Category: Uncategorized

Moving Past Mysticism: Theory of Cybernetic Eternalism Provides Scientific Basis, Superseding “Mysticism, Meditation, & Psychotherapy” Framework

Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2023

The present page is older; fewer entries; has commentary; specialized title.
The other page is newer; more entries; no commentary; cleaner title:
Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science (Article Debate Series)

Crop by Michael Hoffman

Contents:

Article Debate Series: “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science”

Condensed page with just the article links, derived from the present page:
Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science (Article Debate Series)
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/05/15/moving-past-mysticism-in-psychedelic-science-article-debate-series/

“Common Core Mystical Experience” Is Defined Exclusively as Positive Boundaryless Unity (vs. Negative Ego Dissolution, or Fear of Loss of Control)

copied from idea development page 29 from book club email

May 14, 2025

The Egodeath community might meet again with Alan Houot (author of Rise of the Psychonaut), developing/ defining a high-quality, upward-convergent Science approach that can include Transcendent Knowledge aka Mysticism, in some framing.

The past few days, I re-read the article debate “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science”.

Now in psychedelic science (psych. assisted therapy) there are many influential & compelling calls to broaden and open up, from that narrow model of what “mysticism” allegedly is, re: the alleged “common core” of mysticism, by which the writers meant, specifically, positive-experienced boundaryless unity.

My review of the article series strongly confirmed:

The Walter Stace 1960 model of so-called “mysticism” is specifically, narrowly, emphatically the experience of positive-experienced boundaryless unity.  

The Stace model of “common core mysticism” is rooted in Advaita Vedanta ever since Swami Vivekananda in 1893, who met with William James.

That’s the historical origin of the dubious model of “a complete mystical experience” per Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), Hood Mysticism Scale, & Hopkins group.

Writers following the Stace model of “mysticism” narrowly claim that mystical experience excludes any negative experience, such as what they call “ego dissolution“, by which they narrowly mean negatively experienced boundaryless unity — like reported in Michael Pollan’s book, re: Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ)), pp. 276-284, How to Change Your Mind; 5-MeO chapter: Pollan says the MEQ failed to match his terrifying experience, because too positive a framing to be applicable.

Charles Stang in Harvard video interview of R Griffiths also challenged the alleged model of “a complete mystical experience”;

Griffiths admits “we use a positive-balanced model”, and told Stang the Hopkins group has negative experiences covered by their (also positive-balanced) Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).

{shadow dragon monster}/ transformation gate = experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control.

Pahnke Dissertation: Fear of Loss of Control

https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/pahnke/walter_pahnke_drugs_and_mysticism.pdf – not copyable text; only photo pdf.
search web:
Drugs Mysticism Analysis of the Relationship between Psychedelic Drugs and Mystical Consciousness Walter Pahnke
https://www.google.com/search?q=Drugs+Mysticism+Analysis+of+the+Relationship+between+Psychedelic+Drugs+and+Mystical+Consciousness+Walter+Pahnke
i know the text version is linked at present site – found it: https://egodeaththeory.org/2023/01/17/references-for-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaires/#MEQ43-Pahnke-1963 — the good copy of dissert is at: 119 pages: 
http://www.en.psilosophy.info/pdf/drugs_and_mysticism_(psilosophy.info).pdf –

Pahnke wrote:

“We must not make the assumption that each subject wrote down his complete experience.

He might not have mentioned some particular phenomena because he did not think of it when he was writing his report, although we can assume that he reported what he thought was most important or what impressed him the most.

Stace has pointed out that even the mystics did not write as much as we would have liked about the actual phenomenology of their experiences.

The questionnaires and interviews provided a check on this type of omission, and such evidence should not be ignored.

…

Nine out of ten of the experimentals considered that their experience was significant and worthwhile and would be very willing, in fact eager, to try the experience again.

Crop by Michael Hoffman

Judged from the interviewer’s perspective, eight out of ten of these experiences were predominantly positive, and had a pronounced significant and worthwhile effect in the lives of the persons involved, according to their own testimonies.

One experimental had what he considered a worthwhile and significant experience from which he learned a great deal, but in regard to mystical phenomena his experience was not on the same level with the other eight.

In his account and interview it was obvious that he had spent much of his time trying to remain in control and to interpret and intellectualize his experience.

At one point he attempted to memorize Greek vocabulary-cards.

After one such experience he was eager to have another chance to let himself go into the experience more completely without trying to resist the effects of the drug.

The tenth experimental subject had what he termed

an interesting “psychological” and “aesthetic” experience for the first three-fourth of his experience,

but then became frightened by loss of control and spent the remaining time in a terrifying fight to overcome the drug effects.

He would not be interested in repeating the experience because his most predominant memory of the experience was that of fear.

Six months later, in Part I of the followup questionnaire, he considered this fear-experience slightly harmful because “in a mob panic situation, I feel I would be less likely to maintain a calm objective position than I might have formerly.”

During the interview he admitted that he had gone into the experience “as a psychological experiment” and had done no serious devotional preparation.

His “inspirational” reading while the drug was taking effect consisted of studying some Psalms for a course in the Old Testament.

His interpretation of his experience was a “psychotic episode.”

Titles of this Page

The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism Provides a Scientific Basis for Mystic-State Experiencing, Superseding the “Mysticism, Meditation, & Psychotherapy” Framework

The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism Provides a Scientific Explanatory Basis for Mystic-State Experiencing, Superseding the Mysticism, Meditation, & Psychoanalysis Frameworks

The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism Fulfills Sanders and Zijlmans’ Call for a Scientific, not Mysticism, Explanatory Basis for Psychedelic Effects

My Old Site Link Is “Mysticism De-Mystified”

1998 url: https://web.archive.org/web/19980126224931/http://www.cybtrans.com/ – contains major link “Mysticism De-Mystified”.

Snapshot of the Egodeath theory on the World-Wide Web before Egodeath.com:

Feb. 14, 1997: site title: Ego Death and Self-Control Cybernetics
https://web.archive.org/web/19970214093956/http://www.cybtrans.com/

That would be days after publishing my 1997 theory spec. Includes an early version of Egodeath.com content:
CybTrans.com/philosph/postings.htm –
https://web.archive.org/web/19970624125927/http://www.cybtrans.com/philosph/postings.htm

Articles

Article: A Channel for Magic: Ralph Hood’s Mysticism Scale and the Occult Roots of the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Program (Kitchens, Sep. 2022)

Debunks Psychedelic Therapy Religion.

“A Channel for Magic: Ralph Hood’s Mysticism Scale and the Occult Roots of the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Program
Psychologist Ralph Hood’s study of serpent handling and mysticism helped legitimize the study of psychedelics. So why doesn’t he want them approved for medical use?
Travis Kitchens, September 9, 2022
https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/a-channel-for-magic-ralph-hoods-mysticism-scale-and-the-occult-roots-of-the-johns-hopkins-psychedelic-research-program/

I wrote about this article in https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/04/21/idea-development-page-28/#a-channel-for-magic-ralph-hoods-mysticism-scale-and-the-occult-roots-of-the-johns-hopkins-psychedelic-research-program-kitchens-2022 – at top of page, Find “Kitchens”.

Search site for Kitchens:
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=kitchens

Article: Mystical and Other Alterations in Sense of Self: An Expanded Framework for Studying Nonordinary Experiences (Taves, May 2020)

Debunks the “Positive Unity Experience” Model of Mysticism.

Mystical and Other Alterations in Sense of Self: An Expanded Framework for Studying Nonordinary Experiences
Ann Taves, 2020
Perspect Psychol Sci
2020 May;15(3):669-690
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32053465/
doi: 10.1177/1745691619895047. Epub 2020 Feb 13.
PMID: 32053465 DOI: 10.1177/1745691619895047
Free article at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/86r3f75j

Erratum in: Corrigendum: Mystical and Other Alterations in Sense of Self: An Expanded Framework for Studying Nonordinary Experiences.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 Mar;17(2):614. doi: 10.1177/17456916221076158. Epub 2022 Jan 24.
PMID: 35073216

I wrote about this article in section https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/05/07/idea-development-page-29/#mystical-and-other-alterations-in-sense-of-self-an-expanded-framework-for-studying-nonordinary-experiences-taves-2020 – at top of page, Find “Taves”.

Search site for Taves:
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=taves

Article: The Psychedelic Religion of Mystical Consciousness (Strassman, Jul. 2018)

The Psychedelic Religion of Mystical Consciousness
Rick Strassman 2018
https://www.rickstrassman.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/JPS_Strassman.pdf

Strassman’s short article is praised by Davis 2020 article.

May 13, 2025: I read this 4-page article again: it is good. His Jewish complaints are reasonable. His critique of Wm Richards book Sacred Knowledge today solved a problem: I preorderd that 2015 book, and have been disappointed, now I know why: that book pushes the fake, made-up, wrong model of “mysticism”: positive Unity.

The book Sacred Knowledge is as bogus as

  • Stace,
  • Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ),
  • Mysticism Scale questionnaire, and
  • the ultimate bogosity, the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) — 100% junk psychedelic pseudo science.

I have now switched from critic of psychedelic pseudo science, to an outright debunker, following Travis Kitchens, Ann Taves, and all critics of Stace.

I suddenly find myself siding with obnoxious “naturalism materialism Science cheerleader Matt “Lose the Buddha Statue” Johnson: the statue means, the sheer invention of mysticism as positive – per the great creiticism of Stang on video at Harvard directly confronting Grifty, “your model of mysticism fails to match mystics”.

Roland Griffiths team at Johns Hopkins Dept. of Psychedelic Pseudo Science replied: “That’s ok, we use a positive-balanced model; see our positive-balanced negative effects the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).”

I used to throw a bone to the “unity mysticism” model, saying that it is ok for beginner level mystical experience. I think that is bad strategy and a missed opportunity to hammer-smash fraudulent lies about mystical experience.

Positive Unity Mysticism Is Merely One Experience, Picked for Wrong Reasons, and Is Noxious Avoidance Strategy to Shut Out the Real Master Experience

Real …

I am re-settling, I am resetting as of 6:03 pm May 13, 2025, to attack bunk fake mysticism, just like I attacked and fully exposed Fraud Wasson.

Authentic mysticism — the kind that MATTERS and is worthy of respect — is about transformed control in transformed world, per the Egodeath theory/ myth/ lyrics/ mushroom-trees/ Mystery Religions.

The Fake Model (tepid about psychedelics; positive-balanced; Unity focused) Serves to Eliminate True Model, So the Fake Model Must Be Destroyed and Vigorously Rected

Article: Gnostic Psychedelia (Erik Davis, April 2020)

Gnostic Psychedelia
Erik Davis, April 2020
Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies
https://techgnosis.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Davis-Gnosis-5.1.pdf

Stace Takes Another Hit – Davis 2020 Gnosis journal (editor April DeConick) article “Gnostic Psychedelia”

Good article, I resonate with many points. Even notes the over-influence of James and Stace.

Defines, sort of/ as if, two opposed versions of mysticism:

“Within the official clinical discourse, at least in America, the key
to individual healing is largely tied to the capacity of psychedelics to trigger
transcendental unitive and ecstatic experiences whose “mystical” character is
vouchsafed, it must be said, by scholarship that is over half a century old.“

/ end of Davis quote near end of article

And ridiculously narrow, particular, and specific! Stace 1960 (out of print), James 1902.

All the clinical talk of “mystical experience” is not actual mystical experience, but is, instead Stacean so-called “mystical experience”, specifically, narrowly, particularly.

‘Hermetic’ = Stacean “mystical experience”
vs.
‘Gnostic‘ = w/ DeConick, a critical, Gnostic equivalent opposed conception of the realm of so-called “mystical experience”.

Post: Gnostic Psychedelia and the Archetype of the Archons (Davis, Apr. 2020)

A post about the article Gnostic Psychedelia:
Gnostic Psychedelia and the Archetype of the Archons
Erik Davis, April 14, 2020
https://techgnosis.com/gnostic-psychedelia/
https://techgnosis.com/gnostic-psychedelia-and-the-archetype-of-the-archons/ – truncates to the above

Categories:
ESOTERICA, PSYCHEDELICS, SCHOLARSHIP

TAGS

Full content of post:

Davis wrote:

“I wrote this paper for Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies, a newish journal edited by April DeConick, with whom I had the great fortune of being able to study Gnosticism during my time at Rice.

—

“This article first draws out one particularly important feature of gnostic myth—the idea of the archons, or fallen “rulers” against whom the gnostic wages spiritual warfare.”

“In contemporary conspiracy culture, the archons now hold a prominent place at the table, but they are also described in both orthodox and heterodox texts of antiquity.

“Since I am describing a type rather than analyzing a particular sect or text, some scholars will probably find my use of the term too loose to be of value, but my goal is not to dig deeper into the ancient world.

—

“Instead, I use the concept of the archons to illuminate an important feature of modern western psychedelic culture that tends to get short shrift: an agonistic and critical spirituality directed against social reality, rather than the dominant perennialist emphasis on unity, interdependence, and Oneness.”

“In studying modern psychedelic texts from Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Jim DeKorne, Robert Anton Wilson, and Jonathan Talat Phillips—some of whom explicitly invoke the archons of old—I find a gnostic psychology that has much to say to our time of crisis, and that features a more explicitly political dimension to entheogenic vision.”

link to article pdf

/ end of Davis post

Evil Rulers of the 21st Century Shoving Their Denatured Psychedelic RenaissanceTM Down Our Throats While Keeping Psilocybin Prohibition Firmly in Place, Foisting Their Bunk Non-Mystic Mysticism to Replace Psychedelic Experiencing

Grassroots psychedelicists vs. Hopkins Prohibition-compliant therapy & the top-down fake imposed alien invaders “Michael Pollan surprise bestseller” and “Brian Muraresku surprise bestseller” books that were MADE to be bestsellers by MegaCorp Publishers.

Entheogen scholarship went off the rails and lost the plot, by caring far more about their “secret suppressed hereetical sects” narrative which became the opporessive narrative that NEUTERED every finding in mushroom imagery in Christian art, converting them to de-powered evidence instead, of mushrooms in HERETICAL Christianity.

Against Ruck the Neutralizer, every instance of mushroom imagery in Christian art amounts to evidence of mushroom imagery within Christianity — NOT in Ruck’s fabricated “in heretical Christianity” heavy-handed narrative that’s far more important to Ruck than real psychedelics or repeal of Psilocybin prohibition. Ruck school is not driven by interest in finding evidence for psychedelics in religious history.

What motivates the Ruck school is storytime tale-telling of the Big Bad Church vs. suppressed The Mushroom (🍄) — not an interest in psychedelics or repeal of Psilocybin prohibition.

In the Amanita Primacy Fallacy, in entheogen scholarship driven by AND CONSTRAINED BY the Amanita Primacy Fallacy, scholars don’t get high on psychedelics; they get high on crybaby infantile narrative ritual retelling of the great tabu suppression of Our Holy Sacred Mushroom, Amanita.

Search present site: many “davis” articles relevant here:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/
found the section there:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/#Davis-Criticizes-Staces-Mysticism

The present Davis section was copied from there to here wholesale, then rearranged.

Article: Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus: Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine (Johnson, April 2021)

Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus: Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine
Matthew Johnson
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsptsci.0c00198
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science 2021 4 (2), 578-581
DOI: 10.1021/acsptsci.0c00198

Matthew Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore

Article: Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science (Sanders & Zijlmans, May 2021)

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Abstract

“The mysticism framework is used to describe psychedelic experiences and explain the effects of psychedelic therapies.

“We discuss risks and difficulties stemming from the scientific use of a framework associated with supernatural or nonempirical belief systems and encourage researchers to mitigate these risks with a demystified model of the psychedelic state.”

Sanders aren’t against mystical experience, they are against the Walter Stace-based mysticism model and lexicon.

Condensed excerpts

Condensed excerpts rewritten by Cybermonk for scholarly commentary & analysis – deliberately making very minor deviations; see the article for exact quotes:

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

I can do a lot with this article, Sanders & Zijlmans make lots of great points that the Egodeath theory fulfills.

There are many great quotable important points in this article, well-articulated.

Page 1 Excerpts

Condensed excerpts by Cybermonk for scholarly commentary & analysis:

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Sanders and Zijlmans p. 1:

“Concepts like “pure awareness” and “ineffable” experiences of “ultimate reality” … these statements are too seldom accompanied by a deeper discussion on what a term like mystical means within the context of psychedelic science, and what consequences might come with the scientific use of the mysticism framework.

“The root [“scientific basis”] of mysticism in psychedelic science lies in the work of philosopher W. T. Stace, who in 1960 theorized a distinct type of “mystical consciousness” achieved through a variety of cultural practices.

“Stace’s theory was informed by theological, historical, and anecdotal accounts, and the defining criteria for the state include

  • a sense of unity – agree
  • a sense of timelessness – agree
  • a sense of spacelessness – agree
  • a sense of objectivity and reality – agree
  • a sense of sacredness – disagree, not useful expl’y construct
  • a sense of blessedness – disagree, not useful expl’y construct
  • a sense of peace – disagree, not useful expl’y construct
  • a sense of paradoxicality – disagree, not useful expl’y construct
  • a sense of ineffability – disagree, not useful expl’y construct

“Early psychedelic researchers adopted the concept and took these criteria as
relevant operational categories for the study of psychedelic
experiences.” – Sanders p. 1 col. 1

The field is foolishly and unhelpfully attempting to do scientific research in psychedelic mystic-state experiencing, by applying Stace’s conception of mysticism as the scientific basis for all of psychometrics science of mystic-type experiencing.

“the encroachment of supernatural and nonempirical beliefs on psychedelic science, we identify shortcomings of this link between mysticism and psychedelic research

“The mysticism framework, along with its associated theories and terminology, should be actively superseded.

“the risks stemming from the relation between mysticism and supernatural or otherwise nonempirical belief systems [& would-be psychedelic science]

“why current researchers should be optimistic at their prospects of creating valid frameworks that are supported by, and accessible to, empirical methods.

“the ways in which new frameworks may bring greater benefit for science and society alike.” – Sanders, p. 1 col 2.

“Within psychedelic science, we are concerned that use of the mysticism framework creates a “black box” mentality in which researchers are content to treat certain aspects of the psychedelic state as beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.”

love it! 🎉

Condensed excerpts by Cybermonk for scholarly commentary & analysis:

““psychedelic exceptionalism”: when psychedelic experiences are taken to be “so sacred or important that the normal rules do not apply” [cites Matthew “Lose the Buddha statue” Johnson]

My commentary

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Griffiths/Studerus-type articles refer to Stace’s book as the “scientific” basis, and they also, as a fallback, claim James 1902.

The James/ Stace/ Pahnke/ Richards/ Griffiths line of mysticism framework and lexicon.

Pahnke/ Richards/ Griffiths call Walter Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Philosophy their “scientific” basis.

Griffiths’ system of articles & the MEQ43 & MEQ30 stands or falls with Stace’ 1960 book — that single book is used and cited as the science basis for their “mysticism” model.

Sanders & Zijlmans and I condemn the Stace “ineffability” premise (they articulate this well).

We demand (& The Theory of Pychedelic Eternalism provides) useful, scientifically proper articulate explanation and lexicon, instead of “Mysticism” per Stace 1960.

Beginning in 1985-1988, the Egodeath theory (the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism) rejects and replaces these failed, unhelpful explanatory frameworks that substitute from STEM-type clear, useful explanation:

  • Mysticism (per Stace 1960 eg ineffability,
  • Meditation (ie conventinoal assumptions and paradigm, non-drug meditation as the original authority)
  • Psychoanalysis (eg Grof’s application of psychedelics to prop up the bunk “science” of psychoanalysis)

/end my commentary

Page 2 Excerpts

Condensed, marked up, and annotated for scholarly purposes.

The “reply” articles have zero quotes of Sanders’ actual position statements and phrasing. The field has two caricature positions available: mystics studying mystical experiencing, vs. naturalistic scientists studying psychedelic states & psychedelic experiences.

psychedelic states & psychedelic experiences includes mystical experiencing but we won’t make Stace’s Mysticism the framework that we employ; we need scientific frameworks, not mysticism-based frameworks (Stace 1960)

Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Philosophy, which is the scientific basis and framework and lexicon and conceptual system for Psychedelic Science, is out of print. See below, section:
Philosophy of Mysticism: Raids on the Ineffable (Jones 2017) – update of Stace 1960

😱 🦄💨🌈

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Sanders and Zijlmans p. 1:

“As scientists, we should not be satisfied to label psychedelic experiences as “ineffable”, “paradoxical”, or “void”

“The term mystical does little in terms of explaining psychobiological phenomena.

“Although the subjective aspect of psychedelic experiences may be difficult for the individual to fathom and describe, the terminology and conceptualization scientists use in their research should not imply that a psychedelic experience holds a special status of inaccessibility beyond other kinds of experience.

“To assume this special status a priori is unscientifically pessimistic.“

BRAVO!!

As the Egodeath theory does; as the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism does, we must take perfection/ completion of initiation/ enlightenment/ satori down off its pedestal of inaccessibility and alienated mis-reverence that everyone strives to glorify it upon, pushing it out of reach and distorting Transcendent Knowledge.

“By using the mystical experience construct, we are providing participants with a particular terminology and framework with which to understand their psychedelic experiences.

“When we administer a mystical experience questionnaire, we invite participants to interpret their experience through the framework of mysticism.

“We risk creating biased data and may fail to learn from participants’ own articulation and interpretation.” – Sanders p. 2 left col

“mystical experience phenomena are conflated with mystical beliefs about what psychedelic experiences mean.”

That’s a key distinction, between experiencing vs. interpretation.

Is Psychedelic Science to be driven by the STEM-type effort to figure stuff out and explain it usefully? Or, driven by Pop Sike Cult?

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

“We observe a broader and stronger use of mystical language and concepts than is warranted by the science.

“The integration of mysticism [as framework/lexicon, not experiencing -cm] into research and clinical practice risks creating unrealistic and potentially problematic expectations and associations.”

“As scientists, we must consider more carefully our choice of frameworks and more actively distance psychedelic research and clinical practice from the supernatural, fantastical, and divine; mysticism.”

Section heading: “Demystifying Our Concepts” – tons of great quotable assertions and calls for change. See the article. eg:

“A superficial change in terminology will not address the depth of mysticism’s influence in psychedelic science — rather, new theories rooted in the modern empirical study of conscious states are needed.”

DONE: see the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism; the Egodeath theory.

I read the word ’empirical’ per the essay Eye to Eye by Ken Wilber, except “eye of spirit” actually means Reason that’s used in the advanced Psilocybin altered state.

‘Reason’ here means rational, clear, useful model construction, informed by probing & testing & demonstration & state-specific observation.

More brilliant wording from Sanders & Zijlmans, condensed for scholarly commentary – a huge breath of fresh air for me.

I’m so glad others notice the crazy, unscientific degree to which Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Consciousness is treated by Griffiths et al as Gospel Science handed down from God, the rock-solid authoritative basis on which to construct Psychedelic Science:

“Alternative [to the mysticism lexicon,] terms such as “ peak experience” and “ oceanic boundlessness”  exist in the literature, but in each case, the theory and measurement of constructs remain closely linked to Stace’ s mystical consciousness.”

Glad to see Stace specifically named as the soggy sand foundation of this mess.

“Stace’s choices in research methods and sources reflect an assumption that the states he studied are infrequent, transient, and difficult to observe.”

Great point, well said.

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Sanders and Zijlmans point out like I’ve done: it is so ironic that Wouter Hanegraaff acts like the mystic state is an alien, inaccessible thing, when there are psychedelic truffles right across the street in the smartshop, an incredible wealth of the cognitive loosener readily on tap:

“Contemporary researchers should not feel as limited:

“psychedelics can be administered in experimental settings, and participant experiences can be probed with methods that do not assume a mystical framework of explanation from the outset.”

“states that are currently labeled as ‘mystical’.”

“Psychedelic science has not made a concerted effort to supersede Stace’ s mystical consciousness concept with an alternative rooted in empirical data and an unambiguously secular framework.”

DONE: See the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism; the Egodeath theory.

How to read their word ‘secular’ as opposed to ‘mystical’: here, the word ‘secular‘ is firmly based in the advanced intense Psilocybin state.

The word ‘secular’, in sharp contrast against ‘mystical’, means commitment to clear, explicit, directly expressed, STEM-type explanatory models.

“It is concerning whenever mysticism is taken for granted in psychedelic science circles: our choice of frameworks and measures serves to reify concepts such as mystical consciousness without sufficient justification, which opens the door for unscientific assumptions and associations.

“By demystifying scientific understanding of the psychedelic state, scientists can increase the scientific credibility of the frameworks used in their research and fill gaps in our understanding of latent psychological phenomena that could previously only be [pseudo-] filled in mystical ways.”

Bravo!

The Mysticism framework substitutes for (and shuts out) useful comprehensibility, which had been delivered by the STEM-driven Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism.

Note that “increasing the credibility” sounds like Letcher Hatsis calling to “Save the reputation of entheogen scholarship by deleting mushrooms (picture exclusively 🍄) and the Secret Amanita Cult 🤫🍄 theory.”

quotes from p. 3 are in a section below

Advaita Vedanta the Weak Engine of Integral Theory

I was a little shocked to eventually realize Ken Wilber is pushing glorified Advaita Vendanta non-drug meditation.

Non-drug meditation is the best way to avoid ever posing any threat to egoic delusion.

Non-drug meditation guarantees the mind is never loosened and turned, to transform the mind from possibilism to eternalism.

Meditation keeps the mind from transforming from child form to adult form.

Meditation is a product of drug prohibition and freewill fog, to substitute for and avoid Psilocybin, which would cause meditation to work correctly.

Authentic meditation is Psilocybin meditation. Meditation came from Psilocybin.

David Nichols is a top chemist, collaborator with Shulgin.

Nichols debated a meditation huckster. Nichols asserted:

Psilocybin produced Meditation.

Non-drug meditation makes no sense.

It makes no sense the invention of meditation, without coming from psychedelics.

Page 3 Excerpts

Condensed excerpts rewritten by Cybermonk for scholarly commentary & analysis – deliberately making very minor deviations; see the article for exact quotes:

Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Sanders and Zijlmans, May 2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

Sanders and Zijlmans 2021, p. 3:

“In fact, there are new understandings in development that have the potential to perform this function, informed by diverse modern methodologies.”

“Psychological phenomena previously [pseudo-] explained as mystical might come to be understood in terms that are not encumbered by theological, supernatural, or fantastical baggage.”

“This leads us to an optimistic note:

“With a clear and accessible model of why psychedelic therapies are showing
such promising results, we can use psychedelic research to its greatest benefit.

“Theories must describe in clear terms the relationship between the data we collect and the psychobiological concepts we employ.”

“These states of consciousness need no longer be treated as an elusive black box.

“We must utilize the tools and opportunities available to reconceptualize this aspect of the psychedelic state, so that science and society alike can benefit from new ways to understand and experience what was once considered unfathomable.”

/ end of Conclusion of article Moving Past Mysticism

Strawmanning the Sanders Article: Sanders Says We Should Eliminate Subjective Experiencing. <– CITATION NEEDED!

Reconciling Mystical Experiences with Naturalistic Psychedelic Science: Reply to Sanders and Zijlmans
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00137
Jussi Jylkkä (2021)
June 8, 2021
Published by American Chemical Society

Defining ‘naturalism’

Good entry: https://www.britannica.com/topic/naturalism-philosophy

Some authors aren’t replying to Sanders’ article, but rather, to a certain general philosophical vision or school or mentality. They conflate the Sanders article with the general mentality.

Articles ought to distinctly reply to the particular statements asserted by Sanders’ article, and, the general mentality of materialistic science, reductionism, dismissive of altered state.

Jylkka’s first sentence is a false statement, no quote is provided, it’s a misrepresentation, false attribution of position:

“Sanders and Zijlmans ignore the subjective aspect of psychedelic experiences. Mystical experiences are felt as real and can yield personally meaningful insights.”

Sanders never denied that. Strawman much?

Quote/citation needed!

Strawman, WATCH THE TRICKY WORDING HERE:

“In a recent Viewpoint article, Sanders and Zijlmans call for the demystification of the psychedelic experience.”

WRONG! FALSE! Made-up B.S. & misrepresentation. Excuse me? B.S.! You’re playing stupid wording tricks.

YOU wrote: “demystification of the psychedelic experience” – that’s YOUR words, that’s a misrepresentation through trying to sneak words past the reader.

Jylkkä should honor Sanders’ ACTUAL wording.

Let’s see some quotes! Jylkkä can’t, because then their fake & phony “argument” collapses.

Why should I even read this article, that’s all driven by misrepresentation?

Please reply to the article, not your fantasy projection onto it.

Jylkkä wrote “demystification of the psychedelic experience”. Show me that combination of words in Sanders – Jylkkä can’t; it’s not there.

But what did Sanders IN FACT write that seems similar but is very different?

Let’s see some quotes, Jylkkä can’t back up their B.S. false claims and misrepresentation through cheap wording trickery.

Writers are strawmanning Sanders, freely misrepresenting this article — they appear to have not have not read the article – as if they imagined what the article says but haven’t read it, and are not actually responding to Sanders’ article, but to some other article.

Did they even read this article? no indication of that.

The particular article(s) reflect a broader difference and tension about doing psychedelic within “the secular” vs. “the mystical” paradigm. In a response statement in LucidNews Don Lattin’s article Sanders writes:

Again I see high-quality, quotable writing from Sanders & Zijlmans, and poor-quality writing and tons of strawmanning from other writers.

Lattin wrote:

“Zijlmans, a post-doc researcher who runs a course on the neuroscience, history and therapeutic potential of psychedelics, said in an interview [w/ Lattin?] that critics have misinterpreted their paper.”

[topic: the framework/ theories/ lexicon that Psychedelic Scientists use:]

“We are not only trying to explain things biologically,” he said.

[topic: the experiences people have:]

“These are extraordinary, weird experiences that are very meaningful and powerful to people.”

[topic: the framework/ theories/ lexicon that Psychedelic Scientists use:]

I just want to explain them accurately and scientifically, rather than vaguely. ‘Weird’ and ‘mystical’ don’t capture it.”

I noticed in the pseudo-response articles: VAGUENESS and strawmanning, so was glad to see this final note where Zijlmans says the need is to move past vagueness of explanatory framework.

Regarding the battle between Science vs. Mysticism/Vagueness, see the section below, Psychedelic Eternalism as Specific Psychedelic Science vs. Vague Psychedelic Possibilism Mysticism.

Lattin continues:

“For example, he [Zijlmans] prefers to attribute the experience of a high-dose trip to “ego dissolution” rather than some “mystical” connection to Ultimate Reality or the collective unconscious.”

[diss’ing Jungianism, the popular heavy-handed overlay]

– Don Lattin

Researchers Debate the Role of Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
Lucid.news
Don Lattin
https://www.lucid.news/researchers-debate-the-role-of-mysticism-in-psychedelic-science/

The other articles just project a poor, weak position onto this article, but the authors of Sanders article write well and articulate their points well.

The other writers never quote this article but just make claims that this article is against mystical experience.

Response articles never address this article’s position in terms that this article puts forth:

Sanders is against scientists applying (and being limited to) Stace’s mysticism framework and lexicon.

Sanders makes this point very prominently and clearly and emphatically.

Bad writers ignore Sanders’ clearly stated point and position (did they even read the article? I see no indication), and they just strawman some other point and position that this author doesn’t assert.

The other articles ought to quote this article, but then they’d be forced to do the hard work of writing a real reply to this article’s actual position.

LucidNews.org provided a little more balanced, lucid news about this article. Don Lattin:

“In his recent paper, Matt Johnson has no problems with patients bringing their own religious icons or ideas into psychedelic sessions.

“But he advises against guides and therapists bringing their spiritual preconceptions and religious paraphernalia into session rooms.”

Johnson’s advice matches

Sanders’ advice in May issue matches Johnson’s advice in April. One issue had Matthew “Lose the Buddha statue” Johnson’s article, next issue had Sanders’ article saying the same kinds of points. People all came to the defensense of mystical experience, — total straw man! Sandkers emphasizes pointedly up front, the message is don’t use the Stace “mysticism” framework and lexicon, to do science.

This clash of views about “mysticism” framework/ approach in psychedelic psychometrics science / psychedelic assisted therapy is similar to disparaging the religionism approach/ methodology style, in the field of academic history of esotericism.

Since I finally got a clear view of the two opposed, radical empiricism” vs. “religionism” perspectives, I can better understand Sanders’ critique and distinctions between approach vs. the experiences studied by the approach.

Bad writers conflate Sanders’ critique of a science approach that uses the mysticism framework and lexicon as if Sanders had instead critiqued the mystical experiencing which science is studying.

Pros and Cons of Sanders’ Article

Pros: Many Right-on Quotable Statements

The article contains many excellent passages I agree with — well worded, and that I’d like to quote here – so many, it’s hard to know where to start. A breath of fresh air!

“The purported “sacredness”, “ineffability”, and “noetic quality” of these states may take on characteristics congruent with scientific understanding if an accessible scientific explanation exists, and if questionnaires reflecting this explanation are administered.” – Sanders p. 1254 at end.

See the Egodeath theory, Egodeath.com, the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism, and the ECQ – “Eternalism and Control Questionnaire”.

An accessible scientific explanation was exactly what I demanded, explaining the nature and summary-explanation of “ego transcendence” in October 1985 through December 1987.

My father in 1985 gave me Ken Wilber & Alan Watts books as the least-inept books on ego transcendence available.

It was then perfectly clear that the mysticism bozos, busy reveling in “words can’t“, were never in a million years going to deliver a sensible, coherent, useful explanatory framework and lexicon like is standard in STEM.

It was all too clear in 1986 that it fell on me — the Engineering student — to articulate comprehensibly and usefully the summary of the real nature of ego transcendence:

loosen cognition, experience block-universe and worldlines, transform from egoic possibilism-thinking mental worldmodel to the eternalism-thinking mental worldmodel.

