivered at the University of Edinburgh (between 1901 and 1902) William James emphasises that although a religious experience may be a subjective event experienced by an individual, the significance of the experience should be measured by how the individual acts in the external world with other people and with other living beings as a result of that experience. Such an individual experience, during which a person feels that they are one with the entire universe and understands the roots and causes of all action, can influence the individual in many different ways.
Evaluating and studying religious or mystical experience is difficult. The nature of subjective experience escapes the Western scientific research tradition, in which research data should ideally be clearly measurable, assessable, comparable, and reproducible. Individual subjective experience is difficult to study according to these principles.
Studying Mystical Experience
One interesting study related to this subject is a study conducted in 2006 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. The study was titled ”Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance” (Griffiths et al. 2006). The research was led by Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Roland Griffiths.
The study used synthesised psilocybin, which is derived from psilocybin mushrooms. Psilocybin does not carry the same political baggage as LSD, which was associated with scandals in the 1960s, although the substances affect the human mind in almost identical ways.
Thirty adult participants were selected for the experiment, all of whom were regularly involved in religious or spiritual activities. The experiments were conducted in two or three sessions at two-month intervals. The participants were given either 30 milligrams of psilocybin or 40 milligrams of a psychoactive placebo. The participants therefore did not know in advance whether they would receive psilocybin or the placebo.
In the study, the placebo consisted of 40 milligrams of methylphenidate, which is also used here in Finland for the treatment of symptoms caused by ADHD. It is marketed under trade names such as Ritalin, Medikinet, Equasym Retard, and Concerta.
Participants in Griffiths’ experiment later completed questionnaires that examined the long-term effects of the experience. Among the respondents, 67% assessed that the experience had been either the most significant event in their lives up to that point, or one of the five most significant experiences. Respondents evaluated the experience as being as meaningful as the birth of a child or the death of a parent. Among the respondents, 35% assessed the experience as the single most significant spiritual experience of their lives. In addition, 38% assessed it as one of the five most significant spiritual experiences.
Respondents described feelings of togetherness and the interconnected nature of everything that exists. Participants in the study said that the experience produced by psilocybin contributed to a positive attitude towards life, improved mood, social relationships, and behaviour.
However, the Griffiths experiment also revealed a general risk factor associated with psychedelic substances. The article states:
”Even in the present study in which the conditions of volunteer preparation and psilocybin administration were carefully designed to minimize adverse effects, with a high dose of psilocybin 31% of the group of carefully screened volunteers experienced significant fear and 17% had transient ideas of reference/paranoia. Under unmonitored conditions, it is not difficult to imagine such effects escalating to panic and dangerous behavior.”
— Griffiths et al. (2006)
Mystical experiences in psychedelic experiments are evaluated in current research using the Mystical Experience Questionnaire developed in the 1960s by Walter Pahnke and William Richards. The questionnaire investigates the participant’s individual inner experience during the experiment (Stace 1960; Pahnke 1963).
The questionnaire investigates, for example, the participant’s experience of inner and outer unity, the disappearance of time and space, experiences that are difficult to describe in words, a sense of sacredness, noetic knowledge, and feelings of happiness.
Mystical experience is evaluated through seven categories:
- I. Inner unity, disappearance of the self and the feeling of pure consciousness.
- II. External unity, everything in the universe appears interconnected.
- III. Transcendence of time and space; time and space lose their characteristic features and properties, and there is an experience of infinity.
- IV. Ineffability and paradoxicality; the experience cannot be described in words to someone who has not experienced something similar.
- V. Sense of sacredness, an experience of wonder and of one’s own smallness in relation to infinity, accompanied by humility.
- VI. Noetic quality, during the experience the things perceived appear more real than anything previously experienced.
- VII. Deeply-felt positive mood, including feelings of energy, tenderness, calmness, ecstasy, infinite love, and joy.
Mysticism Beyond Religion
I admit that mystical experience may sound like a rather lofty concept. In general, mysticism often seems to refer to something connected with religion. Walter Pahnke (1963) notes, however, that a mystical experience may also be a completely non-religious experience. Walter Terence Stace (1960) adds that religious experience requires, in addition to a mystical component, characteristics related to tradition, rationality, practicality, and a moral dimension.
The origin of the word lies in the Greek word muo, which means to close something off or to remain silent. Traditionally, mysticism has referred to a way of life in which one attempts to achieve an immediate and intimate connection with God, the absolute, or some ultimate truth.
A mystical experience can change a person in many ways. The consequences of the experience are not always positive. A person who has experienced a mystical event may become arrogant and overly self-confident as a result of such a profound experience. This is especially likely if the experience occurs suddenly, without a long dedication to some mystical practice, one of whose purposes is to cultivate patience and to place the experience within an appropriate framework.
Conclusion
Mystical experiences remain one of the most intriguing intersections between religion, philosophy, psychology, and modern neuroscience. Although their subjective nature makes them difficult to measure using traditional scientific methods, research increasingly suggests that they can have deep and lasting effects on human life. From the pioneering work of William James to modern laboratory studies involving psilocybin, the study of mystical experience continues to raise fundamental questions about consciousness, meaning, and the nature of human existence.
References
Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U., & Jesse, R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology, 187(3), 268-283.
James, W. (1914). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. Longmans, Green & Co.
Pahnke, W. (1963). Drugs and mysticism: An analysis of the relationship between psychedelic drugs and mystical consciousness. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.
Russell, B. (1914). Mysticism and logic and other essays. George Allen & Unwin.
Stace, W. T. (1960). Mysticism and philosophy. Macmillan.