Mystical transformation. Psychedelic substances in the treatment of mental illnesses

BOGUSŁAW OLSZEWSKI

Uniwersytet Wrocławski, Instytut Studiów Międzynarodowych, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, ul. Koszarowa 3, 51-149 Wrocław
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5716-4175

Abstract

Mental disorders have become the scourge of modern post-industrial societies subjected to an influence of rapidly changing civilizational environment. In the middle of the last century, the discovery of potential of LSD and psilocybin made them first psychedelics used in the context of psychology. Among the precursors of their use on the field of psychotherapy was an employee of the University of Harvard, author of the interpersonal theory of personality, Dr. Timothy Leary. Leary acknowledged them an important role in the evolution of the human species as well as in treatment of mental disorders, which he confirmed in his penitentiary experiments where he achieved significant reduction of criminal tendencies in the control group of prisoners. The key to get positive results was an experience by inmates of psychotic states generated by LSD, as well as their intensive mystical insights in the nature of reality. Psychedelic substances are defined as entheogens (‘generating the divine within’) and, as such, excluded from the set of narcotic substances. They have been functioning in pre-industrial societies as a tool of traditional healers for thousands of years. Experiments with psychedelics were also carried out by the Czech psychologist, Stanislav Grof, the creator of theory of perinatal matrices. He used LSD in the treatment of neuroses, addictions and to reduce anxiety of patients with cancer terminal phase. In 90s an American researcher Rick Strassman carried out experiments with the most powerful known psychedelic substance - DMT, which is naturally produced in the human organism by the pineal gland. All experiments demonstrated transformative nature of psychedelic experience and these days conceptualise some new future directions of research, especially in the field of the treatment of psychopathy, anxiety disorders, and thanatology.

Keywords:

psychedelics, transformation, schizophrenia, autism, treatment