And then write an article explaining the actual nature of ego transcendence to the field and Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

Sanders & Zijlmans use the term “the psychedelic state” in place of the term “the mystical state” or “the mystic state”

hit count:

“mystical experience” – 14 hits

“psychedelic experience” – 11 hits

“psychedelic state” – 6 hits

“mystical state” – 0 hits

“mystic state” – 0 hits

“mystic-type state” – 0 hits

“mystic experience” – 0 hits

Cons: Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism

All of the strawman pseudo-replies to Sanders criticize and condemn neuro-reductionism, and I agree with that. I need to develop this idea to the extreme completion:

I AM A DEDICATED DEFENDER OF A PURELY COGNITIVE PHENOMENOLOGY APPROACH WITH NO COMPROMISE WITH NEURO-REDUCTIONISM aka “materialist naturalism”.

What is “naturalistic Science”?

Is the Egodeath theory a “naturalistic” theory? define “naturalism” in Science. Her’s a definition, this is so not my vocabulary, this notion of “causes”:

Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=define+natualism

naturalism – “the philosophical belief that:
Everything arises from natural properties and causes.
Supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.
– Oxford Languages

Naturalism Defined

Everything arises from natural properties and causes.

Supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.

It’s a given that those concepts will be mapped by habit, to ordinary state & altered state.

In this biased context of Late Modernity,

“Everything arises from natural properties and causes” will be misread as:

Science as a mode of explanation should be restricted to the ordinary state.

“Supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted” will be misread as:

The altered state should not be drawn from as a source of explanation.

So you end up with awful theories like the entire horrible field of CSR, “the Cognitive Science of Religion”, which is ordinary state Cog Sci explaining away ordinary state “religion” or what passes for “religion”.

Reductionistic Cog Sci then delivers what passes for a “Science” explanation of what passes for “Religion”. In such a mileaux, we’re given:

Bunk reductionist Science

Bunk reductionist supernaturalist Religion is supernaturalist and yet reductionist at the same time.

Generalized ‘Reductionism’: any time you mis-analyze or mis-model any domain (regardless of ‘level’) as if it were a different domain than it really is; = category error

We need a concept that’s a hybrid of “reductionism” and “category error” that gets rid of restricting the concexpt of ‘reductionism’ to only mean “modelling a higher level domain as if it were instead a different, lower-level domain”.

The concept of “any two domains have a religion of higher vs lower” is wrong and limiting.

Get rid of the concept of “higher vs lower” in the word “reduce”; make “reduce” mean generally “omit because category error”.

Actually, to be reductionistic is to omit & misrepresent the real nature of a domain, because of making a category error.

‘Reductionism’ is best defined as generalized category error.

The real, actual essence of reductionism, the problem that the concept ‘reductionism’ actually addresses, is not really about “wrong level” or “too low level”.

The error & fallacy of ‘reductionism’ is actually, any time you mis-analyze or mis-model on domain as if it were a different domain than it really is.

Supernaturalism (& parapsychology) is a category error that’s proffered as an alternative to reductionist (pseudo-) Science.

Junk Science is no better than Junk Religion, which are no better than Junk Esotericism (the phony “3rd option”).

The problem with the word ‘naturalism’ is that like all our concepts, it is already compromised and participating in a false network/matrix of biased, stunted, reductionist, bad values; ‘naturalism’ connotes restricting science to the ordinary state of consciousness.

All of our language, terminology, and assumption-set, and paradigm, all favors restricting ourselves to the ordinary state of consciousness. Therefore (Tart is trying to change this):

‘rational’ means ordinary state

‘naturalism’ means ordinary state (and materialism)

‘scientific’ means ordinary state (and materialism)

Every word in the dictionary in the Modern period connotes and assumes ordinary state (and materialism).

Any phrase or term other than intens intense mystic altered state is ASSUMED to be based in valuing and advocating for ordinary state —

‘science’, ‘reason’, ‘logos’, ‘rationality’, ‘naturalism’, ‘sanity’, “good judgment”, are all in biased fashion grounded in and limited to the ordinary state.

“We should be scientific” is taken to mean “We should be limited to the ordinary state.”

“We should use Reason” is taken to mean “We should be limited to the ordinary state.”

“We should use naturalism” is taken to mean “We should be limited to the ordinary state.” Including our explanatory framework should be grounded in, which is taken to mean restricted to, the ordinary state.

I disagreed with all of Charles Tart’s wording.

Tart’s call for “multi-state science” is all mis-articulated, misspoken. Scrap Tart’s writings and use streamlined expression instead:

Fake Science is restricted to the ordinary state.
Authentic Science is fully engaged with the altered state.

Proper Science (Loose Cog Sci) is fully engaged with switching between the ordinary state & altered state.

Todo: Good Quotes from the Reply Articles
Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism in Sanders’ Article, Which Everyone Rightly Rejects

We should not psychologize(?) MEs.

We should reject Sanders’ element of neuro-reductionism, also people push back against the general Sanders-type view and they warn “We should not psychologize clients’ M.E.’s” (mystical experiences).

5 hits on “neuro”. I’m against “neurofoo” and loathe and resent Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism.

All 5 hits on ‘neuro’ in the article body:

“Neuroimaging can help elucidate biopsychological
mechanisms and contextualize qualitative results.” – Sanders & Zijlmans 2021, p. 2

“Demystified psychedelic research has the potential to enlighten
subjective experiences of the psychedelic state.

“Cognitive neuroscience concepts have been adopted by laypeople to
explain, interpret, and predict experiences and behaviors in
new ways.

“Using the example of addiction, researchers have highlighted the potential benefits of neuroscience influencing common understanding:

“knowing the role of neurophysiology in their experience of substance abuse disorder, addicts can gain informative and lucid new ways to characterize and contextualize their feelings and behaviors, gaining a more realistic concept of personal agency regarding their treatment.

“We assert that cognitive neuroscience can do the same
for the psychedelic state” – Sanders & Zijlmans 2021, p. 2

Cons: Eager to Strike a Psychedelics-Diminishing Pose

“Then, the benefits of psychedelic science might extend from providing therapies for those already afflicted to developing preventative measures
that need not even require the use of psychedelic drugs.” – Sanders, Moving Past Mysticism p. 1255, just above the Conclusion.

Sanders, why are you, a Psychedelic Scientist, advocating for not requiring psychedelics?

What Prohibitionist-compliant system of values and attitudes are you selling?

Like the Meditation hucksters argue, “Soon, you’ll be able to get rid of Psychedelics — fake, simulated, pseudo-meditation — and graduate to the real thing: authentic, bona fide, traditional non-drug meditation.” Which is all lies and falsehoods, since actually, AUTHENTIC MEDITATION IS NONE OTHER THAN PSILOCYBIN MEDTIATION.

It’s ok to meditate without psychedelics, but it is unacceptable (per the Egodeath theory / the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism, especially the entheogen Mytheme theory, the “eternalism” theory of mental transformation ) to tell & parrot the compromised, compromising, false narrative that “meditation didn’t come from Psilocybin” and “the authentic reference standard for Meditation is non-drug meditation.”

I’m supposed to overlook and wink at this affectation of disrespect for psychedelics – but it is a major red flag, actually; you can’t just slip-in, “psychedelics suck and are fake and inferior”, “With success, Psychedelic Science will soon be able to get rid of psychedelics!” – WE SAW THAT, we very much noticed.

Sanders, here’s your “developing preventative measures that need not even require the use of psychedelic drugs” – Nixon’s drug schedules; the Prohibition of Psilocybin, putting people in cages for using Psilocybin.

Sanders tries to appease and sell and market and appeal to anti-psychedelics mentality, by promising as if a good thing, “hopefully we can get rid of Psychedelics!”

Who are you trying to appeal to, Prohibitionists?

Whose vote are you trying to win, like a politician trying to make self-contradictory promises to two opposed camps?

Cons: Eager to Get Rid of Psychedelics; Insincerely Strategically Striking a Pose and Fake Affectation of a Stance of Diminishing Psychedelics

On Affectation, On Striking a Pose of Compromise and Moderateness by Diminishing and Lowering Psilocybin and elevating to the skies “he traditional non-drug methods of the mystics”

Striking a stance of diminishing psychedelics isn’t a repeated, constant theme that runs throughout the Sanders article.

But this strategic anti-psychedelics attitude that they let slip or that they PUT ON SHOW, the fact that Sanders tried to use the strategy like Hanegraaff of “Try to look like you are anti-psychedelics”, like Griffiths trying to cop a stance, an affectation, like Brown, trying to bargain with haters – I’m working out how to explain it, I have to make voice recordings to talk it through.

You try to compromise, you try to appease, you try to market & position yourself & strike a POSE, an affected STANCE, it is insincere. “Look at me, I’m not a psychedelics enthusiast, I’m not an Ardent Advocate, I’m not an extremist, watch me disparage and disrespect and put down psychedelics, look at what a middling, neutral, middle of the road, look how compromised and compromising I am, look at my elevate and glorify non-drug ways that “can” “could” “might” and “may” produce the exact same effects as a 10-strip (repeated ten weeks), same as two bowls of Cubensis 3 hours apart, repeated 10 weeks.”

“Then, the benefits of psychedelic science might extend from providing therapies for those already afflicted to developing preventative measures
that need not even require the use of psychedelic drugs.” – p. 1255, just above the Conclusion.

Also, authentic non-drug meditation could produce the exact same effect as ten sessions of two bowls of Cubensis redosed, producing a complete mystic-state transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Also, the traditional non-drug methods of the mystics can produce the exact same effect as ten sessions of two bowls of Cubensis redosed, producing a complete mystic-state transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Also, Groffian birth-memory abreactive psychotherapy may produce the exact same effect as ten sessions of two bowls of Cubensis redosed, producing a complete mystic-state transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Article: Reconciling Mystical Experiences with Naturalistic Psychedelic Science: Reply to Sanders and Zijlmans (Jylkkä, June 2021)

Reconciling Mystical Experiences with Naturalistic Psychedelic Science: Reply to Sanders and Zijlmans
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00137
Jussi Jylkkä (2021)
June 8, 2021
Published by American Chemical Society

Article: Working with Weirdness: A Response to “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science” (Breeksema & van Elk, July 2021)

Working with Weirdness: A Response to “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science”
Joost Breeksema and Michiel van Eck
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00149
ACS Pharmacol. Transl. Sci. 2021, 4, 4, 1471–1474
July 16, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00149
American Chemical Society

Clearly this is another misrepresentation of Sanders, relying on conflating “mysticism” as an explanatory framework with the experiencing that’s called “mystical experiencing”.

Sanders is not saying anything against Science studying the experiencing that’s called “mystical experiencing”.

Sanders is saying to use Science, not Stace’s “mysticism” framework and lexicon, as the basis to explain and study the experiencing that’s called “mystical experiencing”.

p. 3, Breeksema & van Elk writes:

first of all, realize that Breeksema & van Elk is one of those repliers who TAKES IT AS GRANTED that what we Psychedelic Scientists are attempting to study, and are striving to study, is mystical experiences.

Sanders disagrees on that fundamental assumption; we are striving to study psychedelic effects, not mystical experiences.

Per Sanders, our specified project is the study of psychedelic effects, the psychedelic state, not the study of mystical experiences; not the mystic state.

If the psychedelic state includes mystical experiences / the mystic state, fine, BUT DON’T JUST ASSUME THAT RIGHT OUT THE GATE.

Elk wrote (tilting at windmills, acting like Sanders is against this):

“However, rather than “actively superseding” the concept of MEs, a category of extraordinary human experience, we argue that this should spur psychedelic
researchers to investigate all other possible relevant angles and
pathways of studying MEs, using the full methodological
toolkit available to science, of which neuroscience techniques
are but one possible approach.

“Getting rid of MEs [strawman!] because they are difficult to research, lack plausible neurocognitive [Cognitive Neuroreductionism] explanations or because of problematic colloquial associations would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

“And although science may not currently have all the tools to explain or study these weird experiences, they are still “real” and meaningful to many.”

The battle between Science vs. Mysticism/Vagueness

Regarding the battle between Science vs. Mysticism/Vagueness, see the section below, Psychedelic Eternalism as Specific Psychedelic Science vs. Vague Psychedelic Possibilism Mysticism.

Regarding ‘weird’ and ‘mystical’, Sanders retorted in an interview with Don Lattin of Lucid.news Sep. 9, 2021, “‘weird’ is too vague”.

Exact quote: Zijlmans told Lattin:

“We are not only trying to explain things biologically.” [emphasis in the original]

“These are extraordinary, weird experiences that are very meaningful and powerful to people.” [emphasis in the original]

“I just want to explain them accurately and scientifically, rather than vaguely.”

“‘Weird’ and ‘mystical’ don’t capture it.”

Naturally, everyone whose strategy is to strawman (misrepresent) Sanders, uses the phrase “straw man” against Sanders or against the mentality which Sanders is supposed to represent.

They even presume to lecture Sanders about the distinction between explanation vs. explanandum.

I am very glad to see that word ‘vague’ used by Sanders, because I have been making “vague” my #1 emphasis during marking up my hardcopies.

In 1986, I rejected the “mysticism” framework because it is vague and unhelpful and inarticulate, and it positively revels in vagueness.

Griffiths LOVES his “ineffable” category so much, that you’ll flunk his Complete [Newbie] Mystical Experience test if you fail to give him (Team Vagueness) the correct doctrinal answer, “my experience was ineffable”.

If you fail to give vague mystical wording to Griffiths, he fails you – you weren’t vague, therefore you weren’t mystical.

YOU WEREN’T SUFFICIENTLY VAGUE, THEREFORE, YOU FAILED TO HAVE A COMPLETE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE.

Are we to erect our Science of Psychedelics on a “basis” which is chosen and selected and preferred because of its vagueness?

In the boxing ring: In one corner, is James/ Stace/ Pahnke/ Richards/ Griffiths, and the replies to Sanders: Team Vagueness.

In the other corner, is Cybermonk, Sanders: Team Science, Team Clarity.

Selected for: that’s the “selection bias” that Griffiths has been accused of by Charles Stang etc.

STEM vs. Mysticism, as Modes of Explanatory Models
Egodeath theory (Science specificity & articulateness) vs. Vagueness

I watched a spirituality interview of Sarah Elkhaldy today: it was vague. It wasn’t wrong; it was vague.

I let my expectations get a little too high for the book The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’ Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment (Bricklin 2016). Nothing in Bricklin’s book is wrong; the book’s just not as clear on the key points as it needs to be.

The mysticism interview didn’t fail a test of truth; it failed a test of comprehensibility, specificity, usefulness, efficiency, clarity, coherence of principles.

Video title:
Sarah Elkhaldy | Alchemy, Freewill, Timelines, Dimensions | Ep. 177
Details below the video.
“Danica Patrick” channel, 192K subscribers.
Series: Pretty Intense Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pivu5LVFJnk

Sanders IN FACT says we should supersede the following:

  • the mysticism framework
  • theories that are associated with the mysticism framework
  • terminology that’s associated with the mysticism framework

Exact quotes from Sanders are below, to back up my assertion, against Elk’s fabricating of phrasings to falsely attribute to Sanders.

Why does no one ever quote Sanders, in these “reply” articles?

Elk gives an incomplete quote of Sanders, pretending to quote Sanders: “actively superseding” (followed by strawman false attribution of a position to Sanders).

Why didn’t Breeksema & van Elk quote a full phrasing from Sanders?

Because Breeksema & van Elk’s article is a project of misrepresenting Sanders’ stated position.

What did Sanders actually write, when using the term ‘supersede’? There are 2 hits on ‘supersede’ in Sanders’ article:

“However, in light of the encroachment of supernatural and nonempirical beliefs on psychedelic science, we identify shortcomings of this link between mysticism and psychedelic research, and we contend that the mysticism framework, along with its associated theories and terminology, should be actively superseded.” – Sanders, Moving Past Mysticism, p. 1 of PDF.

Sanders wrote 5 hits on ‘terminology’, including:

“the terminology and conceptualization scientists use in their research should not imply that a psychedelic experience holds a special status of inaccessibility
beyond other kinds of experience.”

Sanders’ hit 2 of 2 on “supersed”:

“Perhaps we state the obvious by listing these avenues of research, but we contend that psychedelic science has not made a concerted effort to supersede Stace’s mystical consciousness concept with an alternative rooted in empirical data and an unambiguously secular framework.”

The strawmanners claim that Sanders says we should get rid of:
mystical experiences.

In fact, Sanders says here to get rid of, specifically:
“Stace’s mystical consciousness concept“.

Sanders’ ACTUAL request is to:

Move from a mysticism framework to a secular framework, as the basis and as a set of concepts and terminology, in order to scientifically study psychedelic experiencing, which includes what’s been called ‘mystical experiences‘.

Move from assuming (thinking of ourselves as striving to) that we’re studying mystical experiences using a mysticism framework to assuming that we’re studying psychedelic experiencing (which may to some extent include experiences that some have called ‘mystical’).

Move from thinking of ourselves as striving to study mystical experiences using a mysticism framework, to assuming that we’re studying psychedelic experiencing (which may to some extent include experiences that some have called ‘mystical’) by using a secular framework.

hits on ‘secular’ in Sanders’ article: 2 hits. one is in a ‘supersede’ quote, the other is in the Conclusion section.

Which sections contain ‘supersede’? p1 & 2, not Conclusion.

Sanders wrote in the Conclusion:

“Prospective frameworks should be unambiguously secular, and alternative questionnaires need to be explored or developed so as to not only predict outcomes, but indeed measure the experience of interest.

“Accordingly, theories must describe in clear terms the relationship between the data we collect and the psychobiological [should read ‘cognitive phenomenological’] concepts we employ.”

Instead of writing “the psychobiological concepts we employ”, Sanders should have written “the cognitive phenomenology concepts we employ”.

I do not mean Cognitive Neuroscience, because of the way Cognitive Neuroscience is used wrongly and falsely to shut out a bona fide Cognitive Phenomenology approach.

Science must have Cognitive Neuroscience, BUT, not (any longer) at the expense of Cognitive Phenomenology.

Entheogen scholarship should include some coverage of Amanita and the ergot Kykeon hypothesis, but not (any longer) at the expense of:

  • Psilocybin sacred meals in non-eleusis mystery religions’ initiation.
  • Psilocybin mixed wine banqueting symposium parties.
  • Medieval Psilocybin branching-message mushroom trees.

Cognitive Neuroscience is ALWAYS used (has always been used) to eliminate a Cognitive Phenomenology approach, just like non-drug Meditation (as a doctrine, cultural values worldview, & practice) is ALWAYS misused (has always been misused and lied about) to eliminate and minimize Psilocybin.

Dominant Discourses

See Sanders vs. Replies as a battle between two discourses. WAYS of talking talking about meditation, mystic-state experiences, “therapy”, “healing”. Go to a shamanic culture and ask “Do you have mystical experiencing”, they say “No”.

The phrases ‘common core’ theory and ‘perennialism’

The James/ Stace/ Pahnke/ Williams/ Griffiths school claims Core Concept mysticism per perennial philosophy – find ‘perennial’ in:

  • Reply 1: Jylkka (American Chemical Society) – 0 hits on ‘perennial’
  • Reply 2: Breeksema & van Elk (American Chemical Society) – 1 hit on ‘perennial’
  • Reply 3: Lattin (Lucid.news) – _ hits on ‘perennial’
  • Reply 4: Kilham (Lucid.news) – _ hits on ‘perennial’

= the TOC links in the present page:

Breeksema’s single hit on ‘perennial’:

“According to James, mystical experiences are

  • noetic (imparting important knowledge or insight), are
  • transient (they are experienced directly and subjectively), and are
  • characterized by ineffability (James compared it to describing the experience of love or music to someone who has experienced neither).” [given psychedelics on tap, that constraint fails to match our actual scenario, per Wilber’s Eye to Eye essay]

“In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers discussed whether MEs [mystical experiences] shared a common core or whether they are ultimately shaped by one’s cultural and religious background (for a review of this debate, see ref 5).

“Proponents of the common core theory, or perennialism, built on James’s key elements of MEs and identified additional characteristics:

  • transcendence of space and time;
  • feelings of unity and connectedness;
  • a sense of awe; and
  • positive emotions of love and peace.

In turn, this view has had a strong impact on theory and scale [psychedelic psychometrics questionnaire] development in the scientific study of mysticism.”

Sanders might write: We are not setting out with our scope of intent being doing scientific study of mysticism; we are striving to do scientific study of psychedelic states and psychedelic effects, which MIGHT include experiences which have been called “mystical”.

Reference 5:
5) Ralph Hood & R. W. J. (2019) The empirical study of mysticism
in the book The Psychology of Religion (Spilka, B.[Bernard], and McIntosh, D. [Daniel] N., Eds.),
Routledge.
This garbled citation combines the editors of the 1st Edition with the date of the 2nd edition if you add 1 to that date. I have found the exact section heading in the 5th edition, so that is the one that this garbled citation is supposed to be pointing to. Amazon says “September 17, 2018”, which is 3.5 months earlier than 2019.

here’s supposely Spilka 2019: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Psychology_Of_Religion/jf7EDwAAQBAJ?hl=en but Copyright page “1997”. agggh

ok, good: here’s a bunch of editions: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Psychology_Of_Religion/jf7EDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&kptab=editions

damn, pain! CAN’T FIND DAMN BOOK w/ any certainty.

does academia.edu list article
Ralph Hood
The empirical study of mysticism
2019
no, just https://www.academia.edu/30979148/High_Mysticism_On_the_interplay_between_the_psychedelic_movement_and_academic_study_of_mysticism

How a High Dose of Psilocybin Producing 39% Freakouts (in Griffiths 2011) Becomes 30% (in Griffiths 2016) for No Reason

Houot’s dissertation pointed out the 39% figure, I had taken great note of the 30% figure from some of the same questionnaire data by same institution, for the same dosage level, same questionnaires.

What did Griffiths have to do with math trickery to make 39% become 30% freakouts?

Is it the same math they used when picking ALL 13 [out of DED/Unpleasant’s 21 effects, ignoring and omitting 8 of 21 = 38% of negative effects] to add to CEQ’s Initial Item Pool:

“The 13 items of the 5DASC that constitute the ICC and ANX sub-scales were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ”
– Griffiths CEQ 2016

The 5D-ASC includes the 21-item 1994 DED Dread category, aka the Unpleasant high-level category of Studerus’ 11 Factors questionnaire – 8 items of which didn’t make the final cut for Studerus’ ANX or ICC low-level categories.

By strategically picking only the 7 ICC & 6 ANX low-level categories’ items, but not picking the entire 21 Unpleasant high-level category’s items, Griffiths magically got rid of 8 of 21 = 38% of negative psychedelic effects when constructing the CEQ’s Initial Item Pool.

Why did Griffiths, who could well have used 5D-ASC’s ‘A’ (Angst/Dread) dimension of 21 items, conflate 11-Factors with 5D-ASC?

Answer: In order to accidentally
focus on Studerus’ patchwork new subset factors at a low level (13 negative effects items),
instead of
focusing on Dittrichs’ 5D-ASC’s innate DED category that’s at a high level (21 negative effects items).

By the time of the final CEQ set of items, Griffiths completely got rid of 10 of those 13 items, keeping only 3 out of 21 negative psychedelic effects.

Magic!

But we professional couch psychotherapist are all relieved that somehow, at the same time, their shiny new Grief category positively thrived, and grew and grew at every opportunity, becoming the biggest category of CEQ, while the Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) items shrank and shrank at every turn, from 21, down to 13, then down to just 3 negative effects questions to gather data about.

Quote 1: Griffiths 2011: High Dose Produces 39% Freakouts

“Although volunteers were carefully screened and psychologically prepared, and close interpersonal support was provided during sessions, on questionnaires completed at the end of the session, 39% of participants (seven of 18) had extreme ratings of fear, fear of insanity, or feeling trapped at some time during the session.

“Such episodes occurred in six of seven of these participants after the 30 mg/70 kg dose and in one of seven after the 20 mg/70 kg dose.” – Griffiths 2011, p. 656; ie:
https://www.academia.edu/16410218/Psilocybin_occasioned_mystical_type_experiences_immediate_and_persisting_dose_related_effects
Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects
2011
Roland Griffiths, Matthew Johnson, William Richards, Brian Richards, Una McCann, Robert Jesse
Psychopharmacology.
2011; 218(4):649–65. [PubMed: 21674151]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21674151/

Quote 2: Griffiths 2016: High Dose Produces 30% Freakouts

“Approximately 30% of participants in each of three highly controlled experimental studies (total sample: 69 participants and 204 sessions – Griffiths et al., 2006, 2011; Johnson et al., 2014) involving a high dose of psilocybin (0.429 mg/kg psilocybin) experienced marked periods of anxiety or fear, while between 17–39% experienced paranoia (Griffiths et al., 2006, 2011).” That passage is from article:
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire: Characterization of challenging experiences with psilocybin mushrooms
Frederick S Barrett, Matthew P Bradstreet,
Jeannie-Marie S Leoutsakos, Matthew W Johnson, Roland R Griffiths
2016 
https://www.academia.edu/33760114/The_Challenging_Experience_Questionnaire_Characterization_of_challenging_experiences_with_psilocybin_mushrooms

Break that down:
3 studies
69 participants
204 sessions

  • Griffiths et al., 2006,
  • Griffiths et al., 2011;
  • Johnson et al., 2014

The dosage is same: high dose of psilocybin: 0.429 mg/kg = 30mg/70kg

The institute is same: Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, at Johns Hopkins University.

The session room is same.

The Buddha statue is the same:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_therapy#Resurgence_in_the_early_21st_century

To keep Matthew “Lose the Buddha statue” Johnson from spotting and removing the Buddha statue, they hid the Buddha statue in the monitor’s hair.

  • 17–39% experienced paranoia (Griffiths et al., 2006, 2011).
What Math Trickery Did Griffiths Use to Reduce 39% (2011) Down to 30% (2016)?

Tricks with AND and OR give lots of opportunities to put lower or higher percentages in front of the reader.

My sarcastic math: An average of 17-39% on 3 studies experienced either dread and paranoia and panic, or mystic positive effects as well. WTF? useless pseudo-stats. Be specific.

Masters’ Thesis: Toward a Philosophy of Psychedelic Technology: An Exploration of Fear, Otherness, and Control (Houot 2019)

This dissertation points out that (unlike one Griffiths article that reports 30% of their high dose sessions are extreme panic/fear), “nearly 40%” are, per another Griffiths article.

See newer dedicated page:
Toward a Philosophy of Psychedelic Technology: An Exploration of Fear, Otherness, and Control (Houot 2019)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/22/toward-a-philosophy-of-psychedelic-technology-an-exploration-of-fear-otherness-and-control-houot-2019/

Book: The Psychology Of Religion: Theoretical Approaches/An Empirical Approach

This section is where I figured out a garbled reference in a Breeksema article.

… one of several partial matches:
The Psychology Of Religion: Theoretical Approaches
1st edition,
By Bernard Spilka, Daniel Mcintosh [names match citation 5]
https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-Of-Religion/Spilka-Mcintosh/p/book/9780813329475
Copyright year 1997 (not “2019), published November 22, 1996
“Theory in the psychology of religion is in a state of rapid development,” as Cybermonk puts together an early barebones website containing the Egodeath theory; the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence.

From same webpage: “Bernard Spilka is professor of psychology at the University of Denver and the co-editor or co-author of several books including Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach, second edition. Daniel N. McIntosh is assistant professor of psychology at the University of Denver.”

https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-Of-Religion/Spilka-Mcintosh/p/book/9780813329475

damnit i’m going to have to do web search:
“The Psychology of Religion” Spilka McIntosh

Wrong book:
The Psychology of Religion
Series: The Psychology of Everything (Routledge)
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Religion-Everything/dp/0815368127/

Here’s 5th edition instead:

The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach
Fifth Edition, Guilford Press [wrong edition if Routledge is right per the citation]
by Ralph W. Hood Jr. (Author), Peter C. Hill (Author), Bernard Spilka (Author)
Copyright page says 2018, Amazon page says September 17, 2018 (could fit w/ calling the section “2019”)
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Religion-Fifth-Empirical-Approach/dp/1462535984 –
This book DOES have a section exactly headed:
“The Empirical Study of Mysticism“, in chapter “Mysticism”: p. 360.
Also section: Entheogens and Religious Experience
Also section: The Need for Theory in the Psychology of Religion
The citation differs from this book in 3 ways: publisher, date, editors names.

blurb:

“Keeping up with the rapidly growing research base, the leading graduate-level psychology of religion text is now in a fully updated fifth edition.

“It takes a balanced, empirically driven approach to understanding the role of religion in individual functioning and social behavior.

“Integrating research on:

  • numerous different faith traditions
  • the quest for meaning
  • links between religion and biology
  • religious thought, belief, and behavior across the lifespan
  • experiential dimensions of religion and spirituality
  • the social psychology of religious organizations [= the Meditation Hucksters and their battle to dishonor Psilocybin?]
  • connections to coping, adjustment, and mental disorder.

“Chapter-opening quotations and topical research boxes enhance the readability of this highly instructive text.

New to This Edition
*New topics: cognitive science of religion; religion and violence; and groups that advocate terrrist tactics.
*The latest empirical findings, including hundreds of new references.
*Expanded discussion of atheism and varieties of nonbelief.
*More research on religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, particularly Islam.
*State-of-the-art research methods, including techniques for assessing neurological states.”

/ end 5th edition blurb. See Also publisher quotes/blurbs/reviews.

Heading

p. 360, start of section “The Empirical Study of Mysticism”:
“In 1899, no word had been used more loosely than ‘mysticism’.“

In 1893, the word ‘mystical’ meant “woo” in the broadest sense, like the expression “mystical sh!t” in 2000.

Compare the breadth of the two volumes titled “Contemporary Esotericism”.

In 1839, ‘mystical’ meant like “newage” or “woo” – as broad as possible.

But, their fix, per Vivekananda & Wm James, was bad: narrow the word ‘mystical’ to mean “positive unity experience” per Advaita Vedanta, first, foremost, and exclusively.

Heading

Good section opening. Interesting.

I think it quotes the book I was looking for!

I think maybe it was 1991 book, Bernard McGinn, page 1 footnote “of course, no college student has any way of accessing the mystic state.” Living under a rock, wildly out of touch.

Typical mystic. Trying to confirm the quote, I’m looking at Intro chapter in book The Foundations of Mysticism https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Mysticism-Origins-Presence-Christian/dp/0824514041/ (2002 printing, cover looks right) – warm, but can’t confirm this is the right book where I believe around 2002 page 1 had a footnote about students having no way to have mystical experience.

p. xiv: “there can be no direct access to experience for the historian.”

What a meaningless point, when the historian has a frosting jar of ergot on tap.
I couldn’t confirm this is the right book I remember, by McGinn.

I well might have that book by McGinn.

Wiki Article: Advaita Vendanta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta –

“Its core tenet is that the individual experiencing self is ultimately pure awareness mistakenly identified with body and the senses, and non-different from Ātman/Brahman, the highest Self or Reality.

“Advaita means “non-secondness“, rendered as “nonduality“.

“This refers to the Oneness of Brahman, the only real Existent, and is often equated with monism.

“Moksha (liberation from ‘suffering’ and rebirth) is attained through

  • knowledge of Brahman,
  • recognizing the illusoriness of the phenomenal world and disidentification from body-mind and the notion of ‘doership‘, and
  • by acquiring knowledge of one’s true identity as Atman/Brahman, self-luminous awareness or Witness-consciousness.”

Heading

The Perennial Philosophy – Published 1945.
The Doors of Perception – Published 1954.
Heaven and Hell – Published 1956.
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/references-for-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaires/#The-Perennial-Philosophy

todo: Move heading “Dominant Discourses” to Idea Development 15 page. Useful concept. Move to the section:
Top 10 Self-Defeating, Dead-End Narratives that Must Be Overthrown
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/idea-development-page-15/#Top-10-Self-Defeating-Narratives
Add bunk narratives:
“Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism”.
“CSR Cognitive Science of Religion”, taken as ordinary state Cog Sci explaining ordinary state Religion.

How to get rid of Cognitive Phenomenology? Push Cognitive Neuroscience.

How to get rid of Psilocybin? Push Meditation.

Definition of ‘Meditation’ in My Writings

By ‘meditation’, unless otherwise specified, I mean a huge wrong arbitrary bunk raft of assumptions.

My Connotations and Definition of the Unadorned Word ‘Meditation’

When I write ‘meditation’ alone, I always mean the prejudiced, biased cultural values-doctrine that non-drug meditation is the source of authority for mystic revelation.

Page title:
Theory Concepts
Section heading:
My Usage of the Word ‘meditation’
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/12/05/key-theorizing/#My-Usage-of-the-Word-meditation –

“When I say’ meditation’, usually I mean bunk lying non-drug meditation that tries to steal credit from plants and then disparage the plants and deny that plants are the origin of religion and the inspiration driving religion.”

All Experience Is Ineffable, to those who don’t have the experience that’s being described – Sanders

I never thought I’d see the day someone articulates my point against the “ineffable’ argument/ excuse/ characterization about the intense mystic state:

Sanders & Zijlmans in Moving Past Mysticism wrote that all experience is ineffable, to those who don’t have the experience that’s being described. Fits with essay Eye to Eye by Ken Wilber.

Newbies describing their complete [newbie] mystical experience to other newbies: they all agree “it’s ineffable”. This is all pre- Egodeath-theory ways of talking & thinking.

The Egodeath theory (the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism) replaces all this talk and construct, “mystical experiencing is ineffable”.

As long as all you have is possibilism-thinking (the “possibilism” mental worldmodel), you might say (unscientifically) that the eternalism experiential mode is “ineffable”.

Naive possibilism-thinking cannot describe eternalism-thinking.

That’s why naive possibilism-thinking calls eternalism-thinking, or the eternalism experiential mode, “ineffable”.

The eternalism experiential mode, truly, cannot be described effectively by the conceptual network that is the “possibilism” mental worldmodel.

The limitation isn’t language, though; the limitation is that your language is limited to naive possibilism-thinking and you lack the mystic-state suited conceptual vocabulary of eternalism-thinking.

Systemic meaning-shifting from the first concept network to the second concept network is described, hazily/roughly, by Alan Watts in Way of Zen.

Article: Researchers Debate the Role of Mysticism in Psychedelic Science (Lattin, Sep. 2021)

Researchers Debate the Role of Mysticism in Psychedelic Science
DON LATTIN, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
https://www.lucid.news/researchers-debate-the-role-of-mysticism-in-psychedelic-science/ –

“In a recent paper titled “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science,” two Dutch researchers warn against the emergence of a “risky blend of mysticism and science.” https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00097

“If science states that psychedelics induce mystical experiences that are key to their therapeutic action, this is too easily misinterpreted as research advocating a role for the supernatural or divine,” write James W. Sanders of the University of Amsterdam and Josjan Zijlmans of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., one of the nation’s leading psychedelic researchers has issued a similar warning about the vague and “sloppy” use of terms like “consciousness.”

Matthew Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, published a paper titled “Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus: Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine.”
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsptsci.0c00198

“This danger is scientists and clinicians imposing their personal religious and spiritual beliefs on the practice of psychedelic medicine,” Johnson wrote, citing a pervasive “loosely held eclectic collection of various beliefs drawn piecemeal from mystical traditions, Eastern religions, and indigenous cultures, perhaps best described by the term ‘new age.’ ”

“Richards has worked with Matt Johnson at Johns Hopkins, and he was not surprised by his younger colleague’s paper.

“God bless, Matt,” Richards said. “He is a professor in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, and he hates the word ‘consciousness.’ ”

“We’ve always had a statue of Buddha in our treatment room at Johns Hopkins.

“When we run a session, Matt always takes the statue out.

“But that doesn’t stop the spiritual experiences from happening.”

That’s no contradiction of Johnson. Johnson clearly (not confusingly) wrote that the patients – not the guides – need to bring the symbols, if symbols are brought into the treatment room.

Johnson wrote that he’s not against religious symbols in the treatment room – but they must be brought by the client, not by the researcher/guide.

Principled, consistent, explicit eternalism is the scientific basis, not a mythology basis or a Walter Stace-type mysticism basis.

Article: Mystical Experience Defines Psychedelics (Kilham, Oct. 2021)

Mystical Experience Defines Psychedelics
BY CHRIS KILHAM, OCTOBER 1, 2021
https://www.lucid.news/the-mystical-experience-defines-psychedelics/

All Articles Against Sanders Are Mainly Strawmanning Misrepresenting What’s Proposed

but many great points discussed, glad to break this sense of self-smug uninimous agreement with Griffiths

OVERCONFIDENT VENERATION AND OVERSELLING OF MEDITATION: “Meditation can/ could/ might/ may produce the exact same effects as a 10-strip”

Yet you also say:

“To really activate your advanced-level meditation, expert meditators know that psychedelics give a super boost to their meditation.”

Griffiths is self contradictory, asserting:

  • Psilocybin is much more potent and reliable than advanced meditation.
  • Non-drug meditation can/could/might/may have the exact same effect as high-dose Psilocybin redosed, 10 sessions.

Article: High Mysticism: On the interplay between the psychedelic movement and academic study of mysticism (Baier, 2021)

High Mysticism: On the interplay between the psychedelic movement and academic study of mysticism
Karl Baier, 2021
https://www.academia.edu/30979148/High_Mysticism_On_the_interplay_between_the_psychedelic_movement_and_academic_study_of_mysticism?email_work_card=interaction-paper
in book:
Constructions of Mysticism as a Universal: Roots and Interactions across Borders
2021, Annette Wilke, Robert Stephanus and Robert Suckro (eds.)

Article: Mystical experiences without mysticism: An argument for mystical fictionalism in psychedelics (Garb & Earleywine, Jun. 2022)

Mystical experiences without mysticism: An argument for mystical fictionalism in psychedelics
Garb, B. A., & Earleywine, M. (June 2022)
https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/6/1/article-p48.xml
Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 6(1), 48-53
https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2022.00207

I wrote about that article at:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/#Mystical-experiences-without-mysticism, below “Every time Matthew Johnson walks by the session room, the Buddha statue walks out and travels to its other location. Every time Roland Griffiths walks by the session room, the Buddha status walks back to its spot in the session room.”

Abstract

“Mystical experiences frequently precede decreases in human suffering or increased functioning.

“Therapies that include the ingestion of psychoactive substances in supportive environments often lead to improvements that correlate with the magnitude of the mystical experiences generated.

“A close look at these phenomena from a philosophy of science perspective might put empiricists in a quandary.

“Arguments with critics of the import of these mystical experiences, prohibitionists, or others who are apprehensive about psychedelic-assisted treatments, might prove awkward or difficult given the tacit assertion that the mystical genuinely exists.

“The assumption might even dampen theorizing in ways that remain outside of theorists’ awareness.

“The predicament might lack the epistemic humility ideal for good science as well.

“Nevertheless, abandoning the construct of mystical experiences would require ignoring compelling, replicated empirical work.

“We argue that a version of philosophical fictionalism that draws on research in logic and linguistics can help investigators engage in this discourse without implying a belief in the mystical.

“Comparable approaches have proven helpful in mathematics and empiricism more broadly.

“Mystical fictionalism could help theorists view reports of mystical experiences as true even if the mystical fails to be veridical.

“The approach creates an expressive advantage that could assist researchers and theorists eager to refine our understanding of mystical experiences and improve psychedelic-assisted treatments.

“Mystical fictionalism might also inspire novel looks at correlates of mystical experiences that might serve as mediators of their effects, potentially generating models with comparable explanatory power that sidestep the need for a fictionalist approach.”

Article: How to End the Mysticism Wars in Psychedelic Science (Letheby 2024)

How to End the Mysticism Wars in Psychedelic Science
Chris Letheby, Jaipreet Mattu, and Eric Hochstein
2024
Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoactive Drug Use
https://www.academia.edu/124791282/How_to_End_the_Mysticism_Wars_in_Psychedelic_Science
https://www.amazon.com/Palgrave-Handbook-Philosophy-Psychoactive-Drug/dp/3031657896/ —

Article: The Most Controversial Paper in the History of Psychedelic Research May Never See the Light of Day: Was the Psychedelic Renaissance Led by Science or Faith? (Kitchens, Mar. 2025) [subscribers]

March 2025 issue of Reason: by Travis Kitchens: The Most Controversial Paper in the History of Psychedelic Research May Never See the Light of Day: Was the Psychedelic Renaissance Led by Science or Faith?
https://reason.com/2025/03/01/the-most-controversial-paper-in-the-history-of-psychedelic-research-may-never-see-the-light-of-day/

Article: The Strange Case of The Immortality Key (Kitchens 2025) [subscribers]

The Strange Case of The Immortality Key
Travis Kitchens
Reason, March 2025
https://reason.com/2025/03/01/the-strange-case-of-the-immortality-key/

Leading Chemist David Nichols Says Meditation Came from Psychedelics, Argues Against Meditation Huckster

A typical meditation salesman, Carlos, claimed to Nichols that Meditation was discovered first, and later Psilocybin was used as a simulation attempt. That’s exactly backwards, argues Nichols.

Dr. David Nichols, who collaborated w/ Shulgin:

At 1:08:30 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYWITI4fGJw&t=4110s –

We meditation hucksters are conditionally ok with psychedelics only if psychedelics-adding meditators glorify and worship non-drug meditation – not Psilocybin – as “the real thing”, the “original form” — worshipping non-drug meditation as your ultimate authority and point of reference and time commitment and god and savior.

The Meditation Hucksters are ok with psychedelics — as long as you frame Meditation as “the real thing” and Psilocybin the mere tacked-on adjunct incidental nothing, while you BOW DOWN to non-drug meditation.

You know that you’re being B.S.’d when Mr. Meditation Huckster claims that (glorious!) non-drug meditation does the exact same thing as Psilocybin.

The B.S.’ing becomes clear when the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism reveals the full effects of Psilocybin, which Meditation can’t match.

Meditation can (could|might|may) produce the exact same effect as two bowls of cubensis three hours apart, ten times, resulting in BECOMING PERFECTED AND IMMORTAL: undergoing mental worldmodel transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Non-drug meditation could|can|might|may give the exact same effects as two bowls of Cubensis re-dosed, ten sessions.

The Ultimate “Effect” of Psilocybin: achieving mental worldmodel transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Non-drug Meditation totally does that. 😑 Gives the exact same effect, but actually, Meditation is much better than Psilocybin, because [play back the standard psychedelics-diminishing stock dominant narrative/discourse]

You’re allowed to unnaturally and artificially import alien, inauthentic psychedelics into meditation (which is the authentic way).

Psychedelics can simulate the same effects as the real thing, which is non-drug meditation.

When adding psychedelics to real meditation, psychedelics are a mere abnormal supplement to venerable, glorious non-drug meditation.

Non-drug meditation is the source of all authority.

Psilocybin must be measured against the gold standard authoritative definitive reference of what meditation authentically is: non-drug meditation.

Article: Psychedelic Induced Transpersonal Experiences, Therapies, and Their Implications for Transpersonal Psychology (Roberts, 2013)

Psychedelic Induced Transpersonal Experiences, Therapies, and Their Implications for Transpersonal Psychology
Thomas Roberts & Michael Winkelman
in book:
The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology
2013
https://www.academia.edu/4674528/Psychedelic_Induced_Transpersonal_Experiences_Therapies_and_Their_Implications_for_Transpersonal_Psychology

This Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology (2013) entry on Psychedelics by Thomas Roberts & Michael Winkelman is a GREAT summary and explanation of how psychedelics historically fit, levels of psychotherapy, Maslow’s tacking-on “Self-Transcendence” in his 1968 2nd Edition Preface of his book totally diss’ing mere Self-Actualization, diminishing it:

“In the Preface to the second edition of Toward a Psychology of
Being (1968, pages iii–iv) Maslow reported this new top to his needs hierarchy” – p. 4, adding “Self-Transcendence” above “Self-Actualization”.

Against Psychoanalysis: Groffian Psychedelic Literalistic Memory Processing

Notes on Dose Nation ‘Final 10’ Ep. 4
Cyberdisciple, April 2020
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2020/04/03/notes-on-dose-nation-final-10-ep-4/ –

“Kent is critical of superstitious aspect of New Age and psychedelia. I agree that taking them as literal truth about reality is wrongheaded.

“Frames Grof, Leary, Huxley, Hofmann as science. For them psychedelic action happens in head, but later New Age superstitious psychedelicists ascribe agency to external objects being things.”

Stan Grof is “Science”? Grof’s paradigm is psychedelics-amplified couch psychoanalysis abreaction memory-accessing & processing of your physical birth trauma.

If remembering your childhood memories to “process” them through “psychoanalysis” is valid and good, then the ultimate and best version is to amplify that approach by using psychedelics to access one’s earliest possible memories: your traumatic memory of your literal physical birth, which is what’s ultimately causing your ordinary-state maladies & altered-state bad trip.

All very scientific. 😑 🧠 🔬 📊 🔶

The Roberts & Winkelman article Psychedelic Induced Transpersonal Experiences, Therapies, and Their Implications for Transpersonal Psychology is extremely clear in specifying the Psychedelic Transpersonal Psychology paradigm, so that I can better contrast the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism as a superior explanatory framework.

Page:
Critique of Griffiths MEQ30 and other ME questionnaires (Brown Thread)
Section heading:
2/ Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrix II
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/critique-of-griffiths-meq30-and-other-me-questionnaires-brown-thread/#Perinatal-Matrix

The Egodeath theory vs. Meditation, and Against Psychotherapy, and Against Stan Grof “Physical Birth Memory Retrieval for Processing = totally explains what challenging trips are about“

This Roberts & Winkelman article is so great, it summarizes clearly so that I can critique and identify exactly why I reject Grof’s literalistic BPM misused analogy:

“Your bad trip is because you are remembering your physical birth trauma, for us professional couch psychoanalyst Psychologists to “process” your trauma memories”.

If ordinary-state psychotherapy accesses childhood memories to process them, let’s take that to the extreme: add psychedelics, opening up your literal physical birth trauma memories.

Paradigm: Abreaction memory access/processing – that is the paradigm of “Transpersonal Psychology” – not the Benny Shanon type of Cognitive Phenomenology per the Egodeath theory/ the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism.

Ken Wilber is against limiting to Psychology (even the transpersonal brand); Wilber works within Integral Theory, not Transpersonal Psychology.

The Roberts & Winkelman article is about the psychedelic history of About the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology & psychedelics.

Found my entry w/ PDF URL, appears I got the PDF a year ago: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2021/02/19/idea-development-page-12/

Abstract:

“This chapter presents a neurophenomenological model of psychedelic-induced transpersonal experiences, therapeutic processes that they induce, and their implications for transpersonal theory.

“The pharmacological effects of psychedelics also enable them to address a range of psychological and emotional maladies [negative psychology, not positive psychology].

“In addition to indigenous and shamanic approaches, there are four main types of psychedelic sessions:

  • psycholytic and
  • psychedelic—which developed from Grof’s work—
  • entactogenic, and
  • pharmacological.

“transpersonal psychology could exist without psychedelics, it may be just as safe to say that transpersonal psychology would not exist without psychedelics.

“The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the multidisciplinary implications of psychedelics for the sciences and society.”

/ end winkelman abstract

Caution: Groffian “Science” & “Psychology” here means the Freudian couch psychoanalysis paradigm, amplified by psychedelics — not a pure psychedelics phenomenology basis/origin, like the real Science that’s the Egodeath theory / the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism.

Article: Psychedelic-Induced Experiences (Fadiman, 2013)

Related article in same book as Roberts & Winkelman, similar topic:

Psychedelic-induced experiences
James Fadiman, A. Kornfeld
2013
In H. L. Friedman & G. Hartelius (Eds.),
The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology
(pp. 352–366)
Wiley Blackwell
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-05204-019
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118591277.ch19

[At “transpersonal … psychology”, don’t read “Cog Sci”; read as: “professional psychotherapy expanding the Freud paradigm supplemented by psychedelics to recover and ‘process’ the earliest memories thereby accessed”]

[abreactive/ abreaction: the expression and consequent release of a previously repressed emotion, achieved through reliving the experience that caused it (typically through hypnosis or suggestion).]

Fadiman abstract condensed by Cybermonk:

“This chapter considers how psychedelic substances affect consciousness, using the lens of a transpersonal approach to psychology.

“Transpersonal psychology‘s point of view is suitable to grapple with this question due to its continuing interest in altered states of consciousness & its long-standing relationship with psychedelic research.

“founders of both the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and Association of Transpersonal Psychology were involved in psychedelic research prior to the founding of the discipline, and discovered that the emerging field resonated with their own worldviews.

“mainstream psychology distanced itself from this area of study, perhaps in part because so many reports of psychedelic-induced effects include data historically shunned, denied, or pathologized by science [“Science” = couch psychotherapy ‘Psychology’]: out-of-body experiences, spiritual or transcendent states of consciousness, disidentification with one’s personality, and healing.

“recent thaw in mainstream psychology‘s stance toward psychedelic research

“skittishness about taking the data and its implications seriously.”

/ end Fadiman abstract

Against Mysticism as a Basis for Explanation of Mystical Experiencing

OVERCONFIDENT VENERATION AND OVERSELLING OF STACE’S “MYSTICISM” LEXICON AND EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORK

Science as the basis from which to explain non-science

Sanders is NOT against the experiencing which is called mystic; they’re specifically against the “mysticism” framework & lexicon per Walter Stace 1960 as used by Roland Griffiths.

Pro-Psychedelics Meditation Advocates Contradict Themselves

Kilham in Mystical Experience Defines Psychedelics is misrepresenting Sanders’ article Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science.

Sanders isn’t against mystical experiencing, or science explaining mystical experiencing.

Sanders is against making the interpretive framework and lexicon called “mysticism” the basis on which to explain mystical experiencing.

Kilham is a meditation huckster, not trustworthy; claims that meditation gives the exact same effect as Psilocybin, and then states that Psilocybin is more potent and reliable than meditation.

Jordan Peterson (in his YouTube channel interview) called out Griffiths for that exact self-contradiction.

Wouter Hanegraaff isn’t against religionism (the religious practice of Esotericism).

Hanegraaff is against misusing religionism as if it can serve as a basis for academic historiography.

The two distinct legs model of the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism

To scientifically explain religious mythology, don’t make myth my basis; make the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism my basis.

The two distinct legs model of the Egodeath theory:

In February 1997, I published the Core theory outline spec, which is the scientific foundation that explains myth.

In October 2002, I announced the Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion.

In 2006, I published my main article, about mytheme decoding in terms of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence — including loose cognitive binding, mental model transformation, mental world models, and (new) how myth is metaphor describing those referents by analogy.

In 2013, 2015, 2020, 2022, I extended decoding of myth using my science basis.

When I say “Science”, I largely mean “STEM” as a mentality and approach to figuring stuff out and explaining it (communicating about it, expressing as an explanatory model).

The Egodeath theory Provides the Useful, Relevant STEM-type explanatory model of ego transcendence that I needed in 1985-1987

I personally needed and required a STEM-type explanatory model of ego transcendence, and the mystics failed to deliver that.

the mystics = the “mysticism” framework & lexicon per Walter Stace 1960, which psychedelic psychometrics claims as its “scientific” foundation

So, I myself stepped up, and started from the least-poor presentation available, Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen, augmented by Ken Wilber’s books to date (1985-1988) and a tiny handful of 5-25 books, including Modern Physics textbook re: block universe, and created the successful STEM-type explanatory model of ego transcendence in January 1988.

  • The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism =
    • the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
    • the Egodeath theory
    • the maximal entheogen theory of religion
    • the Core Cybernetic theory & the Entheogen Mytheme theory

Your interpretation of your experience is incorrect

Experience vs. interpretation. My interpretation of your experience is correct. Your interpretation of your experience is incorrect. You experienced the eternalism experiential mode, but you interpreted that experience throufgh the lens of framework of possibilism-thinking and ineffabilism mysticism supernaturalism or vague hazy freewill fog or causal-chain determinism.

Immediately before reading this article, I made voice-recording comments (Jan 14 2023).

My contrast between the Egodeath theory vs. the popular predominant view matches the critique in this article.

“two Dutch researchers warn against the emergence of a “risky blend of mysticism and science.””

Eye to Eye (Ken Wilber)

The Eye to Eye essay in the book Eye to Eye is important.

Wilber’s essay, which he affirmed and praised in this Revised book edition, advocates 3 levels of shared empirical observation and I say, in all 3 levels, apply STEM-type rationality, in the loose cognitive state.

Wilber says use all 3:

  • eye of body
  • eye of mind (ie reason in ordinary state)
  • eye of spirit (ie altered state)

Assumes “eye of mind” = ordinary state, and “eye of spirit” = altered state.

Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm (Revised)
Ken Wilber
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Quest-New-Paradigm/dp/157062741X/
2001 –

Junk Science vs. Junk Mysticism — and Then There’s the Egodeath Theory

Science & Spirituality Battle Between Xer Johnson and Boomer Griffith & Richards

Johnson Declared He’s Not Onboard with Worship of Meditation Religion

A clustr of about 5 articles perfect for me to cover in voice recordings and print them and markup and post about them and link to them.

I just need to copy entire articles then delete and highlight parts and comment. For now here are tiny selected portions.

I Agree with What the Anti-Mystical Psychedelic Scientists (Sanders & Zijlmans) Are Actually Saying!

They and I condemn the Stace “ineffability” premise, and we demand (& The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism provides) useful, scientifically proper articulate explanation and lexicon.

Egodeath Theory Doubling Down on Psychedelic Eternalism – Commitment to Asserting the Particular Position

The psychedelic loose cognitive association binding experiential mode is the eternalism experiential mode.

Other people double down on psychedelic possibilism, or poorly formed psychedelic eternalism.

The Egodeath theory is well-formed, explicit, pointed, principled psychedelic eternalism.

Dogmatic anti-dogmatists are a walking massive self-contradiction: incoherence is their god, is what they are narrowly pushing.

Psychedelic Eternalism as Specific Psychedelic Science vs. Vague Psychedelic Possibilism Mysticism

Popular psychedelic spirituality is vague and self-contradictory and unhelpful. They sell this as “open, nonjudgmental, and saying everyone is right”.

Judging that nonjudgmental is better than judgmental is the worlds most judgmental and self-contradictory and irresponsible position, a non-position position.

The biggest favor the Egodeath theory can do everyone is to be particular and specific and crystal clear.

The worst crime per the Egodeath theory is to be unclear, to waffle, to be vague.

Prevarication and doubletalk (like Wasson and everyone) is the worst.

If you say “everyone is right”, you’re incoherent, self-contradictory, and unhelpful. It’s you against you.

Everyone asserts hazy possibilism mysticism, or hazy eternalism mysticism. the Egodeath theory isn’t hazy possibilism mysticism.

The Egodeath theory isn’t hazy eternalism mysticism.

The Egodeath theory is specific Psychedelic Eternalism.

The Egodeath theory firmly, specifically, pointedly, and exclusively asserts psychedelic eternalism.

My Previous Discussions About Stepping Up to Scientifically Explain, Not Omit, Mystical Experiencing (“Psychedelic Scientists Mystic Wusses”)

tbd, around Sep 2022, includes Egodeath Mystery Show voice recordings, might not be much text posted here.

I mocked and insulted weakling wimpy so-called psychedelic scientists (they can’t handle mysticism, so they omit it), but I should have read the actual article by Sanders, which actually resonates with many of my points.

wusses – try a Find on that word here at this site.

Might find a description of an episode of podcast Egodeath Mystery Show, either as a page/post dedicated to the episode, or possibly in Idea Development page 14 or 15.

Book: The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’ Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment (Bricklin 2016)

Moved this section to form a new page; see:

The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’ Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment (Bricklin, Eternalism)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/15/illusion-will-self-time-james-enlightenment-bricklin-eternalism/

Equates “enlightenment” with eternalism. 

Bricklin’s book is part of Consciousness Studies, the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, & Journal of Consciousness Studies, and was reviewed in draft by Benny Shanon & Ramesh Balsekar. 

Balsekar asserted no-free-will as enlightenment, among the Ken Wilber Integral Theory crowd.  

Benny Shanon = Ayahuasca from a Psychedelics Cognitive Phenomenology approach like the Egodeath theory.

Such books by Sam Harris, Balsekar, Shanon, Campbell, and Bricklin don’t bring the ideas together tightly and simply, as the Egodeath theory does. 

Keyboard Shortcuts/Acronyms

Naming the Core theory vs. Mytheme theory

After the 1997 Core theory, doc’d at website fully in 1998, mine is not a history-based approach; it’s a mytheme decoding approach (1999+, and the 1988-1998 Rock Lyrics decoding).

1985-1998: Core theory – not History, not Mythemes (except in Rock lyrics, but that’s not formally part of the Core theory).

Best I can figure, 1998 was website buildout and STARTING to investigate religious history to corroborate the Egodeath theory (later differentiated as “Core”).

The “corroboration” would become designated as the Mytheme theory, and the thing corroborated would become the Core theory.

what keyboard shortcuts expand as “the Core theory” and “the Mytheme theory”? aka the Entheogen Mytheme theory. For my personal purposes, it’s effective to say “the Core theory” & “the Mytheme theory”; with:

‘Mytheme’ defined as entheogen scholarship, history, myth, also now incor’g the Rock lyrics decoding back to 1988 including the later part of the Phase 1 Core period.

Phase 1 = 1985-1998.

Rock lyrics decoding period = 1988-1998. Yet assign that not to Core theory, but to Mytheme theory.

Similarly also, 1995 = reading all Richard Smoley’s Gnosis magazine issues (obtained all around 1999).

In 1988 I deliberately started reading “all knowledge”, for the purposes of communicating my completed/closed Core theory, but I didn’t write about “all knowledge” (history of ideas, myth, metaphor) that until 1999+, because I wanted to only express the Theory in terms of current, direct referents. Not History of Ideas, not myth & metaphor.

I didn’t learn about entheogen scholarship until 1999, though I researched “What psychedelic is the scrolls in Revelation?” starting potentially in June 1986.

Myth decoding = 1999+.

‘Core’ defined as “block universe/ loose cognitive association binding/ mental worldmodel transformation, etc).

1999-

the entheogen Mytheme theory temt

[temt] the Entheogen Mytheme theory
test: the Entheogen Mytheme theory, the Entheogen Mytheme theory. The core theory as of Jan. 1988 conjoins:

  • block-universe eternalism & frozen worldlines,
  • loosecog,
  • mental model transformation,
  • the two worldmodels.

See the Principles (section headings ) of my handwritten 1988 Minnesota draft.

My handwritten 1988 Minnesota draft: The Theory of Ego Transcendence.

My handwritten August 1988 Minnesota draft: The Theory of Ego Transcendence, = my 1997 Core theory summary specification, same/ equivalent set of Principles; theory-components & Core Concepts like my Core Concepts page of 2020, vs. my Key Mythemes page of 2020. https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/nav/#flagship-The-Egodeath-Theory

Upper left: laser printer late 1988 revision of same.

Upper right: early 1989 art blank book (for Transcendent Knowledge idea development) with ink pen instead of Pentel P-205 engineers’ mechanical pencil.

the Core Cybernetic Loosecog Psychedelic Block Universe mental worldmodel transformation theory:

the Core theory of Psychedelic Eternalism; defined by my 1997 Principia Cybernetica website outline summary, which lacks entheogen history scholarship and lacks religious mythology decoding to map to the core reference experience.

“Core” as specified by referring to the 1997 outline, means “not entheogen history” and “not myth decoding”.

My 1997 core theory is all based in and limited to being expressed as current 20th C, and it’s all directly articulated.

The Core theory of [within] the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism: “Core” means no history, no analogies (no mythemes-decoding, no Rock lyrics).

The Mytheme theory of [within] the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism, includes (naturally) History; entheogen scholarship; entheogen history scholarship.

The field of entheogen scholarship is inherently by definition, a theory whose explanandum is religious myth.

The purpose of the field of entheogen scholarship is to explain the actual referent of religious mythology.

Incorrectly, entheogen scholarship claims or mis-identifies the referent of myth as “entheogens”.

The song Red Barchetta by Rush — it is CRUDE to say that “the real referent of the song Red Barchetta is ergot”.

That is inadequately precise. It’s a wrong answer, it is vague and crude and insufficient.

More precisely, only this identification of the referent is adequate & sufficient; only this referent-identification meets the requirements for clarity and pointing to the real actual thing:

The song does NOT point to ergot; the song in fact points to ergot EXPERIENCING.

That is a major, significant difference.

You fail to comprehend the song if you identify its referent as “ergot”.

You comprehend the song only if you identifiy and recognize its referent as ergot experiencing.

The real referent of the song Red Barchetta is ergot experiencing.

The actual referent of myth [same as inspired Rock lyrics] is entheogenic experiencing – especially, ultimately, the gradual process of transformation of the mental worldmodel – transformation from possibilism to eternalism. What’s the

The main “effect” of Psilocybin is transformation of the mental worldmodel from possibilism to eternalism.

The Mytheme theory of Psychedelic Eternalism (no need there to say ‘entheogen theory’ b/c already ‘psychedelic’).

I get automatic all-caps variant for free – unless the expansion is mixed case.

[mes] = mystical experiences
test: mystical experiences MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES

[altst] = altered state
test: altered state ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

[ordst] = ordinary state
test: ordinary state ORDINARY STATE

[asc] = altered state of consciousness
test: altered state of consciousness ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

[osc] = ordinary state of consciousness
test: ordinary state of consciousness ORDINARY STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Book: Philosophy of Mysticism: Raids on the Ineffable (Jones 2017) – update of Stace 1960

Page title:
References for Psychedelic Psychometrics Questionnaires
Section heading:
Philosophy of Mysticism: Raids on the Ineffable (Jones 2017)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/references-for-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaires/#Philosophy-of-Mysticism-Raids-on-the-Ineffable
todo: link there to here

Philosophy of Mysticism: Raids on the Ineffable
Richard Jones
Jan. 2, 2017
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Mysticism-Ineffable-Richard-Jones/dp/1438461186/ uk

Blurb by Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach:

“A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism.

“This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism.

“Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective.

“Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life.

“Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind.

“Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed.

“Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism.

“This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy.

“That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here.

“He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it [the ‘common core’ hyp.] in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.”

unclear / ungramm:

Jones extends Stace’s mysticism common core.

Jones embeds Stace’s mysticism common core in a sophisticated discussion of:

  • The extent of mysticism.
  • The range of mysticism.
  • The metaphysical implications of mysticism.

Article: This Is Your Priest on Drugs (Michael Pollan, May 2025)

This Is Your Priest on Drugs
Michael Pollan, May 19, 2025
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/05/26/this-is-your-priest-on-drugs [subscribers] – If you are able to view entire article, you might want to Save As, Print (try 75% size), or Save As PDF – if you go in again, d/k if you have access to it.

I was able to access the full article and Save and Print it.

Hunt Priest, Ligare psychedelic Christian org.

Hopkins/NYU: Religious Professionals Study of 2015, might be published soon in 2025.

Charles Stang emphasized: Psychedelics give a religious experience, but beware: can be much more challenging than than WHITEWASHED Hopkins marketing.

Psychedelic Science conference in Denver in 2023.

Reverend Joe Welker, a Presbyterian pastor in Vermont complained that the study was part of a strategy to integrate psychedelics into mainstream religion. I say Christianity should re-integrate its psychedelic source of Holy Spirit; do not disparage the Holy Spirit – Michael Hoffman.

The Johns Hopkins Institutional Review Board (I.R.B.) is charged with protecting participants in human trials.

Many participants signed an open letter disagreeing with Joe Welker.

I disagree with Welker’s framing – I have different cautions for the Church.

Matthew Johnson objected that Roland Griffiths wanted psychedelic research to influence religious groups, and contacted the I.R.B.

I am not too keen on Welker’s angle – he criticizes people for RE-INTRODUCING Psilocybin into Christianity.

It might SOUND like we’ve been trying to find mushroom evidence in Christianity since 1952.

But, so very late as Jan. 2025, I discovered in Day 1 & 4 of Creation, in Great Canterbury Psalter, perfect-shaped mushrooms, indicated as Liberty Cap, Panaeolus, Cubensis, and Amanita, point at the pans of the {balance scale} that God the Creator holds in Day 1 Let there be Light, with God holding an open book.

Crop and Annotations by Michael Hoffman, Jan. 13, 2025

I proved that we have not even started to look for mushrooms in Christianity.

Similarly, in ANOTHER image source that entheogen scholars have been covering since 1998, Bernward Doors & Column, in 2025 I found mushroom imagery that Brown was practically touching in his 2016 book photo, that no one else found, because they were too busy ritually re-telling their constructed narrative tale of “big bad Church suppressed into heretical groups”, to preoccupied to open their eyes and see and report the mushroom imagery evidence – hold the narrative overlay, please!

Evidence for what? Suppressed alien infiltration of the kiddie Amanita into the heart of the church? No. Simply, evidence for Psilocybin mushrooms in Christian history.

Hold the heavy-handed obscuring overlap, stop constructing your fabricated barrier wall of “mainstream tradition vs. closed heretical groups”.

FORBIDDEN WORDS for 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm):

  • tradition
  • mainstream
  • underground
  • sects
  • cults
  • communities
  • groups
  • suppressed
  • oppression
  • secret
  • hidden

These constructions have NOT helped to find evidence; they have been abused to prevent finding evidence, putting a lower priority on finding evidence and putting top priority on ritual retelling of the narrative overlay,

“The big bad church suppressed kiddie Amanita, isn’t that terrible?!” No, I really DGAF about fkking Amanita, which is not even a psychedelic, and isn’t illegal.

What Allegro-Ruck OUGHT to care about is full repeal of Psilocybin Prohibition, rolling back to the non-existence of laws.

Letcher p. 35-36: Various writers have suggested cult, secretly, oppression, hidden, secret cult, surreptitiously slipped in.

There are add’l examples eg color tauroctony on the cover of Entheos 3 – no mention of the lib cap in Mithras’ right leg.

The 1952-2024 efforts were so negative, so loaded with the Allegro-Ruck anti-Christian demonization, that any effort to find evidence was cancelled out by Ruck’s extreme effort to construct a barrier wall and fakely reframe as “evidence for heretical use of The Mushroom — kiddie Amanita — alien infiltration”.

Ruck contradicts himself because “tail wag dog”:

It is much more important to Ruck to ritually re-tell his narrative of suppression, than to quietly hand over the raw evidence, hold the narrative PLEASE!

Stop re-framing as evidence for alien infiltration of the [infantile] Amanita via heretical sects, given center stage by Ruck.

Andy Letcher in 2006 book Shroom disproved the Allegro-Ruck 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm), by using a single image from 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm).

Motivation of this Page

Scope/topics; the field being critiqued:

  • Critiques of Psychedelic Science with psychometrics questionnaires modelling mystical experience.
  • Not critiques of entheogen scholarship / history of psychedelics in religion – that’s a separate debate.

It’s surprising how much my criticisms and recommendations / advocacies match or align with those of Sanders & Zijlmans in the article Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science.

What they mean by ‘mysticism’ pejoratively is what I mean by ‘mysticism’ pejoratively.

January 21, 2026 – Popular Neo-Advaita; the positive unitive model of “mystical experience”, is totally dominant, and wrong.

The Unitive model is avoidance of real deal: mental model transformation from possibilism to eternalism, that’s what real mystical experience is about; Classic, timeless, Reference point.

The Unitive philosophy is a stunted dead end, emptied of the main content.

Myth doesn’t depict Unitive, it depicts Classic: eternalism-driven control-transformation, to add eternalism-thinking to possibilism-thinking.

/ end of January 21, 2026 note

I have the Egodeath theory; the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism – they don’t.

The Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism answers in a completed, mature way, Sanders’ call for an alternative to making mysticism the foundation,

Wouter Hanegraaff: “don’t make mysticism or religious myth the foundation for scientifically conducted historiography”.

also, minor note, I renamed the Egodeath theory to the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism

Motivation of My Two “Moving Past Mysticism” Pages: To Correct Psychedelic Pseudo Science

Why this topic is relevant, for what field of concern:

I found illegitimate the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), then found illegitimate Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ).

I then said: psychedelic pseudo science.

I traced the fiasco of errors to help whitewash and cover-up the risk, in how the 11-Factors questionnaire was created and documented, and then how the the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) was created and doc’d.

The result was, most notably and significantly, Item 54 “I was afraid to lose my self-control” from OAV 1994 went missing, and wasn’t even included by Dittrich in the APZ from 1975, until 1994.

See my corrective ECQ, which addresses the biggest factor blocking Psilocybin usage:
ECQ – “Eternalism and Control Questionnaire” (Hoffman 2022)
https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/12/23/eternalism-and-control-transformation-effects-in-the-psychedelics-effects-questionnaires/

Crop by Michael Hoffman. From lower left to upper right.

To Switch from “Pleasant, Boundaryless Unity” to “Challenging, Cybernetic Eternalism”

Motivation for this page: To switch from the Weak, Fool’s Gold “Pleasant, Boundaryless Unity” Model to the Classic, Ultimate “Challenging, Cybernetic Eternalism” Model of Climactic Mystical Experience Transformative Apocalyptic Revelation

Two Conflicting Models of Mystical Experience: “Positive Unity” vs. “Challenging Dependent Control”

Historically, there are two competing conceptions of Transcendent Knowledge or mystic knowledge revelation; two conflicting models of mystical experience:

  1. Beginner, positive unity. Suspension of constructing the self/other boundary sensation. Origin: Swami Vivekananda, 1893, for the reductionist/distorting purpose of international political unity. A one-sided, lopsided, “positive-balanced” (as Griff told Stang in Harvard video) model eagerly taken up by Wm James, Walter Stace, Walter Pahnke/ Tim Leary, Wm Richards, Ralph Hood, & Roland Griffiths group.
  2. Advanced, challenging dependent control. Omitted from Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), by omitting challenging experiences as “unpleasant therefore unmystical”. Omitted from the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) by omitting 18 of 21 negative effects from OAV 1994, to (motivation:) deliver a generic, forced-familiarized “Grief challenges” factor instead of a psychedelic-specific, unfamiliar & mysterious “Control challenges” factor.

Pleasant, Boundaryless Unity; the “Positive Unity” Model of Mystical Experience

False, incomplete model of mystical experience, as basis for “Psychedelic Science”:

Feeble version of “mystical experience”: The quintessential common core of mystical experience is pleasant, boundaryless unity. aka: positive unity.

Weak, beginner, shallow, popular, substitute, dabblers, for avoidance. Focused on by:

  • Swami Vivekananda’s Advaita Vedanta 1893.
  • William James 1902.
  • Walter Stace 1960.
  • Timothy Leary/ Walter Pahnke 1962 Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ).
  • William Richards 1975/2015.
  • Ralph Hood’s Mysticism Scale (M Scale) 1975.
  • Roland Griffiths 2006.

Challenging, Cybernetic Eternalism; the “Challenging Dependent Control” Model of Mystical Experience

Full-strength version: The quintessential common core of mystical experience is challenging, cybernetic eternalism.

Intense, advanced, shattering, deep, hardcore, ultimate transformative test. Focused on by:

  • Acid Metal Lyrics: The most revelatory or exclamatory Rock Lyrics. Help; Heaven Can Wait; S.A.T.O., Right the Lightning, No One at the Bridge. Album art treats non-boundary unity like mere perceptual distortion; commonplace, entry-level beginner effect: Thee Hypnotics: Come Down Heavy.
  • Myth: doesn’t depict non-boundary unity; emphasis is snake not rock, in {snake frozen in rock}. {shadow dragon monster} guarded transformation gate.
  • The medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}, including {mushrooms}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs.
  • Astral ascent mysticism re: heimarmene & transcending it. End up above heimarmene and at One/Source/Pege, but central focus is reaching heimarmene and transcending heimarmene, in awesome fear & trembling.
  • The Egodeath theory.
  • The Way of Zen by Alan Watts w/ focus on switching to a 2nd model of self-control cybernetics. Summarized in “Zen and the Problem of Control” in This Is It.
  • Quote from Pankhe: 9 guys had pleasant, boundaryless unity; 1 guy had challenging cybernetic eternalism; threat of catastrophic loss of control.

The Original, Verbose Page with Commentary

I created the present, condensed page, because I need a page that’s:

  • Clearly titled.
    • A clear link, to help people follow this debate in psychedelic science.
  • Clean, organized by date.
    • Listing the articles in order.
  • Separating commentary from citation info.
    • Without uneven-length commentary.

Verbose original version of the present page, with commentary:
Moving Past Mysticism: Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism Provides Scientific Basis, Superseding “Mysticism, Meditation, & Psychotherapy” Framework
https://egodeaththeory.org/2023/01/15/the-theory-of-psychedelic-eternalism-provides-a-scientific-explanatory-basis-for-mystic-state-experiencing/

Come Down Heavy (Thee Hypnotics, 1990)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZIuhCxXN5E —

https://www.google.com/search?q=lyrics+thee+hypnotics+come+down+heavy

No lyrics for this song, on the web! I have to transcribe (quick/rough start):

When you’re down on your bended knees
And evil hoodoo gonna make you aggrieved
Well there ain’t no need to feel uptight, no
Just let it come down heavy tonight

When you can’t seem to get it on
Every minute gonna last too long
If your blues gonna gone aground
That’s when you just got to let em calm down

Bias Against ‘Religion’, for ‘Spirituality’ Revealed by Bob Jesse Talk

todo: move this section out eg to idea development page 30

Bob Jesse seems worth watching.

He showed the bias:

pleasant, good words/ideas/ associations = spirituality = stuff i like

unpleasant, bad words/ideas/ associations = religion = stuff i don’t like

Analyzing Scope of this Page

p.m. January 17, 2026

Why is entheogen scholarship out of scope for this page?

Why the heck is entheogen scholarship (history of drugs in religion) deliberatly kept separate as much as possible; denies by presupporitionally denied and ignored, by psychedelic science & hsitory of the positive unitive model of mystical experience?

Never Bring Together Two Topics: History of Drugs in Religion; Drugs vs. History of Mysticism

p.m. January 17, 2026

People who advocate “drugs give mystical experience”, pointedly ignore the topic of history of drugs in religion – WHY?!

People who advocate “psychedelics give mystical experience”, pointedly ignore the topic of history of psychedelics in religion – WHY?!

Every writer on the topic of whether psychedelics give mystical experience, firmly takes it as granted, that drugs did not play a signif role in relig history – WHY?!

Are isn’t the group of ppl who say “psychedelics give same experience mystics had“, the same as the group of ppl who say “psychedelics played a signif role in relig history“.

Why are these advocacies mutually exclusive?!

Which Advocacy Group Are You In? “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”, or “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”?

p.m. January 17, 2026

The asymmetrical, unrequited relationship between two seemingly adjacent advocacy topics:

Worded as questions:

  • “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”
  • “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?”

Worded as assertions:

  • “Psychedelics produce mystical experience”
  • “Psychedelics have a significant role in religious history”

(or: “Psychedelics are central in religious history”)

If you want to say “Psychedelics produce mystical experience”, you must say “No psychedelics in religious history”, to avoid being accused of the Allegro combination.

If your mission is to advocate A, you must deny B, or else you’d be accused of the Allegro position.

If your mission is to advocate “Psychedelics produce mystical experience”, you must deny “Psychedelics are central in religious history”, because if you were to also advocate “Psychedelics are central in religious history”, you would be accused of the Allegro position.

It IS PERMISSIBLE in establishment academia, to advocate A.
It IS NOT PERMISSIBLE in establishment academia, to advocate B.

Ruck asserts both B and A.
Huxley, Pahnke, Richards, Griffiths assert A, but do not assert B.

“Controverted” by academics: A.
“Rejected” by academics: B.

“Controverted” by academics: A.
“Rejected” by academics: B.

Academics have medium objection to advocacy of A.
Academics have strong objection to advocacy of B.

Advocacy Topic A:
Psychedelics Produce Mystical Experience

p.m. January 17, 2026

Advocacy Topic B:
Psychedelics Had a Major Role in History
Academia Allows Advocating A, not B

p.m. January 17, 2026

if you are willing to go against academia, so as to assert B, then you have no problem also asserting A.

If you are unwilling to go against academia, you are allowed to assert A, but not allowed to assert B (even though A & B seem a package deal).

Are you a moerate radical? Assert A.
Are you a radical radical? Assert B (and also A).
A is moderately controverted by academics.
B is extremely controverted (taboo/ignored) by academics.

In this way, Allegro 1970 is extremely influential: Allegro’s “discrediting” means, as a result, academics feel free to assert “Psychedelics give mystical experience”, but are afraid to assert “Psychedelics were major in history.”

A and B SEEM like they would be locked together, package deal – but, academia disallows B more than disallowing A, producing inconsistent asymmetriy of advocacy of positions.

Advocacy Topic A:
“Psychedelics produce mystical experience”
“Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”
[Unitive Mysticism (Stace); Psychedelic Mysticism (Huxley); Psychedelic Science (Pahnke)]

Advocacy Topic B:
“Psychedelics had a major role in religious history”
“Did psychedelics have a major/significant role in religious history?”
[Graves, Wasson, Allegro, Ruck, Heinrich; 2nd Gen: [McKenna], Samorini/ Irvin/ Hoffman/ Brown]

Anyone who asserts B, asserts A.

Anyone who asserts A, asserts ‘B.

Anyone who asserts “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”, asserts “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”.

yet:

Anyone who asserts “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”, asserts “Psychedelics did not play a major role in religious history”.

Anyone who focuses on asserting B, also asserts A.

Yet, anyone who focuses on asserting A, denies & ignores B.

Anyone who focuses on asserting “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”, also asserts “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”.

Yet, anyone who focuses on asserting “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics” [Badiner’s Zig Zag Zen], denies & ignores “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”.

The ppl who primarily advocate “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”, also advocate “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”.

Yet, the ppl who primarily advocate “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”, deny and ignore “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”.
They must deny it – why? For ppl who advocate “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”, why is it counterproductive for them to also advocate “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”? Ans: Prohibition: TO DISTANCE ALLEGRO “THERE WERE DRUGS” FROM ALLEGRROS ASSERTION “FERTILITY SEX CULT & DRUGS & NO JESUS”.

To distance themselfs from Allegro’s sex+mushrooms/no jesus theory, advocates of psychedelic science deny drugs in religious history.

This is how Allegro harmed the field: he discredited combining advocacy for:

  • “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics” [that position subtlely demands that you adopt the presupposition, “the non-drug methods of the mystics”]
  • “Psychedelics played a major role in religious history”

b/c anyone who says “psychedelics give same experience mystics had“, operates on the firm, silcent, silent presupposition that mystics did not use drugs psychedelics to produce their mystical experience.

Because this is a SILENT presupposition, the reusult is an unack’d boundary line:

you must not mention the entheogen scholarship history proposal, when you assert that psychedelics give same experience as mystics [taken to be non-drug; traditional methods of the mystics].

It is REQUIRED that advocates of “Psychedelics give same experience as mystics”) must SILENTLY ASSUME mystics didn’t use drugs, in order to ask the question, “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”

The ppl who ask “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?” NEVER consider the hypothesis, “Maybe psychedelics played a significant role in religious history”.

Research on entheogen scholarship (“Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?”) has no interaction with research on whether psychedelics give mystical experience (“Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”)

Rather, it’s a 1-way, asymmetrical relationship:

Research on B incorps research on A,
yet research on A feels that it is hampered, impeded, by incorp’ing research on B.

Research on A distances itself from research on B.
Yet research on B embraces research on A.

Research on “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?” distances itself from research on “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?”.
Yet research on “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?” embraces research on “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”

Research on B wants to marry research on A.
Yet research on A shuns research on B.

Research on “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?” wants to marry research on “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”.

Yet research on “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?” shuns research on “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?”.

Research on “Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?” has no interaction with research on “Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”

Research on
“Did psychedelics have a significant role in religious history?”
has no interaction with research on
“Do psychedelics produce mystical experience?”

Why not?

Timeline Sketch

p.m. January 17, 2026

from my notes written on aritlce High Mysticism by Baier 2021:

  • 150 – Plotinus Neoplatonism: Academic Philosophy of Mystical Union with the One, sans intense mystic altered state mixed wine mystery religion initiation described by myth. Neopl merely uses myth as metaphor for armchair Phil Dept’izing.
  • 1687 – Newton Princip Math: forgot astral ascent mysticism along with entheogenic esotericism; finally switch from geo to helio centric model of cosmos.
  • 1893 – positive unitive model of mystical experience; Swami Indian Hinduism Venanta Vivekananda & raft of accretions & particular philosophies tacked-on; Westernized; Protestant expectatiosn; popular demand for sanitized positive unitive mysticism, avoiding eternalism-driven control-transformation (ends up having repressed {shadow dragon monster}).
  • 1902: James, The Varieties of Religious Experiencing – Psychedelics & Mysticism
  • 1906 – Tree Stylizations in Medieval Paintings (Brinckmann, 1906) https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/12/11/brinckmann-mushroom-trees-asymmetrical-branching/
  • 1910 French myc society talk & publication: Plaincourault tree of knowledge is Amanita mushrooms.
  • 1915 – Safford article: There’s definitely no psilocybin mushroom use in Mexico; it’s peyote.
  • 1952 – Panofsky letterS to Wasson: News flash: There are hundreds of mushroom-trees in Christian art, therefore they cannot mean mushrooms. They developed from pine, which proves that it was accidental that the end-state was, quote: “the gradual hardening of the pine into a mushroom-like shape … emphatic schematization of the mushroom-like crown.”
  • 1954 – Huxley: psychedelics give mystical experience – common-core mysticism and perennialism (it’s hidden [as a protective ploy/strategy] that the core is taken to be, specifically, the positive unitive model). Perennialists strategically covertly conflate “that there is something common among mystical experience” with “the thing in common is positive unitive experience”.
  • 1957 – Wassons book Russia History Mushrooms
  • 1957 – Graves’ Food for Centaurs / What Food the Centaurs Ate, New Yorker: Ancient Greeks used mushrooms. The first article besides Blavatsky or Manly Hall, to say psychedelics in mystery religion.
  • 1960 – Stace (brief mention of psychedelics as outside his expertise & too early to cover)
  • 1962 – Pahnke / Leary / Richards is 1965
  • 1968 – SOMA wasson “You blundering mycologists failed to consult the art authorities” – but in the same paragraph p. 180, dishonestly censored the citation of Brinckmann 1906. Wasson the Academic Fraud; compromised, max conflict of interest, on this point.
  • 1968 – SOMA, Wasson: “I am first to ever propose that the tree of knowledge connects w/ Amanita; and, 1910 myc’ists were fools to say that the tree of knowledge in Plaincourault is Amanita.”
    [kettle logic self-contradiction: if french were stupid in saying Plaincourault shows tree of knowledge as Amanita, then is it impossible for Wasson to be the first to connection tree of knowledge w/ Amanita.
    incoherent self-promotion, disinfo by pope’s banker]
  • 1992 – McKenna, Food of the Gods: “Do not look for mushrooms in Christianity, b/c big bad church eliminated psychedelics.”
  • 1992 McKenna Food of the Gods
  • 1995 – Strange Fruit, Heinrich: chapters trace history of Amanita in esotericism.
  • 1997 – Samorini: The mushroom-tree of Plaincourault
  • 1998 – Samorini: ‘Mushroom-trees’ in Christian art
  • 2001 – Ruck committee: “Conjuring Eden” & “Daturas for the Virgin”
  • 2002 – Apples of Apollo – A disappointment & a narrowing (flip-flops from the Moderate to merely the Minimal Entheogen Theory of Religion), after the strong article “Conjuring Eden”, caused me to define, as breakaway from Waffle Ruck School driven and constrained by / restricted by social drama narrative, announcing maximal entheogen theory of religion in rebuttle to the Secret Amanita paradigm, favoring what I’d later in 2023 call the Samorini/ Hoffman/ Brown Explicit Cubensis paradigm. ie 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm).
  • 2006 – Hopkins psychedelic pseudo science: psilocybin gives mystical experience, where “mystical experience” is defined per Stace as exclusively nothing other than the positive unitive model from Swami Vivekananda 1893.
  • 2006 – Michael Hoffman, Wasson and Allegro on the tree of knowledge as Amanita – 64-page article for Robt Price journal of Higher Criticism.
  • 2007 – Michael Hoffman reformat main article, nails analogies except for branching, handedness, snake vs tree, solved in years: 2013-2025
  • 2013 – Michael Hoffman: Branching confirmed a major theme in mythic art (branching in paintings by Cranach & Douris)
  • 2015/2025 Hopkins’ Religious Leaders Study – crash and burn, faceplant disaster, conflict of interest: “Do not cite this “Science conclusions for purchase” article.”
  • 2015 – Michael Hoffman: Dancing man (Hatsis provided hi-res): right foot = eternalism-thinking?? Looking for confirmation of hypoth.
  • 2020 – Michael Hoffman: Canterbury folio image f134: confirmed hypoth: branching, handedness.
  • 2023 – Michael Hoffman: Identify branching / handedness in many art pieces.
  • 2025 – Michael Hoffman: Prove Canterbury Day 1 {balance scale} pans contain mushrooms; and progressive branching morph’y in Day 3. Jan 13.
  • 2025 – Michael Hoffman: 2POV; add eternalism-thinking to possibilism-thinking; “embrace and include” per Ken Wilber. Developed 2POV in April (after 6 months of devmt), wrote page in August.

todo: above, indicate topics 1-4 in each entry, to keep them differentiated unlike John Lash’s timeline of psychedelics events and all cultural events, mixed together indiscrim.

Numbered Key Topics

p.m. January 17, 2026

  1. The positive unitive model of mystical experience (Vivek 1893, Stace 1960)
  2. Psychedelic Mysticism (Huxley 1954)
  3. Psychedelic Science (Pahnke 1962; = Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ))
  4. entheogen scholarship (1G: Graves, Wasson, Allegro, Ruck; 2G: McKenna, Samorini, Heinrich, Irvin, Hoffman, Brown)

You can search this site for “conflicts of interest”, with quotes, to find the actual section heading (“Author Disclosure Statement”) in the 2025 Hopkins Religious Leaders Study article that took 10 years to flop across the finish line in disgrace:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/11/29/taves-and-breau-entrench-unity-model-while-critiquing-staces-unity-model/#would-you-like-to-purchase-some-science-conclusions —

Article title:
Effects of Psilocybin on Religious and Spiritual Attitudes and Behaviors in Clergy from Various Major World Religions

Author Disclosure Statement (p. 17-18)

“The Johns Hopkins Medicine Institutional Review Board (JHM IRB) conducted an audit of the JHU site (IRB00036973—“Effects of Psilocybin-facilitated Experience on the Psychology and Effectiveness of Professional Leaders in Religion”) and concluded that the following must be reported to all journals and disclosed in all publications where data related to this study may be published:

(1) There were two unapproved study team members, one who was also a study funding sponsor, directly engaged in the research.

(2) There was an additional approved study team member whose role as a
funding sponsor of the study was not disclosed to the IRB and who directly led the qualitative analysis.

(3) Conflicts of interest related to the two individuals who were engaged in the research and also served as funding sponsors were not appropriately disclosed nor managed.

(4) The funding sponsorship for this study was not disclosed
to the JHM IRB.”

So Offensive, Mosurinjohn’s Argument: “Stop Psychedelics Research in European History, which is Committing Colonialist Violence; Entheogen Scholars Must Put Indigenous Shams as their Central Focus & Boundary Limit”

p.m. January 17, 2026

Mosur: her written summary of her talk argues:

“Do not look for psychedelics in Europe history, or else you are guilty of Colonial Violence; you must put Mexican history / Indigenous Amazon ayahuasca history (whihc is as much as 100 years old!!) in the center of your focus, making that the boundary limit of your investigation.”

I bet her coauthor Ascough destroyed her over that; he called her out on that summary, because in her actual talk, she has been put on the defensive; put on her back heels, and she is forced to retract and backtrack.

“I’m not saying that if you put Europe history instead of Indigenous history in your focus and boundary, you’re not allowed to do that Eurocentric scholarly investigation, b/c you’d be committing Colonial Violence.”

But that is EXACTLY what her written summary argues, and, I NOTICE she does not CORRECT her written summary, even though in her talk, she pointedly contradicts her written summary.

SO OFFENSIVE!

She tries to pivot and strike a tone of “my message is:

“We must avoid the one extreme of Pop Allegro Ruck Secret Christian Amanita Cult history…

“And we must also avoid the extreme of academic butthead denial of any drug role in relig history.”

We must be good scholars, LIKE ME (who entered the field two minutes ago): Mosur claims that her message is:

“When we look for history of drugs in Europe, we must be midway on the spectrum from Gullible Affirmation, to Obstinate Committed Skeptic.”

But her written summary has a different message: “Given that we know there is no evidence for psychedelics in Euro history”

  1. Samorini 1997 – The mushroom-tree of Plaincourault
  2. Samorini 1998 – ‘Mushroom-trees’ in Christian art
  3. Ruck 2001 – “Conjuring Eden”

Mosur’s cocky, rude, insulting, ignorantly total confidence denial of evidence reveals that she failed to read the 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm)

She enters the field as a newbie and immediately starts throwing insults at scholars in the field, without having done the basic reading of the top articles in the field.

She cites Huggins’ Foraging Wrong article as if it has been peer reviewed and its atrocious fallacious args tested and passed merit.

Mosur cites Huggins not because that article has any basic merit, but only because Huggins’ prejudiced article is in accord with her own prejudice. She simply takes the Hug article as if proven fact.

Samorini 1997/1998

Conjuring Eden: Art and the Entheogenic Vision of Paradise (Hoffman, Ruck & Staples, Entheos 1, 2001), https://entheomedia.net/Issue%20one.htm, https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/12/24/entheos-issues-1-4-mark-hoffman/#Entheos-Issue-1

I bet she has NO PROBLEM with scholars like Benny Shanon looking for Acacia Rue in Jewish history.

Sharday Mosurinjohn ONLY has a problem with, specifically, white, European history scholarship looking for psychedelics in Euro history (broadly “euro” ie W history; mediterranean/ ANE / Europe/ Britain).

Anti-whiteism invades entheogen scholarship to deny a psychedelics history lineage to Europeans, while encouraging a psychedelics history lineage for every other nation/ race/ group:

Scholarship on a a psychedelics history lineage for Indigenous: Good.

Scholarship on a psychedelics history lineage for Jews: Good.

Scholarship on a psychedelics history lineage for Europeans: Bad; = committing Colonial Violence.

Parody of How Much Ruck Contradicts Himself b/c He Only Cares about the Social Drama Narrative, not About Coherent Theorizing

p.m. January 17, 2026

In a voice recording around Jan 15-16 2025, I listed ways in which Ruck is self-contradictory/ inconsistent.

Psychedelics (= Secret Gnosis about Secret Amanita) had a major role in religious history, but no one knew about Secret Amanita, except 26 different categories of groups and individual elites, showing the extent to which Christianity didn’t have any mushrooms, but mushrooms heretical groups infiltrated fully Christianity.

That’s how there’s no mushrooms in Xn history, and mushrooms thoroughly heretical infiltration of the mushroom throughout Christianity.

No wonder McPriest mischar’s Ruck, claiming Muraresku says Ruck says “the institutional Church elim’d psychedelics”.

Here is my accurate char’n of Ruck’s characteristically self-contradictory position:

“the institutional Church elim’d psychedelics” and
“psychedelics were infused throughout Christianity by heretical groups, monastics, and elites”.

“The big bad church elim’d psychedelics, and here’s 250 images of psychedelics in the art of the church, to prove it”

“Thank you for yet more evidence of psychedelics in HERETICAL Christianity, showing how terrible the church was for eliminating psychedelics” – Ruck. Incoherent!

Pope Ruck literally writes, to hide his declaration that Amanita is heretical:

“Thank you for yet more evidence of psychedelics in so-called heretical Christianity.”

“so-called”? The ONLY person calling psychedelics “heretical” is Ruck himself, driven by his crybaby social drama narrative.

The tail (the “terrible Church” social drama narrative) wags the dog (entheogen scholarship), and thus corrupts and restricts findings of entheogens in religious history.

… producing self-contradiction; kettle logic.

The Egodeath theory is better than Ruck b/c not burdened with that social drama narrative; same for Stamets/Gartz (2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm): they are better, b/c not burdened w/ trying to tell some social drama narrative. They say Bern door shows Liberty Cap” – no more; no attempt to t4ell any social drama narrative of “suppression” or “mainstream”.

Agaisnt Letcher’s botched endnote 31 in Shroom, Stametz & Gartz do not say either:

“The Liberty Cap mushroom-trees on Bernward Doors & Column prove entheogens were suppressed, hidden, & secret.”

“The Liberty Cap mushroom-trees on Bernward Doors & Column prove entheogens were mainstream, normal, & commonplace.”

The Egodeath theory is not doing social drama narrative; it’s forming a model of mental model transformation described by myth as analogies, expressed as STEM.

social drama narrative
sdn

Timeline of 20th C Writings on: Unitive Mysticism; Psychedelic Mysticism; Psychedelic Science; Psychedelics in History

p.m. January 17, 2026

It is really strange, how:

Writers on Unitive Mystcism implicitly assert “No psychedelics in history”.

Writers on Psychedelic Mysticism implicitly assert “No psychedelics in history”.

Writesrs on Psychedelic Science implicitly assert “No psychedelics in history”.

asym: in contrast,

Writers on Psychedelics in History assert Unitive Mysticism.
Writers on Psychedelics in History assert Psychedelics Give Mystical experience.
Writers on Psychedelics in History support Psychedelic Science.

The Battle Between [Unitive Mysticism & Psychedelic Mysticism & Psychedelic Science] Against [Psychedelics in History]

p.m. January 17, 2026

Why Do Writers on “Unitive Mysticism”, “Psychedelic Mysticism”, & “Psychedelic Science” Resist the Topic of “Psychedelics in History”?

p.m. January 17, 2026

You can fold into Psychedelic science: “Univity Mysticism” (the assertion that the nature of mystical experience is the (exclusive) Positive Unitive model), and “Psychedelic Mysticism” (the assertion psychedelics give mystical experience).

Then we can form two opposed focuses of scholarship & writing:

  • Psychedelic Science [includes Unitive Mysticism & Psychedelic Mysticism]
  • Psychedelics in History
  • The

The Strange Standoff Between Psychedelic Science & Psychedelics in History

p.m. January 17, 2026

Why do writers on PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE

Why do advocates of psychedelic science shun and suppress and ignore psychedelics in history? To market themselves as “new”?

Timeline of Unitive Mysticism (Vivekananda 1893); Psychedelic Mysticism (Huxley 1954); Psychedelic Science (Pahnke 1962); Psychedelics in Religious History (Graves 1957)

Interleaved Timeline of:
1) The positive unitive model of “mystical experience” (Stace [Vivekananda, James]); – Armchair academic outsider Philosophy [dept.; construction] of Mystical Experience; academic theorizing, like Neoplatonism in ancient academy, vs. mixed wine intense mystic altered state in initiation mystery religion described by intense myth.
Algis Uzdavinys straddles the “academic armchair Phillosoph of Mysticism” & “intense mystic altered state” poles.
2) Whether psychedelics give mystical experience; “the psychedelic movement” (Huxley [James]);
3) Psychedelic science (Pahnke [Richards, Griffiths);
4) Psychedelics’ role in religious history; “entheogen scholarship” (Ruck [Graves Wasson Allegro in pop mind])

Above pattern for names of writers: (representative writer [other writers]).

3 Generations of Psychonautics per John Lash

p.m. January 17, 2026

First Generation: 1935 – 1965
The Psychonautic Adventure
https://web.archive.org/web/20111019195903/http://www.metahistory.org/psychonautics/Psychonautics1.php

  1. First Generation: 1935 – 1965
  2. Second Generation: 1965 – 1995
  3. Third Generation: 1995-2011

He never listed timelines and writers for Gen 2 & Gen 3, so hard to characterize his eras. Bad too b/c in 1st Gen, he jumbles every Current Event with no limit on what topics to include – random mess.

John Lash ruins his timeline of psychonautics, by defining everything as relevant to psychonautics, diluting the timeline to death.

He simply writes/ summarizes the general history of 1935-1965, and inserts into that (instead of omitting), psychedelics-specific dates — without distinguishing which events were directly about psychedelics.

  • Moon landing is central to psychedelics?
  • JFK was essentially about psychedelics?
  • Computers were invented, which is centrally about psychedelics?

That’s why I’m puzzling over (analyzing) scope of the present page:

This page is NOT about the pre-modern history of psychedelics; it’s about history of positive unitive model of mystical experience & then psychedelic mysticism, then psychedelic science.

Psychedelic science is strategically reluctant to give any attention to psychedelics in pre-modern history, b/c Allegro has tainted that topic.

WE advocates of psychedelic science MUST DISOWN ALLEGRO’S TOPIC (PSYCHEDELICS IN HISTORY) TO BETTER ADVOCATE FOR PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE, INCLUDING “PSYCHEDELICS CAUSE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE SAME AS THE HISTORICAL NON-DRUG METHODS OF THE MYSTICS”.

Given our primary goal of advocating for psychedelic science, we must assert that mystics did NOT use psychedelics, or else we are guilty of the Allegro transgression of the rules. Academics only semi-resist this psychedelic science.

Academics strongly resist topic of “drugs had major role in relig history”. Ruck is willing to advocate that, and therefore, also, the less controversial (per academics) proposal that “psychedelics mimic the non-drug methods of the mystics.”

https://egodeaththeory.org/nav/#John-Lash

John Lash in a cancelled planned series of articles on history of psychedelics (https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/07/07/wise-as-serpents-entheogenic-religion-and-the-paris-eadwine-psalter-john-lash/#PSYCHONAUTICS – defines 3 generations of “psychonautics history” [Karl Baier: “the psychedelic movement”, probably Partridge’s phrase]), incoherently combines a million unrelated topics in cultural history.

Lash suffers from too broad a focus, he makes his timeline useless because HAS NO BOUNDARY OF ANYTHING BEING OFF-TOPIC

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN 20TH CENTURY IS EQUALLY ON-TOPIC IN John Lash’s “TIMELINE OF Psychonautics/ PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH”.

Mostly out of scope for this page: entheogen scholarship (history of drugs in religion).

  • positive unitive model of mystical experience, along with the Psychedelic Movement (Hux 1957) – that project or self-presentation REQUIRED or was firmly premised on, “no history of drugs in religious history”; it HAD to suppress interest in (& belittle) entheogen scholarship (Graves, Wasson, Allegro, Ruck, Samorini).
  • Entheogen scholarship (premise that drugs … maximal entheogen theory of religion) MUST be ignored and rejected by [positive unitive model –> psychedelic science].

psychedelic science (= Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ); tech term: psychedelic psychometrics = “science”)

  • history of positive unitive model of mystical experience (rep: Stace)
  • history of how positive unitive model was baked into psychedelic science (rep: Pahnke)
  • history of entheogen scholarship (Graves Wass Alleg Ruck; rep: Ruck)
  • history of the psychedelic movement (term from Partridge 2vol Re-enchantment book set, on Modern Esotericism.

psychedelic science
ps

The Strong Entrenched Dogma and Intensely Strong, Dominant, Silent Presupposition “The traditional, non-drug methods of the mystics”

The way scholars write, shows a very silent, very strong presupposition, a dogma so firm, so entrenched, it is not stated.

None of these writers (Allen Badiner ZZZ) is even able to ask what’s the history of psychedelic mysticism in pre-modernity.

It is impossible to think that thought, from their paradigm – because they must avoid the Allegro crime, “suppose psychedelics in religious history”.

It’s not belong to Allegro but everyone absolutely treats fearfully as if it is.

Scope of these Critiques: Psychedelic Science, Ignoring Entheogen Scholarship

p.m. January 17, 2026

The focus of this page is on critiques of psychedelic science re: “Hypothesis we tested and ‘validated’: A mystical [ie positive unitive] experience is required, for successful psychedelic-assisted therapy.”

The focus of this debate is not critiques of entheogen scholarship about psychedelics in pre-modern history.

I came to realize today p.m. January 17, 2026 that psychedelic science is actively disowns and ignores and denies entheogen scholarship premise or question of psychedelics in pre-modern history, in order to posture as:

We are not with Allegro!”; we put on a show of distancing psychedelic science from that fool Allegro who we want nothing to do with.

We serious psychedelic scientists and committed academics, emphasize:

We pointedly disavow the maximal entheogen theory of religion, and instead strongly assert non-drug entheogens

January 17, 2026

We pointedly disavow the Allegro assertion that entheogens had a major role in pre-modern history

p.m. January 17, 2026

Compromised, posturing academics, to show they are on the correct team, buttheaded ABD Apologists: Anything But Drugs is to be considered a “reasonable” and “evidenced” cause of the intense mystic altered state.

  • We pointedly disavow the Allegro assertion that entheogens had a major role in pre-modern history:
  • We are NOT asserting the narrow, particular, Allegro Secret Christian Amanita Cult theory;
  • and we are not even asserting the broad, general theory that drugs had a major role in religious history.
  • Do not charge us with the Allegro violation.

See Also

The present page is older; fewer entries; has commentary; specialized title.
The other page is newer; more entries; no commentary; cleaner title:
Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science (Article Debate Series)

Astounding Omissions of Negative Effects from CEQ’s Initial Item Pool — This Closed Science Is Pseudo-Science

Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2023 5:38 am UTC+0

Site Map

Contents:

Astounding Omissions of Negative Psychedelic Effects from the Challenging Experiences Questionnaire’s (CEQ’s) Initial Item Pool – This Closed Science Is Pseudo-Science

News Flash! Apparently Griffiths Considers the HRS Questionnaire’s Effect “It was difficult to control my thoughts” as “Not Challenging”!!

Discovered/realized 8pm January 13, 2023, Cybermonk.

Page title:
HRS – “Hallucinogen Rating Scale” Questionnaire
Section heading in that page:
Bizarre Omissions from CEQ Initial Item Pool
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/hrs-hallucinogen-rating-scale/#Bizarre-Omissions-from-CEQ-Initial-Item-Pool

Did Griffiths deliberately omit “control challenges” from CEQ?

Omitted:

OAV 1994 #54: I was afraid to lose my self-control.

HRS #: It was difficult to control my thoughts.

I’ve written and spoken in Egodeath Mystery Show a lot (mostly not uploaded Egodeath Mystery Show recordings) about question 54.

But today, Jan 13 2023, 8pm, I discovered — while reading aloud in voice recording my Jerry Brown thread page, section:

Page title:
Critique of Griffiths MEQ30 and other ME questionnaires (Brown Thread)
Section heading in that page:
CEQ Deletes the Main Negative Psychedelic Effects – Part 1
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/critique-of-griffiths-meq30-and-other-me-questionnaires-brown-thread/#CEQ-Deletes-the-Main-Negative-Psychedelic-Effects

— that Griffiths looked at the HRS question “It was difficult to control my thoughts” and reckoned “Nope, not potentially a challenging experience. Omit from Initial Item Pool.”

Combine that with “We would NOT expect that HRS’ Volition category of effects are potentially significantly challenging.” (CEQ article Griffiths 2016)

No surprise that Griffiths, who defined in Science-based scientific terms, what exactly and scientifically constitutes “a complete [newbie] mystical experience”, cannot even IMAGINE that “It was difficult to control my thoughts” is challenging.

Motivation for This Page/Post

This staggering realization warrants a dedicated announcement, it’s on the same order as Griffiths’ omitting Question 54, “I was afraid to lose my self-control” from the CEQ Initial Item Pool and final set of CEQ items.

I did a whole investigation driven by the HUGE omission of 1994 OAV question 54, “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

Today, I found an equally massive, shocking, stunning omission:

Griffiths chose not to add Rick Strassman’s HRS question “It was difficult to control my thoughts” to the CEQ’s Initial Item Pool – unbelievable! inconceivable!

“It was difficult” is not challenging??

Griffiths has NO IDEA what control-challenges are, and cannot even imagine or comprehend what such challenges would be; the possibility of control loss constituting a challenge.

Griffiths is doing a massive anti-Science sanitizing and whitewashing, even during the early relatively generous phase of forming of the Initial Item Pool of 64 items from the 3 main questionnaires.

Retraction of My Error: Griffiths Team Did Not Do a Decent Job Picking the Initial Item Pool

I said and wrote that CEQ team did a decent job of picking the Initial Item Pool of 64 challenging effects from 3 questionnaires.

I was wrong. Or they were only relatively decent in picking items for the CEQ’s Initial Item Pool.

Closed Science Is Pseudo-Science: Only Insiders Are Allowed to Access Psychedelic Psychometrics “Science”

Caveat: this Pseudo-Science of Psychedelic Psychometrics, which stands or falls with the “scientific” basis of Walter Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Philosophy, is CLOSED SCIENCE.

Unlike real Science, “the public” is not able to and not allowed to see the HRS questionnaire and which items are in which categories and tally the items.

“Sorry, our Science field that we fabricated behind closed doors (and hid behind the obscuring cloak of vague math, never discussing the actual effects that we omit and delete) is copyrighted, so there’s no correction mechanism via public Science.”

No One at the Bridge: Not Challenging

Artist: Rush
Song: No One at the Bridge
Year: 1975 – same year as Dittrich’s APZ questionnaire, which has 22 questions forming in 1985 the ‘A’ category of O/A/V: Oceanic Boundlessness/ Angst (Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED)) / Visionary Restructuralization.

Video with ships & sea imagery & animation:
url https://youtu.be/70BgSKTBh9s –

Video of album side with lyrics,
No One at the Bridge starts at 5:20
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TElZA5XnH9w&t=320s –

Double Dread (DED) – Effects Questions from APZ 1975 and OAV 1994 Combined

Double Dread (DED) – Psychedelics Effects Questions from the APZ 1975 and OAV 1994 Questionnaires Combined

Contents:

Motivation for this page

DOCTORS AND PROFESSORS

Gather, sum, make available, respect, & leverage together:

  • The 22-item Dread questions from APZ 1975/1985/1993
  • The 21-item Dread questions from OAV 1994

Combine Dread[22] + Dread[21]

Get the lists of Dread questions from page sections:

APZ’s 22-item Dread (DED) category of the APZ 1975 questions:

Page title:
APZ 1975 Psychedelic Psychometrics Questionnaire (Dittrich): Oceanic Heaven, Dread Hell, and Visionary Visions
Section in the page:
Angst/Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) (22) (too many!)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/03/apz-1975-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaire-dittrich-oceanic-heaven-dread-hell-and-visionary-visions/#Angst-Dread-of-Ego-Dissolution

The Angst/Dread (DED) dimension of OAV 1994 is renamed to Unpleasant Experiences category; same 21 items:

Page title:
11-Factors Questionnaire with All 13 Groups of All 66 OAV Effects Questions Shown
Section in the page:
Unpleasant Experiences (21)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/30/11-factors-questionnaire-with-all-13-groups-of-all-66-effects-questions-shown/#Unpleasant-Experiences

Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) (22) 1975 in APZ

9. I had difficulty in distinguishing important from unimportant things
32. My thinking was constantly being interrupted by insignificant thoughts
40. My own feelings seemed strange to me as though they did not belong to me
44. I felt tormented without knowing exactly why
55. I felt like a robot
56. My surroundings seemed peculiarly strange to me
64. I felt threatened without realizing by what
66. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own
71. I was afraid without being able to say exactly why
83. I felt like a marionette
91. Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was really going on
105. I stayed frozen in a very unnatural position for quite a long time
107. I had difficulty making even the smallest decision
110. I felt as though I were paralyzed
131. Things around me appear distorted to me
133. Time passed more slowly than usual
136. I was not able to complete a thought; my thoughts repeatedly became disconnected
141. I felt isolated from everything and everyone
148. It seemed to me that I no longer have any feelings
156. It seemed to me as though there were an invisible wall between me and my surroundings
157. I observed myself as though I were a stranger
158. I felt a total emptiness in my head

https://www.rush.com/albums/caress-of-steel/

Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) (21) 1994 in OAV

54. I was afraid to lose my self-control.
3. I felt surrendered to dark powers.
12. I felt tormented.
59. Time passed tormentingly slow.
36. I experienced an unbearable emptiness.
55. I stayed frozen in a very unnatural position for quite a long time.
62. Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was going on.
41. My body seemed to me numb, dead and weird.
38. I felt threatened.
63. I had the feeling something horrible would happen.
29. I was afraid without being able to say exactly why.

19. I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever.

30. I experienced everything terrifyingly distorted.

32. I experienced my surroundings as strange and weird.

53. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own.

5. I felt like a marionette.

33. I felt as though I were paralyzed.

16. I had difficulty making even the smallest decision.

24. I had difficulty in distinguishing important from unimportant things.

44. I felt isolated from everything and everyone.

45. I was not able to complete a thought, my thought repeatedly became disconnected.

Double Dread (DED) (43) effects from APZ and OAV Combined

Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was going on.

Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was really going on.

I experienced an unbearable emptiness.

I experienced everything terrifyingly distorted.

I experienced my surroundings as strange and weird.

I felt a total emptiness in my head.

I felt as though I were paralyzed.

I felt isolated from everything and everyone.

I felt like a marionette.

I felt like a robot.

I felt surrendered to dark powers.

I felt threatened without realizing by what.

I felt threatened.

😱🐉🚪💎🌳🍄🐍🪨🏆😇🍄🚪⚡️🍄

I felt tormented without knowing exactly why.

I felt tormented.

I had difficulty in distinguishing important from unimportant things.

I had difficulty making even the smallest decision.

I had the feeling something horrible would happen.

I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own.

I observed myself as though I were a stranger.

I stayed frozen in a very unnatural position for quite a long time.

I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever.

I was afraid to lose my self-control.

I was afraid without being able to say exactly why.

I was not able to complete a thought, my thought repeatedly became disconnected.

I was not able to complete a thought; my thoughts repeatedly became disconnected.

It seemed to me as though there were an invisible wall between me and my surroundings.

It seemed to me that I no longer have any feelings.

My body seemed to me numb, dead and weird.

My own feelings seemed strange to me as though they did not belong to me.

My surroundings seemed peculiarly strange to me.

My thinking was constantly being interrupted by insignificant thoughts.

Things around me appear distorted to me.

Time passed more slowly than usual.

Time passed tormentingly slow.

Add the ‘Control’ Category to the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) (Matthew Johnson thread)


Michael Hoffman, January 9, 2023 9:50 pm UTC+0

Site Map

Contents:

To Matthew Johnson, to Add the ‘Control’ Category to the Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ):

Subject: CEQ needs to add a “Control challenges” factor/category, including Question 54 😱

Hi Prof. Johnson,

I enjoyed your article Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus: Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine, and am looking forward to the psychedelic chaplaincy study.

Prof. Jerry Brown (The Psychedelic Gospels) recommended that I forward my recommendations and analysis of the CEQ to you.

The Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is dangerous and ineffective. It has a giant vulnerability the size of a shadow dragon monster. Do not use the CEQ as-is.

The ‘Control’ Factor/Category to Add to CEQ

The CEQ needs to add this Control factor (category of psychedelic effects questions):

Control

5D-ASC 54. I was afraid to lose my self-control.
5D-ASC 6. I had the feeling of being connected to a superior power.
5D-ASC 5. I felt like a puppet or marionette.
5D-ASC 53. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own.
5D-ASC 38. I felt threatened.
SOCQ 28. Sense of being trapped and helpless.
HRS #. It was difficult to control my thoughts.

These items are my top picks from the main questionnaires.

The Shadow Gatekeeper Explained and Reconciled

I have efficiently explained the battle with “the shadow”, in the Egodeath theory, which explains psychedelic eternalism.

Like Bob Jesse, I have an Electrical Engineering degree and am low-key working largely behind the scenes.

As an undergraduate in 1988, I used STEM-type thinking and language usage to create the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (including loose cognitive binding to experience the block universe and worldlines) to explain usefully what the mystics’ approach is incapable of articulating.

It is crucial and urgent to add this Control category, with these items, to the CEQ. Question 54 is the shadow, and it is the most required question of all, yet CEQ overlooked it, proving that the CEQ needs a reality check and domain expertise.

11-Factors’ Impaired Control and Cognition category has issues too; the ICC factor is malformed without its central, definitive, characteristic Question 54, about fear specifically of control loss.

When people seek the gold treasure of Transcendent Knowledge, in order to pass through the dragon-guarded gate, they must repudiate naive possibilism-thinking and adopt eternalism-thinking (pictured as non-branching or {cut branching}, and {standing on right leg}).

In the popular Middle Ages motif inside of Christianity, branching-message mushroom trees, knowledge of reconciling with the experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control was represented as relying on the right leg (and arm) rather than on the left leg.

{standing on right leg} to {defeat the dragon} (“the shadow” that you need to “surrender to”) and thus {get the treasure} and {be made able to pass in and out through the gate}

My original research, partly from writing an article for Prof. Jerry Brown, discovered the motif of branching-message mushroom trees densely in Christian art, and more sparsely in Hellenistic art as well.

Row 1. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f134.item.zoom
Row 2.
Row 3.

This particular breakthrough (branching-message mushroom trees and handedness) was around November 2020, with roots back to October 1985 and panning out until July 2022.

CEQ Doesn’t Cover Negative Effects as Griffiths Claimed to Charles Stang

Other changes needed to the CEQ: Remove some 7 duplicate effects questions copied from multiple questionnaires. The “final” CEQ induces paranoia because it asks the same effect question two or three times.

Charles Stang is right, or more than right: the conception of “mystic experience” from Stace/ Pahnke/ Griffiths is malformed, missing negative experiencing. Griffiths defended his balanced coverage of the non-mystical negative mystical effects, by pointing to the CEQ.

That’s my area of specialty, so I examined the CEQ, only to discover that it omits and discards the main negative effects (loss of control), so the CEQ fails to do what Griffiths claims to Stang that it does.

Charles Stang, a historian of mysticism and theology of mysticism at Harvard, challenged and criticized Griffiths and the MEQ for using a conception of mysticism that fails to match the historical archive of reports from mystics.

Lopsidedly positive mystical experience is typical of newbies. Advanced psychedelic experience is concerned with the control-vortex capabilities of the mind to formally self-transgress personal control, which drives transformation of the mental model of control agency and branching world.

As psilocybin prohibition is repealed, more people will reach the advanced mystical experiences, which are negative, in the course of reaching the treasure of Transcendent Knowledge through transforming the model of personal control and time and branching possibilities.

The CEQ is the repressed, dissociated shadow of the MEQ.

The CEQ itself perpetuates the same problem as Charles Stang pointed out about the MEQ: the CEQ claims to broaden the Dread category, yet (with no explanation), the CEQ deletes 18 of the 21 questions (86%) of the Dread category, which is identical to 11-Factors’ “Unpleasant Experiences” high-level category, containing the same 21 items.

Dread or Unpleasant has not just 13 items (7 ICC + 6 ANX) that need to be added to the Initial Item Pool; there are 8 direct members of the Unpleasant high-level category as well, including the all-important item #54.

By omitting all of the control-challenge effects from the Dread/ Unpleasant category (deleting 18 of 21 items = 86%, keeping 3 of 21 items = 14%), the CEQ utterly fails to engage with the main advanced negative mystic experiencing.

The main, most distinctive and characteristic challenging psychedelics effect is not motivational vertigo (“Grief”), but rather, formal transgression of personal control, producing the advanced peak mystical experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control.

The crisis experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control is the precise naming and identification of “the shadow”, the threatening dragon monster, the gate-guard angel of death blocking the way to the treasure sought, which is Transcendent Knowledge and personal transformation of control agency in world.

Why on Earth does CEQ delete 86% of the Dread items, while claiming to broaden coverage of challenging psychedelic effects?!

The added Grief category does reflect a major effect, but where is the justification to delete 18 of the 21 Dread effects items, and have no Volition-Control challenges category in the CEQ?

Studerus was in error in poor communication that there are two high-level categories: Unpleasant Experiencing (21 items) and Pleasant Experiencing (45 items).

Studerus was in error in first placing the all-important Shadow question, #54, in Anxiety, and then in error in making #54 a direct member of the Unpleasant high-level category.

#54 is specifically fear of loss of control, and therefore it is the main item to define the Impaired Control and Cognition factor.

The factors in 11-Factors’ Unpleasant high-level category need to be constructed around item #54 placed in ICC.

Griffiths’ team was in error in adding only the 13 low-level ICC & ANX factor items to the CEQ’s Initial Item Pool. Griffiths needed to instead add all 21 of 11-Factors’ high-level Unpleasant category’s items to the CEQ’s Initial Item Pool – that would have included the misplaced, all-important Question #54, the shadow question, “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

Thank you

— Cybermonk, Egodeath.com (2007), EgodeathTheory.wordpress.com (2023)

Below are some of my relevant articles and postings for you.

Articles and postings include:

Site Nav: Flagship Articles about Mushrooms in Art
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/nav/#flagship-Mushrooms-Greek-Christian-Art – that set of articles includes:

See Also

Page title:
Idea Development page 15
Section heading in that page:
Article About Griffiths’ Psychedelic Priests Study
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/idea-development-page-15/#Article-Psychedelic-Priests-Study
Article title:
Pioneering Clergy of Diverse Religions Embrace Psychedelics
by Don Lattin, April 2022

Critique of Griffiths MEQ30 and other ME questionnaires (Brown Thread)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/critique-of-griffiths-meq30-and-other-me-questionnaires-brown-thread/

References
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/29/oav-questionnaire-1994-oceanic-boundlessness-angst-of-dread-of-ego-dissolution-visionary-restructuralization-dittrich/#References

Critique of Griffiths MEQ30 and other ME questionnaires (Brown Thread)

Critique of Griffiths Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ30) and other mystic experiencing questionnaires (Brown Communication Thread)

Contents:

Subject line:
Critique of Griffiths MEQ30 and other ME questionnaires
Jan. 7, 2023

Prof. Jerry Brown on Challenging Experiences and Risks

Hi Michael,

Your recent posts critiquing Griffiths and others for ignoring challenging psychedelic experiences in evaluating mystical experiences brought to mind the following:

1/ The Dark Night of the Soul, Before Revelation (Campbell)

1/ The Dark Night of the Soul – described in mystical and psychological literature, including this quote from Wikipedia by Joseph Campbell: Joseph Campbell states:

“The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.”  

Also, see Wikipedia for references in popular culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

2/ Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrix II

2/ Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrix II. Early on in his work, Grof proposed these matrixes I-IV as a paradigm for the LSD experience.

Basic Perinatal Matrix II (BPM II) is that point in the birth when labor has started and we are being pushed up against the cervix by the mother’s contractions but the cervix has not yet begun to dilate or open. 

This can be a very scary experience, and people in later life who were traumatized at this point in their birth may feel claustrophobia, existential angst, depression, feelings of terror, or other negative consequences. 

Edgar Allen Poe may have been a BPM II baby as evidenced by his short story “The Pit and the Pendulum”  where a character finds himself in a prison where walls are closing in on him and the only way out is down a bottomless pit.

[wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Grof#BPM_II:_Cosmic_engulfment_and_no_exit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_therapy
my posts:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/15/the-theory-of-psychedelic-eternalism-provides-a-scientific-explanatory-basis-for-mystic-state-experiencing/#Against-Psychoanalysis]

3/ Bob Jesse’s concern in Lucid News Interview: Address Risks & Negative Experiences

01/06/2023 – A Psychedelic Pioneer’s 2023 Forecast
http://eepurl.com/ihxulX – Lucid News email newsletter, January 6, 2023.
Bob Jesse on risks:

3/ Bob Jesse’s concern, expressed in the Lucid News Interview that we are not addressing or educating about the risks or negative experiences that psychedelics can and do occasion.

KJ at Lucid News wrote:

“Surveying the landscape, Jesse noted that FDA trials for approval of MDMA and psychedelic medicines are progressing along a well-marked track, and should pave the way for insurance coverage for FDA-approved uses.

“So it’s the non-FDA routes we need to watch most carefully,” he [Bob Jesse] emailed. “With ballot and legislative initiatives [e.g., Oregon and Colorado] what expectations are being set?

“Word is getting out about the potential upsides of psychedelic use, but what about the risks? 

“Some people don’t respond favorably, and occasionally the outcomes are negative.

“A few will have very bad outcomes.

“Our culture has developed intuitive understandings of activities that carry risks, like riding a bike, driving, and rock climbing.

“They’re usually quite safe — except when they aren’t.

“Western culture doesn’t yet have that kind of understanding, including risks and risk reduction, of psychedelics. We’re in an adolescent stage at most.”  [emphasis added by Brown, on Jesse’s statements]

Reasons for Positive Framing of Mystic-State Experience

IMHO this approach by Griffiths and other leading researchers may be due to trying to position psychedelics positively to successfully navigate the media and political landscape surrounding the Psychedelic Renaissance and current research.

Regards, Jerry
[January 7, 2023]

Reply to Brown about Risks Acknowledgement

People are underestimating the nature of the risk.

The peak risk is the central name of the game, the {dragon shadow threat} is what entheogens are ultimately all about.  

The risk is not an incidental side effect, to steer away from; the risk is the main central gate to steer toward and master and navigate through.

To position psychedelics positively to successfully navigate the media and political landscape surrounding the Psychedelic Renaissance and current research, the field needs to recognize & comprehend that the {shadow dragon monster} threat is the threat to self-control stability during control-model transformation during switching from possibilism to eternalism in the eternalism altered state.

Possibilism vs. Eternalism: Two Models of Time and Control 
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/possibilism-vs-eternalism-2-models-of-time-and-control/
Category: Control Transformation

The eternalism explanation of the entheogenic altered state is an extremely small, specific, and simple explanatory model that fits with:

*  The reported effects & risks.

*  The reported folk solutions to the peak risk (“surrender, submit, accept your lack of control”).

*  The transformation that’s the whole point of the game: gaining Transcendent Knowledge, gnosis, perfection, completion, the adult developmental form.

Fallacy: “Activity X has a risk, therefore disallow that activity.”  Every activity has risks, yet we consider the balance of risks and benefits.

“We’re in an adolescent stage”

That is the stage of initiation and rites of passage from youth (or maiden) form to adult form.  

Comprehend the dragon shadow threat, reconcile, stop thinking as a child, put away childish things, learn to stand on right leg instead of left leg.  

Convert from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking and sacrifice and jettison childish thinking to pass through the dragon-guarded gate to get the treasure, Transcendent Knowledge, the adult form which is compatible with the altered state

— unlike the childish, immature form of thinking – the childish conception of control agency in a branching world, creating one’s future in an open future.  

That child dies in some sense, repudiated as non-viable in the altered state, in the course of the mind’s standard maturation/ initiation process.

The Risk Is With the Treasure Pursuit

When I advised Oregon Psilocybin Board, 
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/11/18/proposed-rules-for-oregon-measure-109-psilocybin-centers/
afterwards I realized I omitted an important, driving piece of the equation: 

* There is a threat.  (dragon, control loss)

*  There is a solution.  (surrender, submit, allow)

*  Forgotten, but not any more: The treasure, gnosis, Transcendent Knowledge, guarded by the threatening dragon monster shadow.

I noticed today that Jordan Peterson gets it right, during his interview of Griffiths:

“That’s specifically why you’re encouraged in mythological stories to confront the dragon and get the gold, that’s the basic story“

We don’t merely experience a random threat or risk as an isolated thing.  

The threat is the main challenge for completing the game, the objective is to get the treasure, be able to pass in & out through the gate like God’s holy city and garden at the end of the Bible to access freely the sacrament of the non-dying.  

The “isolated random risk” (the shadow) is actually specific and central.

We must go through the threat, the risk – the {shadow/ dragon/ monster} is the entire gateway and center of the whole pursuit: the dragon risk comes together with pursuit of the treasure of gnosis, Transcendent Knowledge, transformation.

Pursuing the {treasure} and successfully engaging & reconciling with the specific risk (the {shadow/ dragon}) produces a transformed acclimation of the constitution of the psyche, to become able to endure the altered state, and become re-naturalized as a member of the altered state realm.

Dark Night of the Soul per Joseph Campbell

Thanks, I wanted to check the definition of “dark night of the soul” which Charles Stang mentioned, to see if that concept covers the issue of reconciling with the {dragon/ shadow} of threat of non-control.  Likely Griffiths & Stang & I have divergent conceptions of a dark night.

I accidentally bought a 2nd copy of Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces – not bad.  

Nice that I document my breakthrough work Thanksgiving 2013 – OH NO a photo of Thousand Faces, means I got a 2nd copy of it (again). It was a 4-Campbell breakthrough. Open: The Power of Myth, Illustrated Edition.

My first copy was with me in my Thanksgiving 2013 “tree vs. snake” breakthrough – but I don’t think I had looked at that book yet, only looked at pictures in The Power of Myth – Illustrated Version, the power which I experienced for weeks after that shaking confirmation of my couple years of speculation about {branching} vs. {non-branching} in mythemes.

Campbell, Power of Myth, a top-3-ever major breakthrough: got full confirmation of {branching} as a key mytheme. Didn’t register though yet that holding branch with left hand = possibilism-thinking.
Non-branching tree; figured key formula:
{tree vs. snake} = possibilism vs. eternalism
by studying Hellenistic & Christian art in parallel, Nov. 2013 breakthrough

Still, in 2013 into 2014, I yet lacked articulate comprehension of:

  • {handedness} – I solved and explained this Christmas 2015. Relying on right leg/ right hand, not left leg/ left hand. left vs. right = possibilism (left, branching, bad, unstable) vs. eternalism (right, non-branching, good, stable). Where Possibilism and Eternalism are not just models of time, but of control and possibilities branching too.
  • {cut branches} – I solved and explained this Thanksgiving 2020. Asserts eternalism rather than possibilism.
  • {branching-message mushroom trees} – I solved and explained this March-July 2022.. Your youth with knife cutting branch on tower.

None of that is in Campbell. Campbell doesn’t explain {handedness} and {cut branches} and {branching-message mushroom trees}, which the Egodeath theory (the theory of psychedelic eternalism) has accomplished.

Photo Credit: Julie M. Brown. Crop, image processing, & mytheme decoding by Cybermonk, March 2022.
Hold branch w/ left hand (possibilism-thinking), cut branch w/ right hand (eternalism-thinking).

Martin Arnold’s 2018 book The Dragon: Fear & Power claims that we can’t figure out what the dragon means, and the book reduces the {dragon} to the Social domain, reductionistically, not at all recognizing the dragon as an altered-state-specific denizen.

It was so hard to figure out handedness and branching-message mushroom trees, that good mushroom art was in my 2006 main article, and I only recognized the message of handedness & non-branching in 2022, 16 years later.  

Now I’m extra happy with the dumb luck that my main article has absolutely profound branching and handedness messaging in the first and last illustrations, even if the text didn’t yet comprehend that, but just has my “here be dragons” un-completed effort to explain in 2006 Moses’ {healing rigid snake on a pole} — or on a {tree with cut branches}.

Dumb luck – but no coincidence actually, that where there is Psilocybin in art, there is profound representation of eternalism as non-branching, per my next great mytheme equation:

{branching vs. non-branching} = possibilism vs. eternalism

Much awesomer than realized during 2006-2021
Took WAY too long to decode {holding branch w/ left hand}

The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death (2006 main article)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/the-entheogen-theory-of-religion-and-ego-death-2006-main-article/

Lucid.news on Psychedelic Chaplaincy

This is a strange coincidence, I was going to reply with URLs for a pair of articles from lucid.news, and I see that your thread already has lucid.news content.

Pioneering Clergy of Diverse Religions Embrace Psychedelics
https://www.lucid.news/pioneering-clergy-of-diverse-religions-embrace-psychedelics/

Chaplains Are Learning to Become Psychedelic Guides
https://www.lucid.news/chaplains-become-psychedelic-guides/

Your Jesse article in Lucid newsletter mentions the report I’m looking for: KJ quotes Bob Jesse:

“Jesse is also looking forward to the release of another much anticipated report: “This year will see publication of a controlled study conducted at Johns Hopkins and NYU, in which religious leaders of various traditions were given high-dose psilocybin sessions and asked to report their experiences through the lens of their tradition.”

CEQ Deletes the Main Negative Psychedelic Effects – Part 1

You [Brown] wrote:

“trying to position psychedelics positively to successfully navigate the media and political landscape surrounding the Psychedelic Renaissance and current research.”

Charles Stang inquired about coverage of negative mystical experiences, and so Griffiths said his Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ) is supposed to cover negative/ challenging/ risks — but CEQ fails, in its “final” version.

CEQ’s Initial Item Pool was not too bad, though that pool already overlooked the 8 (of 21) Dread questions which didn’t make the cut for the final version of 11-Factors’ Anxiety factor, or the Impaired Control and Cognition factor, of Studerus’ 11-Factors version of OAV.

One of those 8 questions (#54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control”) was key, and was initially in 11-Factors’ Anxiety factor/category — that’s how close Griffiths came to adding that important item to the Initial Item Pool – but it’s still likely Griffiths would have removed such good Control-challenge effects questions from the “final” CEQ.

The CEQ argues that we must protect client safety and protect continued research, by better accounting for the full range of challenging experiences, unlike the 21-question Dread category of the Dittrich questionnaire series:

APZ (22 Angst/Dread effects items)

OAV (21 Angst/Dread effects items)

5D-ASC (21 Angst/Dread effects items)

11-Factors replaces the OAV 1994 high-level dimensions/categories (O, A, & V).

11-Factors also adds 11 low-level factors/categories (practically 13)).

11-Factors adds the low-level factors/categories, 11 of them, and 2 phantom virtual factors or remnant factors begging to be overlooked.

The remnant factors/categories are:

  • Unpleasant Experiences (8 non-factor items vs. 13 factor members) – effects questions that are members of the high-level Unpleasant factor, but not of any low-level factor/category. “Factor 12”
  • Pleasant Experiences (16 non-factor items vs. many factor members) – effects questions that are members of the high-level Pleasant factor, but not of any low-level factor/category. “Factor 13”

11-Factors has a 21-item Unpleasant Experiences high-level category, which exactly matches the 21-item Angst/Dread dimension/category of OAV 1994 & of 5D-ASC.

The CEQ first gathers most (13 of 21) of the negative effects questions from OAV’s ‘Angst/Dread‘ category when picking 64 items from the 3 main questionnaires to form the Initial Item Pool.

But then CEQ recklessly discards most of the negative effects during a project of highlighting the favored new category of “Grief”, ignoring Control issues, to produce the “final” set of CEQ items (discarding Dread, adding Grief to replace – not augment! – Dread).

Psychedelic Psychometrics Science = Arbitrarily Delete 86% of Negative Effects Questions

Instead of adding coverage of risks, Griffiths deleted(!) 18(!) of 21 effects questions (86%) from Angst/Dread. 

This wild, uncontrolled bulk deletion of challenging effects questions increases risk, while claiming to decrease risk. 

There’s no discussion about removing items, just vague broad math that obscures the “judgment” process that’s mentioned in the CEQ article:

“Twenty-seven items (spanning all six scales of the HRS) that were judged by the authors to assess a potentially challenging aspect of experience with classic hallucinogens were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ.” – CEQ article Griffiths 2016 p. 4.

CEQ Deletes the Main Negative Psychedelic Effects – Part 2

Did Griffiths pick any of HRS’s Volition sub-scale items for CEQ’s Initial Item Pool? If so, that would contradict their statement on p. 2 that Volition effects are not expected and judged/hypothesized to be challenging:

“Of the six sub-scales of the HRS (i.e. affect, cognition, intensity, perception, somaesthesia, and volition), one might hypothesize that the affect, cognition, and somaesthesia subscales might be most sensitive to challenging experiences [unlike intensity, perception, and volition].”

The HRS, including showing each item in each category, is unobtainable. So I can’t answer whether Griffiths picked any of HRS’s Volition items for the CEQ Initial Item Pool.

HRS – “Hallucinogen Rating Scale” Questionnaire
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/hrs-hallucinogen-rating-scale/

The resulting CEQ is Griffiths’ “Science” done in the dark, under the occluding cover of misapplied math.

The 3 main questionnaires are:

  • SOCQ/MEQ43/MEQ30
  • HRS (Strassman)
  • APZ 1975
    • APZ with OAVG [1985]
    • OAV [1994] & BETA [1994?]
    • 5D-ASC [2000 & 2006]
    • 11-Factors [2010].

The CEQ article confusingly says “5D-ASC” (with typos actually) but in fact pulls from 11-Factors.

The CEQ Initial Item Pool is 64 questions from those 3 questionnaires.  It ought to have been 8 more; 72.

The questions pulled in from 11-Factors is confused: Griffiths was supposed to pick the entire set of 21 Unpleasant Experiences items, but they only picked the subset of 13 of those items that are members of Anxiety (ANX) low-level factor or Impaired Control and Cognition (ICC) low-level factor.

Griffiths mistakenly ignored the 8 effects items that in 11-Factors ended up as direct members of the high-level category, Unpleasant Experiences.

Griffiths 2016 (CEQ) made the mistake because Studerus 2010 didn’t communicate well, that 11-Factors has two levels of categories, not just high-level O/A/V categories:

High-level categories of 11-Factors: 11-Factors conjoins O(ceanic) & V(isionary) to produce 45 Pleasant Experiences. “Unpleasant” is identical with OAV’s Angst/Dread (the same 21 effects items/questions).  45 + 21 = 66, identical with OAV’s 66 total items.

Low-level categories of 11-Factors: Omits 24 items of OAV’s 66, at this level; 66-24=42 items are in the 11 low-level factors/categories.  Omits Unpleasant (8) & Pleasant (16) items that are members of high-level but not of any low-level factor/category.

Psychedelic Effects Question #54 😱

#54. I was afraid to lose my self-control.

😱🐉🚪💎🌳🍄🐍🏆😇🍄🚪⚡️🍄

In Studerus 2010 Figure S1 vs. S2 – watch how items / questions / effects move – Psychedelic Effects Question #54 😱🐉🚪💎🌳🍄🐍🏆😇🍄 moves out of Anxiety factor at some point, after Figure S2.

How Question #54 Eventually Moves Out from 11-Factors’ Anxiety Factor to Become a Direct Member of “Unpleasant” High-Level Category

These diagrams were added later.

In the first, Figure S1 tree hierarchy, the Anxiety factor (blue box) includes question #54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control”:

Studerus 2010 Figure S1, Unpleasant Experiences high-level category:
Direct Unpleasant members items: 4
Anxiety factor items (blue box): 8
Impaired Control and Cognition factor items (green box): 9
Total: 21

In the second, Figure S2 tree hierarchy, the Anxiety factor continues to include question #54, and #12: “I felt tormented” is now a direct member of Unpleasant, removed from the Anxiety factor:

Studerus 2010 Figure S2, Unpleasant Experiences high-level category:
Direct Unpleasant members items: 6
Anxiety factor items (blue box): 7
Impaired Control and Cognition factor items (green box): 8
Total: 21

In the final version of the factor categories, Figure 1 in the article p. 9, the Anxiety factor (bottom group) no longer includes #54, “I was afraid to lose my self-control”, between items #19 & #30:

Studerus 2010 Figure 1, page 9, final items in ICC & ANX factors, from the Unpleasant Experiences high-level category:
Direct Unpleasant members items: 8 (not shown!)
Anxiety factor items (bottom group): 6
Impaired Control and Cognition factor items (top group): 7
Total: 13 (8 Unpleasant items not represented)

CEQ Deletes the Main Negative Psychedelic Effects – Part 3

The counts are in parentheses in the TOC of my 11-Factors page:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/30/11-factors-questionnaire-with-all-13-groups-of-all-66-effects-questions-shown/

That’s how Griffiths failed to include the most important question, the main question I track that got disastrously overlooked: #54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”  

Griffith’s psychometrics math is bad and not legit, evidenced by the lack of item #54 and similar items about Control challenges.

As the CEQ article argues, when risks aren’t accounted for, it is risky (for psychonauts & for researchers, to keep research permitted).  

The CEQ, in its “final” version, increases risk compared to OAV’s Angst/Dread categories of 21 effects items/questions, since discards 18 Dread items and only retains 3 of those items, and not the most challenging items, such as #54.

CEQ can be somewhat repaired by adding my Control factor/category containing 7 items (deliberately 1 bigger than Griffiths’ pet new Grief category), but the ~7 dup questions probably need to be removed – it’s paranoia-inducing being asked the same effect question in 2 or 3 slightly different ways because dup’d across the source questionnaires.  

The CEQ needs a reality check and a re-do, and an actual discussion of the content of every negative question that they omit from the resulting questionnaire.  

Naturally, the people who made a lopsidedly positive MEQ are unable to make an actual CEQ.  It’s the same team repeating the same kind of mistake.  As if they are able to correct their habitual error of blind spots. 

So I made my specialized Eternalism and Control Questionnaire (ECQ), to correctly supplement the CEQ which attempts and fails to band-aid the MEQ.

The CEQ is the repressed, dissociated shadow of the MEQ.

The “final” CEQ in effect discards the Dread questions – it retains 3 weak questions of OAV’s 21 Dread effects questions:

*  CEQ keeps the Isolation question, to pad-out Griffiths’ Isolation pseudo-category (= 3 dup effects questions from the 3 main questionnaires).  “I felt isolated from everything and everyone.”

*  CEQ keeps a generic, vague Fear category question (I’ve got a bad feeling about this), “I had the feeling something horrible would happen.”

*  CEQ keeps the “last forever” question to put in their Insanity category.  “I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever.”

The important Control issues that the final CEQ fails to cover includes the main challenging experience, the experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control – the terrifying {dragon monster} experience demanding surrender – and demanding sacrifice of the claim to autonomous egoic control agency in a branching world.  

So I listed my 7 top recommended questionnaire items that need to be added in a Control factor (category) in the CEQ.

url: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/how-to-redeem-the-ceq-add-a-control-category-and-the-surveys-questions-about-experiencing-the-threat-of-loss-of-control/#The-Resulting-Improved-CEQ

But even with my correction, the CEQ seems like a non-serious mockup/sketch, not a usable questionnaire.

CEQ is the repressed shadow of the MEQ (Mystical Experience Questionnaire).

CEQ Deletes the Main Negative Psychedelic Effects – Part 4

I hope people find some value in my questionnaire research, it was hard to find summary information.  The claim to build a Science-based foundation seems to boil down to these psychometrics questionnaires, which are not beyond critique.

The CEQ (Challenging Experiences Questionnaire) is intended to address some objections.  But CEQ is itself half-baked in its final result that doesn’t even seem usable, with 7 dup questions about the same effect from different questionnaires padding out the hit-or-miss categories.

At the moment, I’m searching to see if Griffiths yet published the 2015-started research, I don’t think it’s about Meditation, I think it’s about Psychedelic Chaplaincy, that he was mentioning on Jordan Peterson’s YouTube channel not long ago, May 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIP-3Q-p_s&t=2635s but Griffiths has a pact to not talk about the results until the study is published.

Griffiths has been getting a lot of pushback.  From Jordan Peterson, from Charles Stang, and I’ve found others.

That first Lucid article tells of a rabbi breaking away from, or moving through Griffiths’ experiments and then breaking away into a direction that’s not the brand of religion that’s baked into Griffiths’ model.  The rabbi started the Jewish group Shefa: https://www.shefaflow.org/about-shefa

I even detect possible hints of Griffiths’ research partner Matthew Johnson wanting to break out of the Griffiths conception of religion or spirituality.   

An earlier major article by Roland Griffiths & Matthew Johnson has photos of a Buddha statue in the clinic couch room (the last page):

Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety
Matthew W. Johnson, William A. Richards, and Roland R. Griffiths
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3056407/pdf/nihms256719.pdf
2008

Guidelines for Safety article, Figure 1: “The living room-like session room used in the Johns Hopkins hallucinogen research studies. …”

… and then more recently (2021 – 2008 = 13 years later), Johnson wrote the article Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus, the “lose the New Age symbolism” article discussed on Charles Stang’s Harvard series of webinars, Psychedelics and the Future of Religion (academic year 2020-2021, now folded into the newer “Transcendence and Transformation” initiative at Harvard Divinity School.

Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus: Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine
Matthew W. Johnson
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8033601/pdf/pt0c00198.pdf
2021

Buddha Statue Spotted; Someone Alert Matthew Johnson

url https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_therapy#Resurgence_in_the_early_21st_century –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_therapy#Resurgence_in_the_early_21st_century

Must Identify the Specific Nature of the Risk

Jesse – “a key role for the media to play in educating about the full range of possible outcomes and contextualizing the negative ones.”

That comes down to recognizing the {shadow/ dragon} as threat of loss of control during pursuing Transcendent Knowledge and transformation to the adult form, while switching from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking, in the eternalism state of consciousness. 

The eternalism experiential mode, which eventually produces the eternalism mental world model of time, control, and possibilities.

Bricklin: Enlightenment = Eternalism

Bricklin’s book The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’s Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment (SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology), equates “enlightenment” with eternalism.  

That book is part of Consciousness Studies, the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, & Journal of Consciousness Studies, and was reviewed in draft by Benny Shanon & Ramesh Balsekar. 

Balsekar asserted no-free-will as enlightenment, among the Ken Wilber Integral Theory crowd.  

Such books by Sam Harris, Balsekar, Shanon, Campbell, and Bricklin don’t bring the ideas together tightly and simply, as the Egodeath theory does.

The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time: William James’ Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment (Bricklin, Eternalism)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/15/illusion-will-self-time-james-enlightenment-bricklin-eternalism/

/ end of Bricklin section

The risk is the {shadow/ dragon}, is the threat of transgressive control instability during the transition from possibilism to eternalism – as a state, followed by producing a mental world model.

The state transition to the eternalism experiential mode transforms both egoic steering/controller thinking, and the branching-possibilities world in which steering and creating one’s future happens, or (normally) feels like it’s happening (according to the possibilism experiential mode, which is the ordinary state).

Reckon with This: Canterbury Mushroom Psalter

Jesse:  “the historical and scientific evidence is overwhelming that entheogens, used appropriately, often occasion experiences that people describe as profoundly ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ (both of these terms are hard to pin down). Government and the culture will need to reckon with that“

The evidence is common because the source of religious experiencing is entheogens, as evidenced by branching-message mushroom trees and other mushroom imagery within the heart of Christian history — not only “early Christianity”, but Middle Ages, explicitly (not “hidden” or “secret”; not foreign or alien), inside the mainstream cathedrals and chapels and illuminated manuscripts

— as with my full uncovering of all 75 of the mushroom plants, with essential interpretation, in the Great Mushroom Psalter by Eadwine, November 2020 – March 2022.

The 75 Mushroom Trees of the Canterbury Psalter
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/03/13/the-75-mushroom-trees-of-the-canterbury-psalter/

— Michael
[January 7, 2023] / end of msg (& correction msgs) to Brown

See Also

Page: Idea Development page 15
Section: Article About Griffiths’ Psychedelic Priests Study
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/idea-development-page-15/#Article-Psychedelic-Priests-Study
About article:
Pioneering Clergy of Diverse Religions Embrace Psychedelics
Don Lattin, April 2022

Add the ‘Control’ Category to the Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ) (Matthew Johnson thread)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/add-the-control-category-to-the-challenging-experiences-questionnaire-ceq-matthew-johnson-thread/

References
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/29/oav-questionnaire-1994-oceanic-boundlessness-angst-of-dread-of-ego-dissolution-visionary-restructuralization-dittrich/#References

Admin: Resuming Long Idea Development Pages, Indented List Items Solved

Admin: Got Nested Lists Working Again So Can Resume Using the Long Idea Development Pages

Contents:

Got Nested Lists Working Again

This seems like a tiny malfunction, but it had a huge impact.

I recently figured out the workaround to use and view nested list items eg. in a page’s Table of Contents list.

So I can resume updating the Site Map page and I can resume using the long Idea Development pages.

For example, I will add content to the top of Idea Development page 15 until WordPress bogs down due to too many blocks. Then will start page 16.
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/idea-development-page-15/

Indented Heading

Indented entry in TOC list.

2023 🎉

Sync’ing Changes Between Mobile App & Desktop

I’ve figured out more about sync’ing changes made on the WordPress mobile app vs. in desktop browser.

Voice Transcription Workarounds Found

I’ve developed Undo techniques when voice transcription goes insane and starts deleting text as fast as it can.

APZ 1975 Psychedelic Psychometrics Questionnaire (Dittrich): Oceanic Heaven, Dread Hell, and Visionary Visions

Cybermonk, January 2, 2023

Contents:

Intro

Motivation of this page: I just produced a hardcopy of the 1993 Dittrich article / conference presentation.

I’m here reporting my observations and findings in that article. From the 1993 conference proceedings 1994 book:

DOCTORS AND PROFESSORS
THE PROFESSOR

Need a Dedicated Page for Each Variant of Each Questionnaire

Across the 3 main questionnaires lineages, it turns out, that it’s best to have a separate webpage covering each variant of each questionnaire.

The 3 main questionnaires lineages:

  • APZ/ OAV/ 5D-ASC/ 11-Factors
  • SOCQ/ MEQ43/ MEQ30/ CEQ
  • HRS – Hallucinogen Rating Scale (DMT, Rick Strassman)

11-Factors Variants

The 11-Factors article Studerus 2010 defines about 3 different versions of 11-Factors’ ICC & ANX categories – eg ANX initially contains (Figure S1) the key question 54: I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

  • Figure S1 = v1
  • Figure S2 = v2
  • final = v3.

Studerus 2010’s 11-Factors finally “dropped” item 54 (from the ANX factor, not entirely from the high-level Unpleasant subscale!). But Studerus doesn’t show the 2-level scheme in the article main document, only in a separate figure S1, then S2.

Studerus didn’t clearly depict that the Unplesant high-level category contains two factors and some non-factor members.

Earlier, per Figure S1, ANX and ICC contained more items.

Figure S2 removed 1 item from each of those factors.

The final version of 11-Factors removed 2 items from the ANX factor, and removed 2 items from the ICC factor, compared to Figure S1.

MEQ Variants

Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ)

MEQ43 [1967?] shrank [what year?] to MEQ30.

CEQ Variants

Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ)

CEQ is MEQ’s malformed, repressed shadow.

GIVEN: Mystical experiences = positive experiences.

Therefore, challenging experiences = non-mystical, or anti-mystical.

The CEQ article defines two very different versions of CEQ:

  • CEQ[Initial Item Pool]
  • CEQ[final]

In 2016, Griffiths constructed CEQ’s Initial Item Pool by only picking Anxiety (ANX, 6 items) & “Impaired Control and Cognition” (ICC, 7 items) items (13 items total) from 11-Factors, instead of the entire inclusive “Unpleasant Experiences” subscale (21 items).

Griffiths omitted 8 challenging effects questions, including the important question 54.

Griffiths should have added the entire 21-item Unpleasant high-level scale from 11-Factors, not just the 13 items from ANX(6) + ICC(7) factors.

In 2016, Griffiths added CEQ as the repressed, dissociated complement of MEQ to handle and route/defuse the shadow, the “challenging & unpleasant therefore non-mystical“, or even anti-mystical, experiences.

When Griffiths had the CEQ Initial Item Pool of 64 items, they wanted to cut the CEQ items down a lot to be fewer than the 30 items of the revised MEQ.

OAV’s Dread factor contained 21 items and CEQ claimed to have broader coverage than Dread.

So CEQ ended up reduced from 64 to 26 items, halfway between the Dread count and the MEQ reduced count.

What scientific process did they use to cut down 64 to 24? (Then bumped to 26.)

Pick the maladies we’re familiar with from the psychotherapy profession, and delete strange, psychedelic effects questions that don’t match our bookshelf of conventional, ordinary-state psychotherapy books.

Like “marionette puppet with no will” — that’s strange, it doesn’t fit the plan, delete those items.

Drugs and Mysticism: An Analysis of the Relationship between Psychedelic Drugs and the Mystical Consciousness (Pahnke 1963 book)

Walter Pahnke, 1963

Thesis presented to The Committee on Higher Degrees in History and Philosophy of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Religion and Society, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June, 1963.

Full text of Pahnke’s 1963 dissertation book, created from MAPS scans of the typed dissertation:
http://en.psilosophy.info/drugs_and_mysticism.html

PDF version of that, 119 pages: http://www.en.psilosophy.info/pdf/drugs_and_mysticism_(psilosophy.info).pdf – footer: “since 09.06.2015 at http://www.en.psilosophy.info“

Scans:
https://maps.org/images/pdf/books/pahnke/walter_pahnke_drugs_and_mysticism.pdf

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-mysticism-relationship-psychedelic-consciousness/dp/B0007J6OPY

CEQ Redirects Control-Transformation Bad Trippers into Ordinary-State Grief Psychotherapy Business

CEQ Serves to Develop Psychotherapy Business by “Catching” Bad Trippers and Re-routing them from Control Rebirth Transformation to Ordinary-state Grief Couch Psychotherapy Business Instead

CEQ is designed for “catching”/ re-routing bad trippers who got attracted into the Control-challenges control vortex, instead aborting their transformation and delivering them instead into the hands of the ordinary-state-based Grief psychotherapy marketing/ business development department.

Here’s my too-broad page trying to cover too many variants of Dittrich’s lineage questionnaire all at once:

5D-ASC – “Five-Dimensional Altered States of Consciousness” Questionnaire (APZ 1975, OAV 1994, 5D-ASC 2006, 11 Factors 2010)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/5d-asc-five-dimensional-altered-states-of-consciousness-questionnaire/

I’m now studying Dittrich’s 1993/1994 discussion of what’s wrong with 1975 APZ’s O/A/V effects category counts, and how in 1994 we’re engineering a new questionnaire, called OAV, to remedy the too-negative effects of psychedelics.

The old scales (APZ) made psychedelics produce too many negative effects (eg p. 106: “a feeling of loss of control”). 😞

So we engineered this new scale (OAV) to register bad psychedelics effects as being only 47% as numerous as the good effects, instead of 81% as numerous. 🎉 😊

Article: Dittrich 1993/1994:
Psychological aspects of altered states of consciousness of the LSD type: Measurement of their basic dimensions and prediction of individual differences
in book:
50 Years of LSD: Current Status and Perspectives of Hallucinogens: A Symposium of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences,  Lugano-Agno (Switzerland) October 21 and 22, 1993
Pletscher A, Ladewig D, eds.

1993/1994 Article Defines APZ’s O/A/V Effects Questions, Not OAV Questionnaire’s Improved Scheme

When did APZ give way to the OAV questionnaire?

The OAV questionnaire exists in 1989, in German, 4 years after Dittrich’s 1985 article that identifies O/A/V in 1975’s APZ questionnaire.

Here is a reference to the OAV questionnaire as early as 1989! Reference 16, Bodmer, a Results section on Dittrich 1993/1994 page 113:

“the three primary and the one secondary scale of the questionnaire OAV[16, 17].” 16 = Bodmer 1989,
Konstruktion des Fragebogens OAV zure quantitativen Erfassung aussergewohnlicher Bewusstseinszustande (ABZ)
[Construction of the questionnaire OAV for the quantitative recording of extraordinary states of consciousness (ABZ)]

In 1985, I started work on the Egodeath theory.

By 1989, after the Jan. 1988 breakthrough, I was investigating hypertext technology to publish the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.

In 1993, I was describing the Egodeath theory on the WELL BBS, and there I discovered and announced the WWW, the Web, I estimated that I was one of the very first people at the WELL to announce or mention the w.w. Web.

Here as early as 1993 is Dittrich talking about “the follower of APZ, OAV, has become the standard”:

“A psychometrically improved version of the APZ exists in German.

“This questionnaire (‘OAV’) uses visual analog scales as a response instead of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

“‘APZ’ and ‘OAV’ scores can be transformed into each other by multiple regression equations.

“At least in Europe, the APZ questionnaire (or its follower, ‘OAV’) has become the standard instrument when assessing ASCs, which helps to integrate the international research.” – Dittrich 1993/1994

The Egodeath theory brings “the shadow” dragon monster into the light of Science.

The Egodeath theory participates in integrating the international psychedelic psychometrics research by defining the Eternalism and Control Questionnaire (ECQ):
ECQ – “Eternalism and Control Questionnaire”
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/eternalism-and-control-transformation-effects-in-the-psychedelics-effects-questionnaires/

“Peak Experiences” Is Defined by Dittrich as the Oceanic Heaven Dimension, Not the Dread Hell Dimension

page 116 at the end of the article body, Dittrich 1993/1994:

“In ASC-assisted psychotherapy it has been hypothesized by several therapists and researchers that ‘peak experiences‘ contribute substantially to the therapeutic outcome. This hypothesis can now be tested quantitatively using the corresponding scale of … (OSE) (oceanic boundlessness).”

Dittrich is biased and prejudiced and wrong.

  • Beginners’ medium-dose peak experience is Oceanic Boundlessness (OB).
  • Advanced high dose experience is Angst/Dread of Ego Dissolution (AED/AIA/DED).

Dr. Angst, Director of the Psychiatric Research Department

Repression of Angst/Dread:

“Acknowledgements” section of Dittrich 1993/1994, page 116:

“The studies on the common denominator of ASCs were performed at the Psychiatric University Clinic Burgholzli, Zurich, Research Department (Director: Prof. Dr med. J. Angst).”

Questions That Belong to a High-Level Category but Not a Low-Level Category Are Still Part of a Scale

page. 109 Dittrich 1993/1994:

“The four[?] APZ scales[?] are now available in psychometrically equivalent forms in English, …”

3 of the “four APZ scales” are O, A, & V.

What’s the other scale: the 72-O-A-V = 23 non-member items of the e-indep items, or, the entire set of 72? todo, research question

Here’s a simple driving question:
How many items are in the fourth scale of “the four APZ scales”? 72, or 23??

Answer A: 23 items: Table 5, “Additional items of the APZ secondary[high-level 72 all-up] scale: ‘altered state of consciousness’ [probably = “G-ASC” mentioned in CEQ article], n=23 items

Apparently the winner:

Answer B: 72 items: G-ASC; the APZ secondary scale, ‘altered state of consciousness’; the 72 etiology-indep items/effects, including [for 1975 APZ questionnaire, not for 1994 OAV questionnaire] 13 O, 22 A, and 14 V items, and 23 items that are not in O or A or V categories.

72, per my excerpt including:

“Together with [23] other features, these correlating scales [O, A, & V] form a secondary scale, Altered States of Consciousness, describing common features of ASCs as a whole.” – Dittrich 1985, Abstract: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-26371-001

This question and definition is highly relevant for Griffiths creating the CEQ patch for MEQ, where he starts by “accidentally overlooking” the 8 Unpleasant/Dread items that didn’t make it into the final version of the ICC or ANX factors defined by Studerus 2010.

If Griffiths had integrity when constructing the Initial Item Pool for CEQ, they should have grabbed the higher-level scale of all 21 Unpleasant Experiences (identical to OAV’s Dread dimension), not only the ICC+ANX 13 effects items.

Oops, accidentally reduced the negative effects of psychedelics by 8/21 = 38%

😇 🤷‍♂️ 😏 🤥 😬 🤐 😉

Too Many Hell Effects, Need More Heaven and Vision Effects

Dittrich 1994 (in book 50 Years of), p. 106:

“With reference to Huxley, it could be said that the three primary etiology-independent aspects of ASCs correspond to
‘heaven‘ [Oceanic Boundlessness],
‘hell‘ [Angst/Dread of Ego Dissolution] and
‘visions‘ [Visionary Restructuralization].”

p. 106, above that, gives the following four counts, using 1985’s O/A/V detection/analysis of the 1975 APZ questionnaire’s items:

APZ has:

Oceanic Heaven: 13 effects questions (too few, so in 1994’s OAV, we created more: 27).
These 13 APZ effects questions are listed in Table 2, Dittrich 1993/1994.

Dread Hell: 22 effects questions (too many, so in 1994’s OAV, we created fewer: 21).
These 22 APZ effects questions are listed in Table 3, Dittrich 1993/1994.

Visionary Visions: 14 (too few, so in 1994’s OAV, we created more: 18).
These 14 APZ effects questions are listed in Table 4, Dittrich 1993/1994.

Members of the 72 e-indep that aren’t in O/A/V: 23 (is there an equiv # in 1994’s new OAV q’air?)
These 23 APZ effects questions are listed in Table 5, Dittrich 1993/1994.

total: 72 etiology-independent effects questions. The other of APZ’s 158 q’s are etiology-dependent.

In 1975, figured out in 1985, before we repaired psychedelics to make them produce more O+V positive/mystical effects than negative/non-mystical effects, there were 13+14=27 good effects and 22 bad effects. Ratio of bad vs good was not acceptable: 22/27 =

The bad effects of psychedelics were 81% as numerous as the good effects.

😞

We need to press on the scales to make them produce many more good than bad effects.

OAV 1994 gives our improvement of the effects from psychedelics:

So instead, in 1994, we made psychedelics produce 27+18 = 45 good effects and 21 bad effects, 66 total in the O/A/V sets, ratio of bad vs good is now 21/45 = 47% bad effects;

The bad effects of psychedelics are now only 47% as numerous as the good effects.

🎉 😊

Studerus 2010 p. 2:

“Although reliabilities and validities of APZ scales were deemed to be acceptable … several weaknesses were also recognized. …

“the OBN and VRS dimensions contained a relatively low number of items, and the conceptual breadth of the VRS dimension was considered too narrow.

“Bodmer et al. [5] therefore developed a psychometrically improved version [of the APZ questionnaire] called [the] OAV [questionnaire].”

[“psychometrically improved” to reduce the % of negative psychedelics effects item counts -cm]

“The abbreviation OAV stands for the German names of the three dimensions OBN, [AED/] DED, and VRS.

“Because the OAV was supposed to measure the primary three dimensions of the APZ only [not the all-up, secondary, high-level set of effects items], its item pool was primarily derived from [the] 72 etiology-independent items of the [158-item] APZ.”

5. Bodmer I, Dittrich A, Lamparter D (1994) Aussergewo¨hnliche Bewusstseinszusta¨nde – Ihre gemeinsame Struktur und Messung
[Altered states of consciousness – Their common structure and assessment]. In: Hofmann A, Leuner H, eds.
Welten des Bewusstseins. Bd. 3, Experimentelle Psychologie, Neurobiologie und Chemie.
Berlin, Germany: VWB. pp 45–58.
See References below for more info.

I just printed out the article that’s prior to the above article, in English, 1993/1994, which is only about OAV counts in APZ, not the new OAV questionnaire and its “psychometrically improved” (to reduce the % of negative psychedelics effects) item counts.

APZ (158)

Etiology-Independent Items (72)

Item numbers are per 1975 APZ, not 1994 OAV.

Oceanic Boundlessness (13) (too few!)

Red Bold = of top interest for my Eternalism and Control Questionnaire (ECQ).
Bold = of interest for ECQ.

1. I had the feeling everything around me was somehow unreal.
7. I felt as though I were floating
13. The boundary between myself and my surroundings seemed to blur
16. I felt totally free and released from all responsibilities
31. I had the feeling that I had been transferred to another world
34. It seemed to me that there were no more conflict and contradictions in the world
68. It seemed to me as though I did not have a body any more
84. I felt very happy and content for no outward reason
92. I could have sat for hours looking at something
95. I was completely indifferent toward everything
127. I experienced past present and future as a oneness
129. It seemed to me that my environment and I were one
147. It seemed to me that I was dreaming

Angst/Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) (22) (too many!)

9. I had difficulty in distinguishing important from unimportant things
32. My thinking was constantly being interrupted by insignificant thoughts
40. My own feelings seemed strange to me as though they did not belong to me
44. I felt tormented without knowing exactly why
55. I felt like a robot
56. My surroundings seemed peculiarly strange to me
64. I felt threatened without realizing by what
66. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own
71. I was afraid without being able to say exactly why
83. I felt like a marionette
91. Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was really going on
105. I stayed frozen in a very unnatural position for quite a long time
107. I had difficulty making even the smallest decision
110. I felt as though I were paralyzed
131. Things around me appear distorted to me
133. Time passed more slowly than usual
136. I was not able to complete a thought; my thoughts became repeatedly became disconnected
141. I felt isolated from everything and everyone
148. It seemed to me that I no longer have any feelings
156. It seemed to me as though there were an invisible wall between me and my surroundings
157. I observed myself as though I were a stranger
158. I felt a total emptiness in my head

Visionary Restructuralization (14) (too few!)

14. So many thoughts and feelings assailed me at once that I became confused
29. I saw lights or flashes of light in total darkness or with closed eyes
33. I saw scenes rolling by like in a film in total darkness or with my eyes closed
42. Objects around me engaged me emotionally much more than usual
43. Things around me seemed to be bigger than usual
51. Things around me had a new, strange meaning for me
70. I saw colors before me in total darkness or with closed-eyes
80. I saw things that I knew were not real
100. I saw regular patterns in complete darkness or with closed eyes
119. Something occurred to me and I did not know whether I had dreamt or actually experienced it
120. I saw strange things, which I now know were not real
128. Everyday things gained a special meaning for me
134. Sounds seemed to influence what I saw
138. The colors of the things I saw were changed by sounds and noises

Etiology-Independent Items Not in O, A, or V (23)

2. Sounds and noises sounded different than usual
3. Time passed faster than usual
6. I simply could not get rid of some unimportant thought
11. I became conscious of another ‘I’ being hidden behind my usual ‘I’
19. The ground I was standing on seemed to be swaying
20. My ears were buzzing
22. I could not remember what had happened 2 h earlier
24. I had a vague feeling that something important would happen to me
28. Parts of my body seemed no longer to belong to me
39. I had the feeling my limbs were larger than usual
41. I was convinced that I had experienced the same situation before
[3 reasons for ego death that fence you in:
no control because control-thoughts already exist created for you;
no control because subject to an uncontrollable higher controller;
no control because overpoweringly compelling deja vu of this no-control -cm]
57. Things around me had a different smell than usual
58. I was tired and exhausted but at the same time wide awake
63. It seemed that I had once dreamt what I was experiencing
65. I perceived peculiar relationships between widely diverging matters
87. I had trouble distinguishing between what I imagined and what I really experienced
113. I no longer knew where I actually was
122. I had the feeling I could think faster or more clearly than usual
132. So many thoughts came to my mind that I was no longer able to organize them properly
137. I was too wide awake and too sensitive
139. I had the impression that everything occurring around me was related to me
146. I had a feeling that I could no longer control the movement of my body
152. I felt influenced by electric currents, rays, or hypnosis

Etiology-Dependent Items (158-72=86)

n/a, try my initial 5D Lineage page:

5D-ASC – “Five-Dimensional Altered States of Consciousness” Questionnaire (APZ 1975, OAV 1994, 5D-ASC 2006, 11 Factors 2010)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/5d-asc-five-dimensional-altered-states-of-consciousness-questionnaire/

Fatal Compelling Deja Vu

41. I was convinced that I had experienced the same situation before

3 reasons for ego death that surround and fence you in:

  • No control, because control-thoughts already exist, created for you.
  • No control, because subject to an uncontrollable higher controller.
  • No control, because experience an overpoweringly compelling deja vu of this no-control.

url https://youtu.be/4Zl2Us7mvJs

Misc. Research

This was the original References section.

todo: remove info from this section that was moved to the new dedicated References page.

Dittrich 1975 APZ

Dittrich A (1975)
Zusammenstellung eines fragebogens (APZ) zur erfassung abnormer psychischer zustände
[Construction of a questionnaire (APZ) for assessing abnormal mental states]
Z Klin Psychol Psychiatr Psychother 23: 12–20.

Draw another goblet
From the cask of ’43
Crimson misty mem’ry
Hazy glimpse of me

Neil Peart, Caress of Steel album, 1975, song The Fountain of Lamneth

lyrics: https://www.google.com/search?q=the+fountain+of+lamneth+lyrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caress_of_Steel

The album cover features an animated waterfall:

url

Dittrich 1985: OAV dimensions found in APZ[158]

Dittrich A, Vonarx S, Staub S
1985
International study on altered states of consciousness (ISASC): Summary of the results
Ger J Psychol 9: 319–339.

Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=dittrich+%22International+study+on+altered+states+of+consciousness%22

url https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-26371-001 – Abstract excerpts with my comments:

“In several previous experiments by the 1st author and colleagues (1981, 1982, in press [~= 1985]) on altered states of consciousness (ASCs) of healthy persons, the hypothesis was confirmed that

“ASCs have, irrespective of the means of induction, certain basic dimensions in common that can be reliably measured.

“It was confirmed that 3 primary scales are suitable for quantitative assessment [not according to Studerus 2010!] —Oceanic Boundlessness, Dread of Ego-Dissolution, and Visionary Restructuralization. [especially Studerus says don’t use the Visionary scale.]

“Together with [23] other features, these correlating scales [O, A, & V] form a secondary scale, Altered States of Consciousness, describing common features of ASCs as a whole.

“These 4 scales are available in psychometrically largely equivalent versions in different languages.”- Dittrich 1985, Abstract: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-26371-001

Dittrich 1994 (Oct. 1993) in book 50 Years of LSD – Readable at Google Books

Sweet, I snagged every page of the article and made a nice printout of the front matter & article.

🌳🍄🐍🏆

Dittrich A
1994
Psychological aspects of altered states of consciousness of the LSD type: Measurement of their basic dimensions and prediction of individual differences
In:
Pletscher A, Ladewig D, eds.
50 Years of LSD: Current Status and Perspectives of Hallucinogens: A Symposium of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences,  Lugano-Agno (Switzerland) October 21 and 22, 1993
New York NY: Parthenon. pp 101–118.

Swiss Academy of the Medical Sciences.
Proceedings of a Symposium of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, Lugano-Agno (Switzerland), October 21-22, 1993.
Pharmacological and clinical research on LSD, for pharmacologists or psychiatrists.
17 contributors, 5 U.S.

url https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Years-LSD-Perspectives-Hallucinogens/dp/1850705690

Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Psychological+aspects+of+altered+states+of+consciousness+of+the+LSD+type%22

Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=3s5vkfmXKNUC&pg=PA101

Dittrich 1994 OAV with inflated O & V, shrunken A, in book Worlds of Consciousness, Volume 3 (German)

Bodmer I, Dittrich A, Lamparter D.
Aussergewöhnliche Bewusstseinszustände – Ihre gemeinsame Struktur und Messung
[Altered states of consciousness – Their common structure and assessment].
1994
In:
Hofmann A, Leuner H, editors. 
Welten des Bewusstseins. Bd. 3, Experimentelle Psychologie, Neurobiologie und Chemie.
Berlin, Germany: VWB; 1994. pp. 45–58.

Annual journal book that in 1994 defines OAV:
Worlds of Consciousness
Bodmer, I., Dittrich, A. & Lamparter, D. in Welten des Bewusstseins. Bd. 3 (eds. Hofmann, A. & Leuner, H.) 45–58 (Experimentelle Psychologie, Neurobiologie und Chemie., 1994).

Welten des Bewußtseins, Bd.3 – https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Adolf-Dittrich/dp/3861354020/

Dittrich 1998 article about OAV questionnaire [66 items] with improved (tilted positive) OAV items compared to APZ [158 items]

Dittrich A (1998)
The standardized psychometric assessment of altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in humans
Pharmacopsychiatry 31: 80–84.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9754838/ – paywall for PDF fulltext

Abstract:

“The APZ questionnaire was developed in order to explore hypotheses on ASCs.

“First — in a series of 11 experiments using different induction methods on N = 393 healthy subjects — the hypothesis was tested that ASCs have major dimensions in common irrespective of the mode of their induction.

“In the International Study on Altered States of Consciousness (ISASC) the external validity of the experimental results was assessed.

“The ISASC was carried out on a total of N = 1133 subjects in six countries.

“The main results of the experimental studies were corroborated in the field studies.

“The results can be summarized as follows:

“the common denominator of ASCs is described by three oblique dimensions, designated as
“Oceanic Boundlessness (OSE)”,
“Dread of Ego Dissolution (AIA) [DED, AED]” and
“Visionary Restructuralization (VUS)”.

“The reliability and validity of the scales are satisfactory.

“Tested versions of the APZ scales are available in English (UK, USA), German, Italian and Portuguese.

“Psychometrically as yet untested versions exist in Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Spanish and Russian.

“The APZ questionnaire has become the international standard for the assessment of ASCs, thus helping to integrate research.” [the 1993 Dittrich article in 50 Years book uses similar wording, p. 111]

5D-ASC’s Two Extra Dimensions, as a Separate “BETA” Questionnaire, Is Mentioned in 1998 Article

continuing from 1998 quoted passage above:

“A psychometrically improved version exists in German (OAV questionnaire).

“The BETA questionnaire, which measures the dimensions “Vigilance Reduction (VIR)” and “Auditive Alteration (AVE)” is also available in German. “

This 1998 mention of dimensions 4 & 5 (though as a separate, “BETA” questionnaire) corroborates Studerus’ 2010 claim that 5D-ASC data was gathered starting in 2000, not in 2006 when the 5D (German) article was published.

“These dimensions are most likely etiology-dependent.”

Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+standardized+psychometric+assessment+of+altered+states+of+consciousness%22

Dittrich 2006 5D-ASC (German) Adding 2 Positive Dimensions to Reduce Negative from 1/3 to 1/5

6. Dittrich, A, Lamparter, D, Maurer, M (2006) 5D-ABZ:
German garbled from pdf, see Studerus 2010: References.
Fragebogen zur Erfassung Aussergewo¨hnlicher Bewusstseinszusta¨nde. Eine kurze Einfu¨hrung
[5D-ASC: Questionnaire for the assessment of altered states of consciousness. A short introduction]. Zurich, Switzerland: PSIN PLUS.

todo – link (good luck finding)

Dittrich 2010 5D-ASC (English)

Dittrich, A, Lamparter, D, Maurer, M (2010)
5D-ASC: Questionnaire for the assessment of altered states of consciousness. A short introduction.
Zurich, Switzerland: PSIN PLUS.

todo – link (good luck finding)

Search:

url https://www.google.com/search?q=Dittrich+Lamparter+Maurer

url https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Questionnaire+for+the+assessment+of+altered+states+of+consciousness%22+%22A+short+introduction%22

url https://www.google.com/search?q=Dittman+%22Questionnaire+for+the+assessment+of+altered+states+of+consciousness%22

History of Lineage of Dittrich’s 5D-ASC

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

This topic is distinct from basics “First of all, what is the 5D-ASC?” Keep 5D-ASC Reference page focused on that, not periphery relation to other q’airs.

APZ 1975, by Dittrich, 137(?) questions

OAV dimensions were id’d by Dittrich in 1985, within APZ.

OAV v2 1994, partial overlap w/ OAV 1985 items. I have a page covering both sets.

+ two aetiology-dependent dimensions 1993-1994 that probably became the Auditory & Reduced Vigilance dimensions.

5D-ASC 2006 (Dimensions: OAV + Aud + Reduction of Vigilance, probably plus ASC-G General dimension; if so, it is actually more like 6D-ASC) – good luck getting any answer on why General exists, probably same reason Shadow Factor 13 & Virtual Factor 12 exists in my telling of 11-Factors: effects which are too broad to fit into the lower, OAV dimensions.

Problems Using 11-Factors: Omits ASC-G negative items & hides Unpleasant items that aren’t in ICC or ANX factor

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

11 Factors or whatever it’s named if it even has a name, Studerus group not Dittrich – article says drew from 5D-ASC 2006, but more specifically they drew from just OAV 1994; 11-Factors totally ignores the low-interest Aud & ReducVigil dimensions. Actually it’s 15-Factors, in that it has four add’l factor-like categories of fx items:

  • “Pleasant experiences” hi-lev dim – barely mentioned in Studerus article.
  • “Unpleasant experiences” hi-lev dim – “
  • Virtual Factor 12
  • Shadow Factor 13
  • I think 11-F didn’t pick up any ASC-G items from Dittrich. Why not? Study Studerus article. I have a page/ section covering those items.

“11-Factors” – it’s not even determinate what the name of that q’air is!

That’s how unclear Studerus’ pair of articles is.

Can’t get a simple straight answer in this field.

Even Griffiths team when gathering initial item pool for CEQ seems confused about what 11-Factors is, which dimensions or factors contain each of Dittrich’s items – making it all too convenient for the Griffiths to “accidentally overlook” around 8+8 negative effects which didn’t end up in the subset of Angst/Dread questions, in the ICC or ANX factors,

  • because those negative effects items were in 11-F’s “Unpleasant” high-level dimension but not in ICC [Impaired Control and Cognition] or ANX [Anxiety] factors. 8 Unpleasant items were “hidden” in my Shadow Factor 13, within the Unpleasant Experiences high-level dimension.
  • or because those negative effects items were in OAV’s or 5D’s ASC-G General dim but not – for whatever reason – in 5D’s A/Angst/Dread dim. My critique has not yet gone into that ASC-G set of items, Dec 2022-Dec 2024.

Intro to 5D-ASC

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

If the items (psychedelic effects questions) are available, which is doubtful for most such q’airs, I’ll put them here.

DRAFT ARTICLE, sketchy, not trustworthy yet; a confusing and difficult area of “science”, hard to get any simple basic straight answers.

You are on the leading edge 🐉😱 of altered-state theory.

The good thing is, I know specifically what I’m looking for, to fill in this page, and this page has good structure to get clear on that.

Bad thing: It’s humbling and depressing, how hard this is to pull together intelligibly – resources might be better than 2 years ago Dec. 2022; re-search the web, to fill in this useful template.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APZ_questionnaire – How many errors can you fit in one sentence? —
“First published in 1998 by Adolf Dittrich, the APZ questionnaire comprises three dimensions: “Oceanic Boundlessness (OSE)”, “Dread of Ego Dissolution (AIA)” and “Visionary Restructuralization (VUS)”.

APZ (1975) includes OAV, and more; in 1985 Dittrich id’d O/A/V within APZ; in 1994 Dittrich revised O/A/V and added Aud + ReductionVigilance dimensions;

Plus, there’s the G-ASC General dimension – which apparently in 1985/1993 was VWB (“asc”) and had 23 items including:
146: I had a feeling that I could no longer control the movement of my body (see elsewhere in this webpage, for other items).

A =
Angstvolle Ichauflosung [AIA]
Angst of Ego Dissolution [AED]
Dread of Ego Dissolution [DED]

Plus, dread isn’t actually “of ego dissolution”; that’s not helpful and accurate; it’s vague.

And there are add’l negative items in G-ASC “secondary” ie higher level dimension, that aren’t in the “primary” ie lower level dimension, AED aka AIA aka DED.

For a different breakout, see 11 Factors, if that’s what its name is – not clear from the “validation” article about it. 11 Factors is same as OAV, though calling it “5DASC”, but is different at both the higher (secondary) level and the lower (primary) level.

Tallies from 1975 APZ Like Needed for 1994 OAV+G / 2006 5D-ASC

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

x https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/03/apz-1975-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaire-dittrich-oceanic-heaven-dread-hell-and-visionary-visions/ —

copied from TOC:

Did CEQ Drop 23 of 26 = 88% of the Negative Items from 5D-ASC?

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

CEQ should have added to their initial item pool ALL the A/Angst/Dread dimension items, and the negative items in G-ASC dimension.

Perhaps 21+5 = 26 instead of just the 13 items from ICC + ANX factors of 11-factors – iow, Griffiths only drew from HALF of the negative items from 5D-ASC!

Then threw away 10 of those 13, leaving 3 of 21 or 3 of 26.

I have to double-check G-ASC items, but today Dec 29 2024, I might score even higher % failure, higher than dropping 18 of 21!

Suppose Griffiths for CEQ final version:

kept 3 out of 26 negative items = kept 12% of negative effects from 5D-ASC.

dropped 23 of 26 negative items = dropped 88% of negative effects from 5D-ASC.

To check that G-ASC negative item count, see G-ASC list below. But first, I have to check where I got that, and what the list really is – how could I have gotten it from Studerus?

The Unavailable, Closed “Science” of Psychedelic Psychometrics questionnaires

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

To reverse engineer what items the 5D-ASC has, I had to gather these lists from various places, for the dimensions:

  • G-ASC (General)
  • O, A, & V (Ocean, Angst, Visionary)
  • Aud, & ReducedVigil

This page is uneven/ inconsistent that way.

This page is an obscured view of the 5D-ASC items through the indirect filter of the 11-Factors article and its separate illustration files. It’s not as if I found Dittrich’s official English article listing the 5D items and copied them here. I had to deduce, type in, transcribe from PDF exhibits, etc.

I had to messily reverse-engineer these lists of items, and they are presented grouped per the 11 Factors q’air article, maybe not by Dittrich though his 1993 or 1994 English article shows some lists of items.

You simply want a link to the list of questions grouped into dimensions/ categories? That’s straightforward, right?

Simple basic info about Psychedelic Psychometrics questionnaires is difficult to get ahold of. “Difficult” is an understatement; a euphemism for IMPOSSIBLE. Plain and simple basic info about these items/ effects questions is not available.

The public is not allowed to see how this alleged “science” works. Only shown sciencey-looking Public Relations puff pieces with meaningless math and substitutes for plain comprehensible explanation:

“We dropped items 5, 6, 18, 54, & 16-1/2, because of reason A or B (cross-loading).”

“Terror of loss of control didn’t fit exclusively in any one of our separate categories we made up, so, we dropped it.

“If this grieves you, sign up for our psychedelic Grief therapy. It’s popular, because our Big Pharma institution invested heavily in promoting it.”

The present site, EgodeathTheory.WordPress.com, is the first place to ask what the q’airs are, what they contain, their lineage, why CEQ drew from OAV + SOCQ + HRS, etc.

Typical situation: There’s only 1 article about this “tremendously important” q’air, it’s in German not English, and the article never says what’s in the q’air, but just talks ABOUT the q’air without ever SHOWING the q’air list of items to you.

That’s the typical state of affairs in this domain of “SCIENCE”, as of 2022.

You are permitted to read an article that claims to “validate” a given q’air — even q’airs that basically don’t make any sense and can’t possibly be sound, such as the MEQ that’s based on a wrong, arbitrary, outdated, and controverted notion of “mystical experience”, as if science knew anything about mystical experience.

Studerus cites “based on the science”, as a hidden endnote, buried citation of “Stace 1960”, that passes for “science”.

It took a huge amount of research Dec. 2022 to work toward getting just basic answers about what these Psychedelic Psychometrics questionnaires are.

This new 2024 page has a good, most-useful outline of sections to fill in, and offhand I’m not sure how much of this info I have gathered in other, Dec. 2022 pages.

This Phase 1 Early Pseudo Science of Psychedelic Psychometrics q’airs started with Tim Leary & Walter Pahnke’s PES/MEQ/SOCQ in 1962, & Dittrich’s APZ starting 1975 (13 years later).

Motivation for Creating the Other, 5D-ASC Basic Reference Page

This section was developed Dec. 29, 2024 in page
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/
and then was moved to the present older, broader page.

I have a page about the lineage from Dittrich covering all q’airs, and the URL is 5D-ASC specific, but the content is more like 10 different q’airs.

Instead of doing a ton of work to rework/ revise/ reduce/ refactor that page, easier to create fresh page, dedicated to 5D-ASC basics, with the desired template of sections needed.

Need a simple Reference page about each q’airs in the Dittrich lineage, eg:

  • APZ 1975
  • OAV 1985 found in the APZ (+ 2 aet-dep dims? check 1993 article)
  • OAV 1994 + 2 aet-dep dims
  • 5D-ASC 2006
  • 11 Factors

See Also

https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/5d-asc-questionnaire-reference-dittrich/

References

here’s the url link – just kidding, not available for YOU 😈 — its only for us Scientists

See the dedicated References page:
References for Psychedelic Psychometrics Questionnaires
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/references-for-psychedelic-psychometrics-questionnaires/

— Cybermonk, January 2, 2023

Stang Rejects Griffiths’ Conception of “Mystic Experiencing” Used to Experimentally Validate Psilocybin

Michael Hoffman, January 2, 2023 4:49 am UTC+0

Site Map > CEQ

Contents:

Intro

Verbose title:

Charles Stang Rejects Roland Griffiths’ Conception of “Mystic Experiencing” Used to Experimentally Scientifically Validate Psilocybin through Psychometric Questionnaires, Particularly the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) Patched by the Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ)

What package deal, exactly, are we being asked to buy into, when we nod along with Roland Griffiths in 2006 announcing that psychedelic psychometric science has proved that Psilocybin causes so-called “mystical experience”?

Who is defining this alleged thing, “mystical experience”?

Answer: William James 1900, Walter Stace 1960, Walter Pahnke 1962, and Roland Griffiths 2006.

And formally baked into that conception and definition of “mystical experience” is, you must describe it as ineffable, or else you didn’t have a “complete mystical experience”.

Read the MEQ30 questions and the 4 categories – this is what we’re being asked to buy into.

For a copy of the questions and categories, and someone’s dubious definition of a “complete mystical experience”, see Figure 1 in Griffiths 2015:

Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin
Frederick Barrett, Mathew Johnson, Roland Griffiths
2015
Pubmed url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ – for PDF, click “FREE Full text PMC” button in upper right.
The 30 questions and 4 categories are shown in Figure 1 on page 15.

When looking at this set of 30 psilocybin effects questions in 4 categories critically, do you really buy into the paradigm that’s being used as if a scientific basis, here?

An intensively 1960-era Christian-brand/couched notion of what the intense mystic altered state is.

Charles Stang says “mystic experiencing” is distorted by Stace/ Pahnke/ Griffiths. I agree.

Charles Stang confronted Griffiths in the first episode of the Harvard video interview series, for failing to match the archive data reports of mystics, and misrepresenting mystic experiencing as solely positive and pleasant.

🦄💨🌈

It was through Stang’s challenging of Griffiths, prompting Griffiths to refer to his Challenging Experiences Questionnaire, that I learned Psychedelics Psychometrics and identified how the key peak ego death experience of the threat of catastrophic loss of control is represented or overlooked in psychedelics questionnaires.

— Cybermonk, December 30, 2022/ January 1, 2023

Irony or Self-Contradiction: Matthew “No Buddha Statues” Johnson Pushes the Highly Biased “Mystical Experience” Questionnaire (MEQ)

Update Jan 3, 2022: It doesn’t come across clearly at all from Charles Stang, that Stang criticizes MEQ as biased filtering/creation of a certain conception of “mysticism”.

Stang praises Matthew Johnson’s cautionary article that says ditch the Buddha statue and act neutral when prepping and guiding clinical psilocybin research & therapy – YET who is pushing the biased, lopsided, Christian-particular MEQ?

Matthew Johnson’s name is all over the MEQ articles! Many articles are Griffiths & Johnson re: Mysticism.

From CEQ article’s References:

Barrett FS, Johnson MW and Griffiths RR (2015) Validation of the revised mystical experience questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin. J Psychopharmacol 29: 1182–1190.

Garcia-Romeu A, Griffiths RR and Johnson MW (2015) Psilocybin occasioned mystical experiences in the treatment of tobacco addiction. Curr Drug Abuse Rev 7: 157–164.

Griffiths RR, Johnson MW, Richards WA, et al. (2011) Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: Immediate and persisting dose related effects. Psychopharmacology 218: 649–665.

Griffiths RR, Richards W, Johnson MW, et al. (2008) Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later. J Psychopharmacology 22: 621–632.

Johnson MW, Richards W and Griffiths RR (2008) Human hallucinogen research: Guidelines for safety. J Psychopharmacol 22: 603–620.
Contains the usual folk, sub-scientific advice, “surrender, submit, accept your lack of control“.

MacLean KA, Johnson MW and Griffiths RR (2011) Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness. J Psychopharmacol 25: 1453–1461.

Hypocritical of Johnson, a self-contradiction.

Push a 1960 Christian brand of “mystic experiencing” as the “scientific foundation” of the research to prove that Psilocybin produces 1960 Stace and 1962 Walter Pahnke style of Christian mysticism – and then caution session guides to not bring a bunch of religious bias and prompting and filtering and construction causing clients to have a certain particular New Age Buddhism brand of experiencing – but that’s exactly what the MEQ does in spades.

The “science” that Johnson and Griffiths push could hardly be more particularistic, with 1960 Christian “mysticism” brand baked in, thoroughly.

Johnson, how can you use the 1960 Stace foundation of your science, and then caution against Buddha New Age prompting, guiding, shaping, & bias of the clients’ experience?

“Welcome to our 1960 Christian Ineffability Mysticism Clinic, we don’t prompt and filter and pre-program your 1960 Christian Ineffability Brand Mysticism experience that we give you and measure your experience in terms of.”

The Science of Psychedelic Psychometrics Is Based on as Its Science Foundation an Out of Print 1960 Book of Walter Stace’s Conception of What Mystic Experiencing Is

Stace’s book is out of print. That happens all the time, but still this is a good representation of how narrowly biased and particualistic and brand-specific the MEQ is, and the MEQ is presented as the science foundation of all Griffiths’ and Johnson’s research.

Is Johnson secretly criticizing the Stace 1960 “scientific basis” of their MEQ-based science research, when he writes the article about “ditch the New Age Buddha symbolism from your science research clinic”?

I don’t want to make a Progressivism-based “outdated” argument against Stace… but Stace’s conception of mystic experiencing is outdated.

The book Mysticism and Philosophy (Stace 1960) is out of print at the moment.

That status represents the arbitrary culturally specific “scientific basis”, how Stace is inappropriately used as a “scientific basis” for MEQ.

Check instead, a possibly more broad and up to date view, check the Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, which has good articles by Wouter Hanegraaff. 2016, 2019 paperback

url https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Handbook-Western-Mysticism-Esotericism/dp/0521509831

Blurb:

“Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition.

“Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately.

“Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field.

“The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together.

“The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, while the work of mystics was bound up with esoteric or occult preoccupations.

“It also shows why mysticism and esotericism must be examined together if either is to be understood fully.

“Including contributions by leading scholars, this volume features essays on such topics as

  • alchemy,
  • astrology,
  • magic,
  • Neoplatonism,
  • Kabbalism,
  • Renaissance Hermetism,
  • Freemasonry,
  • Rosicrucianism,
  • numerology,
  • Christian theosophy,
  • spiritualism,
  • and much more.

This Handbook serves as both a capstone of contemporary scholarship and a cornerstone of future research.”

Even if we don’t make this book the “scientific foundation” for MEQ, at least this book’s breadth shows the caution that is needed when we employ the term “mystic experiencing”.

What raft of package-deal interpretations are we being asked to agree to by Griffiths and Matthew “No Newage Buddha Symbolism” Johnson, who heavily push as their “scientific foundation” their own dubious house-brand “Mystical Experience” questionnaire?

Our outdated outmoded culturally particularistic scientific basis is out of print:

url https://www.amazon.com/dp/0874774160/

Reviewer Ed wrote:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3QSEA59CR8QPC/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0874774160 –

“In contrast to other philosophers who have written on the topic of religious experience, Stace is a perennialist, searching for a meaningful way to discuss the similarities between documented cases of religious experience.

“He begins with this assumption, which to me seems like an intuitive place to start (as opposed to Katz. See “Language, Epistemology and Mysticism”) so like-minded readers may be drawn to his methods.

“Although this may seem like a very good place to start an inquiry into “mysticism,” upon closer inspection, his method leaves much to be desired.

“First and foremost, Stace makes little distinction between “experience” and “interpretation.”

“From the philosophy of mind, thinkers who wrote a few decades after Stace, such as Levine (see “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap”), Nagel (see “What is it Like to be a Bat?”) and Jackson (see “Epiphenomenal Qualia”) have presented powerful cases concerning the vast and potentially unbridgeable gap between experience and its interpretation.

“I won’t reiterate Stace’s position here, but ultimately we have to ask; “What is accomplished by defining the “universal core” of religious experience linguistically when there is such a disparity between experience and the theories we use to explain it?”

“Can this be casually overlooked especially considering the “ineffable” nature of the experience?”

The concept of “ineffability” is the problem, not the solution, and I reject the concept, and I criticize employing this concept. -cm

“I do not fault Stace for not mentioning this due to the era in which he wrote, but this is a critique that needs serious attention.

“Compounding this point is the fact that Stace has had no religious experience of his own making it all the more dubious that he could make that which is by definition beyond human understanding meaningful.”

The Egodeath theory demonstrates that religious experiencing is well within language and understanding. -cm

“Stace also omits non-dual logic systems that seem more apt at addressing self-annihilation and religious experience (i.e., as found in the Diamond Sutra) than does the discourse of either/or logic.”

Self-annihilation doesn’t require non-dual logic (depending on what that term is supposed to mean). -cm

“When discussing an “experience” in the rational [usually ‘rational’ is a misnomer that actually means ordinary-state based -cm] sense where a grammatical subject and predicate are required, what can one seriously take Eckhart to mean when he asks God to rid him of all concepts of God while at the same time striving for his own annihilation? (see Sermon 52)”

I would never ask God to rid me of all concepts of God. That sounds like a dumb, defeatist, anti-STEM, self-defeating idea, and this is why in 1986 I rejected the genre of “Mysticism” as an explanatory paradigm and created instead the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence. -cm

“Also, to profess to have such a position that stands outside of both subject and object is metaphysical speculation.

“To force a grammatical subject and object onto an experience that is calling for neither seems to be akin to forcing a square peg through a round hole.”

“Or, as a wiser man than I once wrote, and I paraphrase, “It is as if Stace has a star-shaped cookie cutter, presses it into the dough of religious experience and then claims that the dough is star-shaped.”

Matthew “No Buddha Statues” Johnson & Roland Griffiths have a certain 1960 “mysticism”-shaped cookie cutter — they press it into the dough of psychedelic experience, and then claim that the dough is “mysticism”-shaped. -cm

“We also need to keep in mind that Stace speaks only incidentally of the body, which is to be expected considering the methodology of analytic philosophy.

“By doing so, he reduces religious experience to language, negating both the body and the unconscious.”

What raft of assumptions, what package deal, are we being asked to accede to, if we approve the concept “the unconscious”? -cm

“It is through the body and in the body that religious experience is cultivated and received.

“Also, the role of concentration on the breath which through prolonged focus in meditation and prayer bridges the conscious and unconscious is not mention in any way.”

Are we being asked here to assert that breathwork causes the exact same effects as Psilocybin? I completely disagree with this set of premises and conceptions. -cm

“I think that for a more full picture of this “universal core,” attention to both the body and the unconscious is needed.

“I would next like to critique Stace’s use of the categories of “extroverted” and “introverted.”

“He seems to use these in a phenomenological sense, roughly correlated to “inner” and “outer,” but he gives little attention to clarification.

“It seems that floating between these two perspectives is a “self,” which when discovered is the end-all of religious experience (much to the chagrin of Buddhism).

“He seems to have some initial insight to make this distinction, but he seems to take this for granted.

“I think that much insight can be gained by translating Stace’s use of these terms into the typology of Jung.“

The very heavy obscuring overlay that is Jungianism. If we could remove Jungianism, we could then perceive the domain that’s supposedly being explained by the heavy-handed Jungianism overlay. The Jungianism explanatory overlay is as harmful as helpful. The Egodeath theory is a far superior heavy-handed obscuring explanatory overlay. -cm

“By doing so, I believe that much of Stace’s agenda is exposed.

“For example, I think it is clear that Stace is some form of introverted, intuitive thinker, probably emphasizing the thinking due to his profession and method.”

I’m pro-thinking – but people falsely contrast thinking vs. the intense mystic altered state. They wrongly characterize the latter as “nonrational”, which is a misnomer focusing on the wrong thing.

The mystic state is loose cognitive association from Psilocybin, very much including rationality, occurring in the altered-state eternalism experiential mode. -cm

“His intuition is also evident by his perennialist‘s nature.

“As he is a philosopher, he finds truth in systematization, which I believe explains why Stace strongly favors other mystics who were intellectual enough to systemize their work.

“This bias is all the more evident where in the book Stace ridicules and insults Teresa of Avila for her anti-intellectualism at several points.

“His bias discredits and discounts those who simply have religious insight but do not systematize it, labeling such mystics as secondary in status.

“It is my opinion that Stace has given undue preference to those who happen to think like himself.

“It also is evident that in not further breaking down this typology, he makes a broad generalization between “introverted thinkers” and “extroverted feelers” in a very “either/or” sort of fashion excluding anything in the middle (i.e. an extroverted thinker or introverted feeler).

“In making this generalization, Stace presumes introversion to be categorically superior to extroversion as it often ends with rational analysis.”

Rational analysis in the altered state, is where it’s at. -cm

“I think Stace has undermined his own position by not thinking through the implications of this generalization.

“As an ultimate systematization, or even an initial step in systematizing religious experience, Stace fails, but that is not to say that he is not without merit (as per my 4 stars).

“If one reads him with such concern in mind, his optimism and drive to seek the universal is nothing short of inspiring, especially when compared to Katz (who denies anything meaningful can be said about religious experience).”

I probably strongly disagree with reviewer Ed and Katz and R. Griffiths and Matthew Johnson and Walter Stace. -cm

“I compare both Stace and Katz to watching some politically spun “news” program like Bill O’Rielly or John Stewart [2009].

“Sure, they may be fun, but one must keep in mind that both are catering to a specific bias.“

Bias is ok if it’s correct. -cm

“If you can remain mindful of such a bias, then you have a chance at seeing through to what lies beneath in order to conduct your own study.”

Stang’s Statements from Conversation with Griffiths, September 2020

Charles Stang September 2020 Webinar with Roland Griffiths

Charles Stang:

“about the category of mystical experience. I’m a historian of mysticism.

“the list of qualities of experiences deemed mystical derived from William James [1900] and [Walter] Stace [1960] doesn’t exactly correspond to the archive of mystical literature.

“two sets of experiences that I think seem kind of missing. And I don’t know if they’re in fact missing from these people’s [clinical psychedelics questionnaire] experiences, or whether they’ve been filtered out for any reason.

“profound experiences of divine darkness, which can be harrowing, challenging, compunctive [inducing anxiety?], even fearful. … menacing … overwhelming and overpowering. the idea that the divine might abandon you. abandonment is an enormous concern in mystical archives.

“generally experiences of divine darkness. Where do those come?

“The second general category which I didn’t see is the deeply personal encounter people have with other entities in mystical archives. … experiences of Christ, saints, angels, other mediating figures between you and the source.

“Now, some of you might say, well, those don’t qualify as fully mystical, because they are not experience of the source, the godhead itself.

“But they are often thought of as part of the choreography or the landscape of one’s approach to the godhead.

[landscape = important Stang point = package deal, entire realm of Mythemeland -cm]

“this disparity between the experiences you’ve collected and studied [eg Good Friday Experiment 1962, Griffiths 2006] and the [historical] archive I’m more familiar with.”

Roland Griffiths:

“we haven’t captured that systematically.

“it’s not part of the mystical experience questionnaire.

“the mystical experience questionnaire is tending to capture the light side of things.

“And of course there are these very dark experiences.

“And they’re kind of the classic challenging experience that come into play with psychedelics.

“And it may be the experience of the existential vacuum, of the void. “

Jan Irvin exposed T McKenna’s fraud, pretending to use high-dose psilocybin for years after he had stopped due to existential vertigo depression.

Psychedelic transcendent transgression of personal control is more important (central, definitive, peak) of a challenging effect than psychedelic existential void. -cm

“And that can be absolutely terrifying.

“But there’s no question that that comes up [in our psilocybin experiments].

“And we have an entirely different questionnaire, something called the challenging experience questionnaire.”

I don’t believe that the CEQ is a serious, actual, usable questionnaire. There are many very fishy things about it. -cm

“And we try to tap into that.

“We’ve been very interested in that feature.

“But I think psychometrically [per scientific measurement via questionnaires], it falls apart from at least what we’re describing as the classic mystical experience that’s positively balanced.”

APZ/ OAV/ 5D-ASC distinctly measures via psychometrics the positive (Ocean & Visionary) experiences and the negative (Angst/Dread) experiences.

11-Factors version of OAV distinctly measures via psychometrics the “Pleasant Experiences” and the “Unpleasant Experiences”.

How come SOCQ isn’t being used that way, with the MEQ part of it recognized as covering positive, and the non-MEQ part recognized as covering negative mystic effects? How come CEQ is so repressed and far separated from MEQ?

I just realized one thing now that I’m coupling CEQ as intended to be the negative complement of MEQ30:

Why did Griffiths agressively reduce the Initial Item Pool of 64 items down to 24 items? 24/64 = 38%.

Answer: to make CEQ smaller than MEQ30; to have fewer negative psychedelic effects than positive “therefore mystical” effects.

Charles Stang:

“that [lopsidedly positive] allegedly classic mystical experience is actually not in dialogue with the classics of mystical literature”

There, Stang criticizes Griffiths’ conception and characterization: what you are calling “mystical experience” is no such thing, it’s baloney and is not the actual mystical experience that mystics reported per the archive records.

See Also:

More commentary about that transcription:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2024/12/27/ceq-challenging-experiences-questionnaire/#Stang-Griffiths-MEQ-Is-Bunk

Harvard Page about the Webinar Video, and Transcription

https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/09/29/video-psilocybin-and-mystical-experience-implications-healthy-psychological

Stang’s Statements from Conversation with Kripal, October 2020

Page’s blurb (not transcription):

“Amid the so-called psychedelic “renaissance” in science, researchers … report that they can occasion “mystical-type experiences” among trial volunteers being treated for … other conditions.

“Many studies correlate the strength of this experience with the therapeutic outcome.

“Other recent studies administer psychedelics to religious professionals without a clear therapeutic aim.

“In this case, an experience that might be assumed to be accessible to religious clergy through non-chemical means is administered within a “secular” biomedical framework.

“what happens when the clinical becomes religious and the religious becomes clinical?

“How are religion, mysticism, and spirituality invoked, studied, and understood within psychedelic clinical contexts?

“What unspoken ontological and theological claims are at work?”

transcript:

Charles Stang:

“The entire clinical container, including the dose, the so-called set and setting– … this entire clinical container is designed to increase the likelihood of a very specific type of experience– a positive, unitive [& ineffable -cm] experience with a conscious and loving source.

“And this is what is labeled the paradigmatic mystical-type experience.

“The research reports that people rate these psychedelically-induced experiences as among the most spiritually significant and personally meaningful in their lives.

“in September [2020 webinar video last month] … I pushed Roland [Griffiths] on some of these points.

“As an historian of religion, and specifically of mystical theology, I fear that there is a flattening of the complicated terrain of mystical experience at work in some of this research– a kind of selection bias for a certain kind of experience– namely, a unitive and positive [and ineffable -cm] one, to the exclusion of other experiences.“

[CEQ doesn’t correct this MEQ shortcoming; CEQ omits 86% of OAV’s “Dread of Ego Dissolution” effects/questions, aka 11-Factors’ “Unpleasant Experiencing” high-level category’s effects/questions -cm]

“And I fear that this selection bias skews the results.

“I don’t know that it skews the results or the research relevant to therapeutic outcomes.

“I do know that it skews the understanding of what mysticism is, and the full depth and diversity in the archive of mystical experiences.”

Webinar: Medicalizing Mysticism: Religion in Contemporary Psychedelic Trials

Harvard’s page about the webinar, including transcription:
https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/11/03/video-medicalizing-mysticism-religion-contemporary-psychedelic-trials

My page title:
Psychedelics and the Future of Religion/ Transcendence and Transformation Initiative (Stang, Harvard)
Section heading in that page:
Video 2: Medicalizing Mysticism: Religion in Contemporary Psychedelic Trials
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/psychedelics-and-the-future-of-religion-transcendence-and-transformation-initiative-stang-harvard/#Video-2

The Egodeath Theory is the Opposite of the Stace/ Pahnke/ Griffiths Conception of Mystical Experiencing

I disagree with Griffiths’ theological claims, to such an extent that I countered this Mysticism theory/ explanatory framework in 1985 by creating the Egodeath theory; the Cybernetic theory of Ego Transcendence:

  • Griffiths Believes in ineffability – you don’t have a “complete mystical experience”, according to Griffiths’ science assessment, unless you agree about ineffability.
    I don’t agree that ineffability is a helpful, useful, meaningful, valuable explanatory construct; “ineffability” is exactly the kind of wooly-headed mystical thinking that early modern science (like the Egodeath theory in 1987) sought to replace.
  • Griffiths assumes no mystics ever used psilocybin. But per the Entheogen Mytheme theory portion of the Egodeath theory, all mystics’ experiencing was through Psilocybin. Psilocybin is the Eucharist.
  • Christian mysticism. Like the word ‘faith’, ‘mysticism’ is exclusively a Christian word.
  • Griffiths’ conception of mysticism is exclusively positive. But religious mythology describes negative experiencing, from Psilocybin.

I reject the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30 specifically), and its categories, and its questions, and its assessment of whether a person had a “complete mystical experience”.

1/4 of the questions of are about ineffability. If you didn’t report that you experienced ineffability, then Griffiths says you didn’t have a complete mystic experience.

That’s according to Griffiths’ interpretation of Walter Stace’s 1960 interpretation of Christian-based, Christian-flavored mystic experiencing.

During December 31, 2022 into January 1, 2023, I read Griffiths’ 2015 article on validating the MEQ:

Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin
Frederick Barrett, Mathew Johnson, Roland Griffiths
2015
Pubmed url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ – for PDF, click “FREE Full text PMC” button in upper right.
The 30 questions and 4 categories are shown in Figure 1 on page 15.

Griffiths 2015 presents the 30 MEQ questions in 4 categories.

Previously there were 43 MEQ questions in 7 categories, per Walter Pahnke around 1969 after the April 1962 Good Friday Experiment at Harvard under Leary & Alpert, based on Walter Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Philosophy.

Version 1 of MEQ is MEQ43, which has 7 categories of effects questions.

Version 2 of MEQ is MEQ30, which has 4 categories of effects questions. Four of the MEQ43 categories were combined into a single “Mystic experiencing” category. The other 3 of the 7 are retained as distinct categories.

Griffiths attempted to cover the incompleteness of MEQ by pointing to his CEQ – but my analysis determined that the CEQ is bunk:

CEQ deletes the experience of threat of loss of control, and replaces that by gathering and highlighting the Grief questions.

CEQ is supposed to cover a wider set of challenging psychedelics effects than OAV’s DED dimension, but actually, CEQ entirely deletes all of the Control challenges effects questions (definitively distinctive of the psychedelics state), and creates a new, heavily promoted Grief category of the questions instead, in their place.

Griffiths’ CEQ deletes 18 of 21 (86%) of Dittrich’s “Dread of Ego Dissolution” (DED) effects questions, while pretending and posturing and selling itself as adding a superset of OAV’s coverage of challenging aspects of psychedelics effects.

Dittrich’s 21 “Dread of Ego Dissolution” effects questions defined in the OAV and 5D-ASC questionnaire are the same items as Studerus’ 21 “Unpleasant Experiences” effects questions in the 11-Factors questionnaire (Studerus 2010 Figure S1 or S2, and find “pleasant”).

As Charles Stang, Historian of Mysticism rebutted Roland Griffiths in the Harvard Divinity School video after Griffiths presented his slides narrative, all this conception of ‘mystic’ rests on a solid wobbly “scientific” basis of Walter Stace 1960.

Stace misconceives mystic experience as all peace and light, per outsiders’ & beginners’ medium-dose, positive-only experience, so all this “Science” rests on a misconceived basis.

OAV & 11-Factors Conjoins Positive and Negative Effects; MEQ Dissociates and Represses Negative Effects into Woefully Inadequate CEQ

Dittrich’s OAV severs positive effects into Oceanic and Visionary dimensions, and separates negative effects into the Angst/Dread dimension.

Studerus’ 11-Factors’ high-level categories split apart those same dimensions as Unpleasant Experiences (identical to OAV’s Angst/Dread dimension) and Pleasant Experiences (identical to the combination of OAV’s Oceanic + Visionary dimensions).

Griffiths puts all focus on a self-contained instrument, MEQ.

Then, as if to patch that blatant mismatch with actual experiences, as an afterthought, they later create a dissociated, separate instrument, CEQ — which proceeds to nevertheless omit 86% (18 of 21) of the OAV’s Angst/Dread effects items.

Griffiths’ would-be patch (CEQ) has gigantic, dragon-sized hole in it: the Control-challenges questions and category are completely omitted and deleted and suppressed and disowned, repressed and denied to exist.

Exhibit A: OAV Dread Question 54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

In Griffiths’ eagerness to shrink the negative effects of Psilocybin, when constructing the Initial Item Pool which consists of all challenging effects items from SOCQ, HRS, and OAV, when adding the negative effects from OAV, Griffiths adds only 11-Factors’ 13 ANX & ICC effects items, instead of adding all 21 of OAV’s Angst/”Dread of Ego Dissolution” effects items.

Or, identically, all 21 of 11-Factors’ high-level, “Unpleasant Experiences” effects items, which is an official category within the 11-Factors scale, that’s discussed by Studerus 2010 in two spots.

That’s starting with only 13 of 21, 62% of the OAV’s negative effects, or (identically) 11-Factors’ negative effects.

Then Griffiths recklessly, willy-nilly removes all of the Control-challenging effects from the Initial Item Pool, the CEQ ending up with only 3 out of the 21 negative effects (14%, deleting 86%) that are in OAV’s or 5D-ASC’s Dread, or 11-Factors’ Unpleasant dimension.

References

url https://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Philosophy-W-T-Stace/dp/0874774160

Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin
Frederick Barrett, Mathew “No Buddha Statues” Johnson, Roland Griffiths
2015
Pubmed url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ – for PDF, click “FREE Full text PMC” button in upper right.
The 30 questions and 4 categories are shown in Figure 1 on page 15.
Search: https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Validation+of+the+revised+Mystical+Experience+Questionnaire%22

SOCQ – “States of Consciousness Questionnaire”
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/socq-states-of-consciousness-questionnaire/
Lacks a section presenting the questions and categories of the MEQ30 or earlier MEQ43. With so many variants and subsets of the psychedelics psychometrics questionnaires, I need to create particular, narrowly focused pages, such as a page dedicated to the MEQ43, and another page for the later MEQ30.

Psychedelics and the Future of Religion/ Transcendence and Transformation Initiative (Stang, Harvard)
Section heading in that page:
Video 1 (Sep 2020): Psilocybin and Mystical Experience: Implications for Healthy Psychological Functioning, Spirituality, and Religion (Roland Griffiths, Charles Stang)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/psychedelics-and-the-future-of-religion-transcendence-and-transformation-initiative-stang-harvard/#Video-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Pahnke

— Cybermonk January 1, 2023

Paradigm Shift: Psychedelic Psychometrics Science Inadvertently Disconfirms Non-Drug Mystic Effects, and Disconfirms Positive-Only Mystic Effects

Contents:

A Function of Dose

One interesting finding that’s consistently reported in the psychometrics articles: mystic & challenging effects of psychedelics “are a function of dose”.

This confirms Max Freakout’s distinction between medium vs. high dose.

The really really really intense altered state =! moderate dose.

3 Levels of Effects

placebo nondrug or low-dose reports –> no mystic or challenging effects

medium-dose reports –> moderate mystic or challenging effects

high-dose reports –> intense mystic and challenging effects

Valuable Scientific Disconfirmations that Support the Egodeath Theory

Further supporting the Egodeath theory are these results from the science of psychedelics psychometrics questionnaires:

1) Psychometrics shows that non-drug meditation is bunk: non-drug meditation produces small mystical effects, rather than big mystical effects (like Psilocybin does embarrassingly well), against everybody’s prejudiced assumption.

This I call the Jordan Peterson objection, because he rebutted Roland Griffiths about this point – see the video.

2) Psychometrics shows that the important mystical effects are largely negative and not exclusively positive, against everybody’s prejudiced assumption.

This I call the Charles Stang objection, because he rebutted Roland Griffiths about this point – see the video.

The funny thing about both of these scientific findings is that neither of these prejudiced assumptions were intended to be put on trial through scientific testing and critique.

These were unconscious, culturally biased, foundational sacred cows that were never intended to be subjected to scientific critical testing.

1+1=3 😇🐮🙌

This posting is based on voice recordings today (December 31, 2022) working up these ideas.

Inadvertently, psychedelics psychometrics science shows that we need to move the center of the universe away from non-drug meditation to instead Psilocybin as the standard of measure.

The continued attempt to make non-drug meditation the standard of reference is not working!

Non-drug meditation does not provide a usable, successful data collection central point of reference.

Only Psilocybin has proved able to serve as the usable, reliable, repeatable, instense , detectable, scientifically measurable standard of reference for reporting mystic effects.

Inadvertently, the science of psychometrics shows that we need to change the model of mystic experiences, move the center of the universe away from Walter Stace’s 1961 unicorns & rainbows FANTASY of imagining, an outsiders’ expectations of what is mystic experiencing, to instead, embracing and emphasizing challenging experiences.

It turns out that the challenging experiences are the whole gateway to the proper conception of mystical experiences.

The stone that the builders rejected – the question for which Roland Griffith accidentally deliberately overlooked, the negative challenging effects, turn out to be the real nature of mystical experiencing, more at the center than the beginners low-dose positive effects.

Beginners’ low-dose positive-only mystic effects are not the true main effects.

The true main nature of mysticism it is not low-dose I had a warm glow feeling — this is beginner low-dose only.

Max Freakout & I & the psychometrics researchers & hi dose enthusiast Kalindi Yi & Kafei all agree that the interesting high-traction contrast discussion is medium-dose vs. high-dose.

Our existing data collection of placebo non-drug mystical effects is already covering the low-dose effects, and so we are not interested in any more coverage of low-dose but we all agree that contrasting medium and high dose is the most interesting and profitable.

It is a most profitable contrast and discussion and research to compare medium-dose vs. high-dose.

Low-dose is not of interest, except that it is already represented perfectly well by placebo non-drug questionnaire responses.

We have already invested in low-dose research, and so far as we already have invested in collecting placebo non-drug mystical effects reports.

The psychometrics testers have concluded that there’s no meaningful difference between the responses provided by non-drug experiencers versus by low-dose; you can’t tell the two apart by the psychedelics psychometrics questionnaires.

The low-dose responses simply get mixed in with the placebo non-drug responses; there’s no way to tell them apart — that’s the data conclusion.

The so-called, would-be “mystical” questionnaires are wrong, and they are disconfirmed, because the actual nature of mystical experience is centered around the challenging effects.

___

I will define CEQ version 3: it will not be my correction of version 2 by adding Control challenge effects questions;

CEQv3 will be another posting, where I base it on the 64 or a few more questions from version 1 of their “initial item pool”, plus good categories added that will be the real version 3 of CEQ that I will define. https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/how-to-redeem-the-ceq-add-a-control-category-and-the-surveys-questions-about-experiencing-the-threat-of-loss-of-control/

The initial version of CEQ (the 64-question initial item pool) gets an A-.

CEQ[64] lacks question 54 (“I was afraid to lose my self-control”), and it lacks categories.

Roland Griffiths’ so-called “final” version of the CEQ, CEQ[26] is entirely bunk; it gets an F grade.

The “final” CEQ lacks any Control-challenges questions, it (& the initial version too) failed to add 8 of the “Unpleasant” high-level category questions, which 11-Factors includes, and it lacks a Control-challenges category, and it is packed filled with 27% (7/26) duplicate questions, senselessly.

The result reads like a bizarre mockup, not something serious.

My draft mockup Eternalism and Control questionnaire (ECQ) is more serious than the “final” wtf CEQ questionnaire delivered by Roland Griffiths, and it’s no wonder that he’s getting intense pushback from the expert on/ the historian of mysticism Charles Stang, and from Jordan Peterson.

The CEQ article in fact presents two different CEQs.

I need to literally have a separate webpage covering the first CEQ and a different webpage covering the second CEQ ; they are entirely different.

There are multiple versions of every questionnaire, and this is confusing and complicated.

There are mystical experience questionnaire version one MEQ43 , versus MEQ30 second version; they deleted probably 13 negative effects questions to get their new and improved “PARSIMONIOUS” [ie delete all the negative experiences] mystical experience questionnaire which was driven by Mr. Unicorns and Rainbows, Roland Griffiths.

🦄💨🌈 📊🔬

I disagree with the way that Rolland Griffith (experimental psychedelic scientist) describes and discusses mystic experiencing.

I disagree with the way that Charles Stang (Historian of mysticism) describes mystic experiencing.

I don’t think either of them have a reality-based model of the nature of mystic experiencing.

The other posting will be on defining version 3 of CEQ. Challenging experiences questionnaire. by Roland Griffiths.

I have described that in the present posting well enough for now.

I might go ahead and post a starter posting of CEQ version 3, to give an outline of what that posting will contain.

The strategic lineage of CEQ questionnaire is: gathering a subset of [most of] “all” of the challenging questions from the three main questionnaires, which includes SOCQ minus the “mystical” questions (which are probably exclusively positive).

Rick Strassmann n-n-DMT-based HRS questionnaire. example his category on volition really is focused on volition effects from quick DMT.

Dittrich’s 1975 APZ/ 1994 OAV/ 2006 5D-ASC questionnaire (& then 11-Factors) is for the purpose of comparing effects from psychedelic versus other ways of inducing altered states.

5D-ASC: 2000 or 2006?

An unsolved contradiction is that Studerus’ 2010 11-factors article states that questionnaires filled in starting in 2000 used 5D-ASC , but questionnaires filled in before 2000 used OAV questionnaire –

But the official year in which 5D was published was 2006, not 2000, so I don’t know if it’s true or if it’s a mistake in their article, that we have filled-in 5D questionnaires from the year 2000+, when the 5D-ASC system was not published until 2006 (German), 2010 (English).

Maybe in 2000-2005 they used an unpublished prototype of 5D-ASC in development, I guess. 🤷‍♂️

Prediction: Negative = Non-mystical in SOCQ

Prediction: If you look at the questions in SOCQ which are not part of some version of the mystical experience questionnaire MEQ, I predict that all of the “non-mystical” questions will all be negative effects.

Studerus 2010 (11-Factors revision of OAV questionnaire) defines Ocean OB & Visionary VR dimensions effects as “positive … therefore … mystical” and Angst Dread Unpleasant effects per DED dimension effects as “negative … therefore … bad trip [instead of mystical]”.

The real, authentic questionnaire mystical experiences questionnaire is the entire SOCQ, emphatically including all of the challenging, negative effects.

Not only the shrinking subset of the 43 MEQ questions or later Griffiths’ 30 MEQ mystical experience questionnaire subset of questions.

Roland Griffiths actually does get one very important thing right: adding a Grief category of psychedelics effects questions.

Mystic effects include existential depression, and this tanked Terrence McKenna and caused him to covertly stop using mushrooms altogether, because of an existential meaning crisis.

url https://youtu.be/9nnGtB-PSw4

https://youtu.be/9nnGtB-PSw4

The false model of mystical effects is the exclusively positive questions which are called the “mystical experience questionnaire” and that’s the false one.

Yesterday in voice recordings for Egodeath Mystery show, I asked a question which I could not answer:

What is my best-case wish of what I wish that the psychometrics would find?

What are the findings that I wish to see from psychedelic psychometrics science?

Psychometric science shows that you don’t get mystic effects from non-drug meditation.

Like Jordan Peterson objected and pointed out, science proves what I have been asserting, that non-drug meditation contemplation fails to deliver mystical experiencing.

Mystic effects from nondrug meditation are scientifically proved to be small rather than big, even though our society has an intensive prejudice that takes it as a matter of doctrine, a given from God from on high, it is simply held by everybody.

We all (baselessly) agree (ie imagine and fantasize) that mystic effects from non-drug meditation are big.

Unfortunately, the science data from psychometrics questionnaire data accidentally and inadvertently disproves this prejudiced assumption premise.

Our science data which we were trying to deploy in order to test psilocybin accidentally subjected our golden calf idol to scientific testing, and it was actually our idol, non-drug meditation failed us.

We never meant to subject it to actual serious sincere scientific testing.

We did not intend to test our shared prejudiced claim, our assumption, our faith-based assumption that meditation of course is the gold standard that produces strong, impressive, big mystic effects.

Run a science test:

Does Psilocybin produce big Mystic effects like meditation, or does it produce small mystic effects, in contrast with non-drug meditation?

Science’s answer:

Psilocybin produces big mystic effects.

Non-drug meditation produces small mystic effects. An UNEXPECTED SIDE-EFFECT/ side-finding that we weren’t trying to subject to serious critique!

Oh no, we accidentally put to the scientific test — our scientific testing backfired; neither camp expected this finding, because neither camp could even imagine subjecting our prejudiced assumption to critical testing!

Science data accidentally showed that it’s not a question of whether is psilocybin an imposter, but now the tables have turned, and the question is:

Is non-drug meditation the real imposter, the failed, attempted phony ersatz simulated alternative nontraditional method of accessing mystic experience?

This is the Jordan Peterson challenge question that he instantly retorted to Roland Griffiths.

The moment that Griffiths said the old tired invented construct, “meditation could/ can/ might/ may produce the exact same effects of psilocybin”, the moment he uttered that, Jordan Peterson instantly shot back:

No, the data does not support your repeated assertion; the data contradicts your repeated assertion (tale, narrative).

Your argument has no legs to stand on, it collapses; it fails.

You need to acknowledge the failure of your prejudiced assumption about meditation, putting it on a pedestal, with no basis to do so.

Your own scientific data, from the science that you keep trying to leverage, shows that it’s the exact opposite of what you are trying to argue strategically.

You’re trying to strategically argue that psilocybin produces big measurable mystic effects just like meditation produces big measurable mystic effects.

But you showed the reverse: you showed that the assumption that meditation produces big mystic effects is unscientific and countered by the data.

Only Psilocybin, and not non-drug meditation, produces big, intense, reliable strong vivid mystic effects.

So why do you persist in this baseless argument that psilocybin produces a strong big effect just like meditation produce a strong big effect, when the latter is unscientific and is disproved by your own science method?

Are we now to excuse the failure and overlook the failure of science to be able to corroborate the alleged big mystic effects of meditation, while at the same time, we leverage science to demonstrate that we can measure Psilocybin mystic effects?

If the science of psychedelic psychometrics is reliable and useful for measuring the big mystic effects from Psilocybin, how come this exact very same science is completely incapable of detecting any measurable mystic effects from nondrug meditation?

How can you argue that scientific measurements show that the effects are both big from Psilocybin and from nondrug meditation, when in fact when you go to demonstrate that, what you find instead is a complete asymmetry — not symmetry.

Your basic argument collapses.

Your own psychometric science proves that non-drug meditation produces small effects, not big effects, so why do you keep saying that meditation “can/ could/ might/ and may” produce the exact same effects as psilocybin, when your data shows the opposite!

Are we supposed to respect your data and method, or not?

“You are being unscientific, and you are contradicting yourself, Roland Griffiths” says Jordan Peterson to him in the video interview.

We can conclude, as I have concluded/ asserted on the basis of theory coherence, that all of the mystic experiencing in the archive of the history of mysticism comes from Psilocybin.

NOT from the fictional fantasy imaginary chimera construct fabricated by clueless academics, their foundational assumption that the sun revolves around the earth.

They have falsely constructed their imagined fantasy, “the traditional nondrug methods of the mystics”.

Just like Jordan Peterson objected to Roland Griffiths repeatedly asserting that meditation “can could may and might” produce the exact same effects as Psilocybin.

This is very much not what they ever intended to argue or test or prove.

They are now defensively on their heels, trying to explain why their pet, advocated non-drug meditation fails to produce the exact same effects as Psilocybin – and that’s the opposite of what they were preferring to argue and assert and test.

They want to tell the story that psilocybin affects failed to measure up to meditation affects, or succeeded feebly – but they are always, ever forced to argue the exact opposite : they are forced to explain why meditation does not produce any scientifically measurable mystic effects and fails to produce the exact same effects as psilocybin.

This is the reverse of what how they wanted to frame the argument.

They wanted to make non-drug meditation the center of the cosmos; they wanted to make the reference point the effects which meditation produces.

But the problem is there are no such effects that are measurable.

We have every indication from our science data questionnaire psychometrics collection that there is no such thing as mystical effects non-drug induced.

This is not what they expected, and this is disconfirming something that, a premise that they were not even trying to test.

This shows how great science is, but the scientists have yet to acknowledge this disconfirming which occurred.

Jordan Peterson points out to the scientist role in Griffiths you need to acknowledge that your premise that you base your whole argument strategy on this premise of “the traditional non-drug methods of the mystics” is contradicted by your own data.

You keep arguing on the basis that psilocybin produces the same mystical effects as meditation produces, when your own data shows that there are no such effects from meditation, but only from psilocybin.

The effects for meditation are so pathetically weak and nonexistent and unmeasurable, that you cannot defend there being any such effects.

You cannot take zero effects and try to spin that as being mild and moderate and small but venerable, as if no problem.

You’re coming up completely empty-handed; you’ve got no evidence, you have a loud lack of any evidence for meditation producing mystic effects, whether positive or negative.

Jordan Peterson does a good job of expressing himself in terms of efficiency and efficacy and strength and reliability of the effects – big effects (efficacy) vs small effects.

Peterson shuts out this bad tired move that the meditation advocates do of trying to say that there are vanishingly small effects.

Meditation totally works great and is the reference standard which Psilocybin struggles to match — except nondrug meditation only works for one out of 1 million people (who is already schizophrenic) and it only works after 60 years of meditation, and it only produces weak effects.

The fact that non-drug meditation doesn’t provably measurably work for anybody just proves that everybody’s doing meditation wrong — but nondrug placebo meditation totally works great and produces totally big effects — except that it produces them so microscopically small effects and after such a long duration that it’s completely not measurable by science.

Zen Master Brad flips the goal post as extremely as a Thomas Hatsis:

You argue a very assertive assertion making gigantic promises, and then when you are challenged, you retreat to the other goal post, the exact opposite end of the field, where are you now claim that you’re not making any assertions about any effects that are at all measurable at all.

The moment someone stops challenging you , you immediately revert to making your aggressive firm assumptions talking big talk all day and night about the traditional non-drug methods of the mystic meditators/ contemplators.

Then when you’re challenged, you retreat to the opposite goal post at the opposite extreme end of the field, and say no I wasn’t asserting that there any detectable affects at all , and we can only measure it by five years later, does your neighbor say that you have good conduct of life? and if so , then we know that you had a mystic experience.

Then when you stop challenging Zen master Brad, he instantly reverts to the other goal post at the other end of the field , making his massive usual assertions about “the traditional non-drug methods of mystics ” which “exactly produce the exact same effects as psilocybin except way better and way more permanent”.

Then when you challenge him, he flips to the other goal post, and says “No, I never claimed that meditation has any detectable affects at all”.

And so on it goes back-and-forth, flipping the goalposts.

And Roland Griffiths is trying to sustain his flipping of the goal post, despite his own data.

Griffiths’ own psychometric scientific questionnaires show that there are no measurable mystical effects from non-drug meditation placebo ingesting, and yet he keeps on flipping back to his, reverting back to his usual canard, “the traditional nondrug methods of the Mystics” “which produces big mystical effects” – except that measurably is proved that they do not produce any measurable, big mystical effects.

Which is it you’re being inconsistent, you’re contradicting yourself, rolin Griffiths: you keep saying that you’re based on scientific measurements, but then you keep on discarding your own scientific measurements, and you persist in claiming falsely that your lab placebo non-drug meditation produces mystical effects, even though your questionnaire data prove that non-drug meditation does not deliver them (in any significant amount), and yet you keep on acting like you have that data – and Jordan Peterson pointed him out point blank on this self-contradiction.

Here was the intended set-up: we would measure whether psilocybin had small or big mystical effects, compared to meditation, which is assumed produces big mystical effects.

But what happened instead, what we accidentally disconfirmed, and what the scientific data actually proved instead of what we expected, This is the big versus small effects argument:

We found that meditation produces only small effects and psilocybin produces big effects , when what the naysayers expected to find was that psilocybin produces only small effects and meditation produces big effects.

But we found the exact opposite of that and that’s not what we wanted to test or find.

We either expected and desire —

One camp expected to find that psilocybin produces small mystic effects and meditation produces big mystic effects.

And the other camp wanted to find that psilocybin produces big mystic effects like meditation produces big mystic effects.

What the data found instead the experimental scientific data instead found – something that neither camp was expecting to find –

Per the radical Maximal Egodeath Theory, they found that psilocybin produces big mystical effects and that meditation produces small mystical effects (!!) 😱😵

This is a great way to argue to describe my position about the inefficiency of meditation.

This language that I just thought of big effects versus small effects, this is perfect for we thought that we could maybe do faultfinding with Psilocybin by saying grudgingly saying along with the Catholic apologist RC Zaehner (Mysticism Sacred & Profane), we thought we would grudgingly say we reluctantly admit that psilocybin does have some small mystical effects but they pale compared to the big mystical effects produced measurably and provably by “the non-drug traditional methods of the mystics”

Everybody was set up on the shared false assumption, the whole debate was set up so that both camps expected non-drug mystic effects are assumed (they agree to pretend) to be big and measurable and reproducible, but the argument was entirely regarding whether psilocybin would have the same big effects as meditation, or would only produce small effects

We found was the exact opposite, contradicting the shared assumption of both camps : we found that psilocybin has big effects and we found that meditation has small effects, which was not a possibility that either camp had considered.

This demands a massive 2-part paradigm shift.

We need to move the center of the universe away from the earth to the sun.

We need to move the center of the universe away from Amanita onto Psilocybin.

We need to move the center of the universe from nondrug meditation to Psilocybin.

No longer are we testing whether psilocybin has strong (big) or merely weak (small) mystical effects.

Suddenly that’s not what’s at issue; what’s at issue is what we did not expect to be at issue.

We are now subjecting meditation to judgment.

We expected to subject psilocybin to judgment but accidentally in advertently science did its job.

Science revealed that our fundamental premise was wrong, and now suddenly the tables have turned, and now it is non-drug meditation which is being subjected to judgment by scientific data — and coming up very short and very small.

You claim to be based on science, but when the science contradicts you, you keep on retaining and reverting to your same non-scientific set of assumptions.

The other accidental, awkward disconfirmation is when Jordan Peterson pushed back against Roland Griffiths, saying:

Why do you keep asserting as a fundamental component of your strategy, you keep on referring to “the mystical effects from non-drug meditation”, and yet the data don’t confirm that component of your strategic argument in favor of Psilocybin.

Your argument that you keep on sticking to and you keep on putting forth the same argument as zig zag Zen book which is based on special issue of Tricycle Buddhism magazine about “can fake & novel psychedelics simulate the real methods of the Eastern mystics?”

The same as the argument in the “special issue on Ersatz, Novel Psychedelics” of Gnosis magazine.

Psychedelics scientists (Walter Pahnke 1962, Griffiths 2006) who are trying to use psychedelic psychometrics science to prove that the mystical effects from psilocybin are the same (as big as) the mystical effects from non-drug meditation.

“Let us measure psilocybin mystic effects to see if they are big, like they are for meditation.”

You have run into, you have accidentally disconfirmed your fundamental premise that underlies the strategy that you’re trying to argue, that you’re trying to assert.

You intended to use the psychometrics questionnaire data to prove that you cannot disconfirm the efficacy of psilocybin to match non-drug meditation mystical effects.

But disconfirmation did not work the way that you intended it to work you accidentally disconfirmed the canard, the false notion , the unexamined premise underlying your whole strategic argument.

The premise that there exist such a thing as mystical non-drug meditation effects, you accidentally tested and disproved – you accidentally disconfirmed your assumption that you were not even trying to test.

You accidentally disconfirmed the assumption that non-drug meditation produces measurable, big mystic effects.

Jordan Peterson emphatically pushed back against Roland Griffiths this way.

Griffiths kept on repeatedly returning to the same strategic argument that the data measurement from these psychometric questionnaires proves that psilocybin produces as much mystic affects as non-drug meditation.

The result was the opposite of expected, so how do you keep making the same strategic argument, when your science demonstrated that there is no such thing as measurable, big mystic effects from non-drug meditation?

Science has successfully done its job by confounding our expectations.

We have accidentally proved in two different ways that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but rather, that the earth revolves around the sun, just as I have called to move the center of the universe of entheogen scholarship from Amanita/ Ergot to Psilocybin.

And move the center of the universe from Eleusis and Plaincourault to Canterbury.

We have falsely held as the center of the universe, these two unexamined premises that are taken for granted uncritically, the unconscious assumption that:

Mystics, the traditional non-drug methods of the mystics meditators/ contemplators.

Mystical effects are only positive, and are not negative effects.

Any challenging effect that you have is by definition not a part of mystic experiencing.

In the September 2020 interview where Roland Griffiths talks through his slide deck which is based on these two false premises which have been disconfirmed by his own scientific measurements instruments, psychedelics psychometrics questionnaires.

Griffiths has yet to acknowledge that both of his premises (he did not mean to test and subject to questioning these convention-founded sacred cows), both of his premises have been disconfirmed by his own experimental data.

This is pointed out by Jordan Peterson regarding efficacy of non-drug meditation to produce mystic effects.

It was pointed out by Charles Stang regarding the false assumption and definition underlying the entire project, the claim that we have a scientific basis in Walter Stace’s 1960 list of the exclusively positive mystical effects.

I find it tedious to go over that list of, that very all too well-known list of positive mystic effects, that were very unimpressive to me in 1985, which is why I created the Egodeath theory instead.

Your description of mystical effects is quite unhelpful and irrelevant to the problems that I am investigating:

What specifically is the nature of ego transcendence; what is the summary, in a useful, comprehensible summary, and the mystics are not delivering that.

The ‘Ineffable’ Axiom vs. Already Explained by the Egodeath Theory

I notice that their paradigm includes very prominently the ineffability premise.

I have already firmly disapproved the ineffability premise.

There is nothing ineffable about mystic revelation. A worthless word.

Language is fully adequate to describe intense mystical experience, just as much as language is effective for anything else.

So a part of what is being disconfirmed by science is the false assertion of ineffability.

There is a conflict, in effect, there is a conflict between the premise of ineffability versus the existence of the Egodeath theory as a successful explanatory framework.

One group of people makes a set of arguments using a set of Premises:

Roland Griffiths asserts that 25% one of the four main components of mystical experience by definition according to him, is ineffability.

The same set of people also falsely asserts the traditional nondrug methods of the mystics which can be measured in the laboratory meditation of placebo non-drug meditators — except that it cannot be measured, they found.

By using these psychedelics psychometrics questionnaires as a scientific instrument, there are no measurable mystic effects from non-drug meditation.

And they were planning on, they were counting on building their whole argument in favor of Psilocybin on the implicit, prejudice-founded premise that there are measurable mystical effects from non-drug meditation — but that side of the equation was inadvertently disconfirmed.

Just as we say of Zen Master Brad, when you push him and demand evidence, and you demand results, and you say where are the damned results, and then he backtracks and says there are no measurable results from our meditation.

Roland Griffiths talks routinely all the time about measurable effects, we need to make a system to measure the mystic effects from Psilocybin, and we will show that it matches the measured effects that we measure from nondrug meditation mystic effects.

But then they ran into disconfirming the wrong thing that was not supposed to be disconfirmed, and it pulls out their legitimacy argument strategy out from underneath them.

Yet they keep making the same unsustainable argument, they keep on putting forth this disconfirmed argument, this line of persuasion that fails and does not work, as Jordan Peterson pointed out to Griffiths.

May 10 2021 https://youtu.be/NGIP-3Q-p_s

https://youtu.be/NGIP-3Q-p_s

at 55:00 Charles Stang pushback, link to transcription like my last post:

sep 18 2020: https://youtu.be/6g2PS_yp-nQ

https://youtu.be/6g2PS_yp-nQ

Poor Roland Griffiths first and September 2020 Charles Stang shows that his scientific research is based on a bunk foundation of exclusively positive mysticism.

And then in May 2021, similarly, Jordan Peterson pushes back on Roland Griffiths, showing that his scientific data results did not confirm or disconfirm that psilocybin mystic effects match non-drug mystic methods, but rather, they disconfirmed the canard, the unexamined presupposition: “the traditional non-drug methods of the mystics, meditators/ contemplators”.

For strategy of clarity, I adopt the radical maximal extremist simplified simple model that mystic experiences come from Psilocybin.

The source of mystics’ experiences is Psilocybin.

This has been a profitable, productive basic model.

Roland Griffiths keeps on telling his narrative that we must accept the legitimacy of Psilocybin because our questionnaire psychometrics science data result proves that the mystical effects from Psilocybin match the mystical effects which are reported through our questionnaire by placebo-ingesting non-drug meditators.

Roland Griffiths contradicts himself because he says that their questionnaires failed to measure any mystical effects from nondrug meditation.

Yet Griffiths continues in his song and dance line of argumentation that the mystical effects from Psilocybin match the traditional nondrug methods of the Mystics meditators contemplator’s which we measure by our psychometrics Science questionnaire — except that we cannot measure any of them.

See Roland Griffiths 2012 “validation of the mystical experience questionnaire” article.

What do I wish ideally that psychometrics data would prove correct in the Egodeath theory?

The psychedelic psychometrics data indicates that there are no mystical effects from nondrug meditation measurable, except to prove that those effects are small and pathetic, very opposite of the assumed bragging posturing cocky confident claim that the gold standard of reference by which everything should be measured is non-drug meditation.

That bias is unsustainable when subjected to probing and testing and scientific data; the popular premise collapses, it cannot sustain the critical investigations of science.

The claim to put non-drug meditation on a pedestal as a gold standard of efficacy is disapproved by the scientific data and the scientific method.

Jordan Peterson pointed out it is now officially unscientific to claim that meditation produces big mystic effects.

THE DATA DOESNT SUPPORT THE POPULAR PREMISE THAT MEDITATION PRODUCES THE EXACT SAME EFFECTS AS PSILOCYBIN.

The data shows not that meditation produces big effects and psilocybin produces small effects, but the exact opposite: that psilocybin produces measurable, repeatable, intense big mystic effects, and that meditation (which was not supposed to be under trial, subjected to critique!) was revealed to — the emperor wears no clothes, and meditation is demonstrated by scientific measurement to produce only merely small mystic effects.

We get repeated, the data repeatedly and reliably shows that meditation fails to produce strong, big, reliable mystic effects.

Neither camp expected to find the latter; it was simply taken for granted that as an axiom that’s not subject to scientific testing, the axiom that it is a given that meditation produces the big effects.

And it is simply given as a fact that mystic experiencing is exclusively positive.

These axioms, these foundations were never thought of as something that would be subjected and humbled and reduced to being tested and probed and critically questioned by science.

We did not mean to test whether meditation’s mystic effects are big or small; we simply assumed as a matter of principle that we are to all agree that mystic effects are big.

This is a social cultural biased convention, this is not scientific.

This is not put forth as a scientific proposition that is expected to be tested, but rather the dogma, the doctrine that meditation constitutes and delivers the gold standard measure of reference,

We* were confused because we thought we were asserting a statement of fact, but in fact, we were all asserting a shared bias, a shared prejudice, an unconscious unexamined premise and foundational axiom.

*”we” here excludes me; I never for a moment bought– in fact I rejected my father’s drug-free newage counseling, I thought doesn’t add up to much.

We never realized that this is just a social construction, “the traditional non-drug methods of the mystic meditators/ contemplators”.

And when we held this prejudice, this social shared assumption, which we never expected to subject to testing, but then we created a science of psychometrics, and we confidently took it for granted that meditation produces big mystic effects, and that we would then measure whether Psilocybin produces big effects like meditation of course does, or whether it merely produces small effects, in contrast to what meditation is known to produce (as any meditation salesman can and does tell you).

But in the MEQ validation article 2012, Roland Griffiths’ data accidentally revealed that our shared social construct prejudice, the assumption that meditation delivers big mystical effects, was inadvertently disproved, and his questionnaire psychometric science was never intended or expected to show that result.

…. con’t from earlier above:

But those actually turn out to be unmeasurable.

Charles Stang pointed out it is now officially unscientific to claim that mystic experiencing is exclusively positive.

We need to move the center of the universe from the false model of {exclusively positive mystic experiencing, which is actually low-dose beginner experience} to instead center it around {negative mystic experiencing, which is high-dose advanced effects}.

Including the real type of transformation.

they’re always talking, all day and all night they’re talking about measuring mystical experiences in terms of their effects on your mundane, ordinary-state life afterwards.

We shall measure whether you had a mystical experience by asking your neighbor five years later, is your mundane conduct of life good, and improved from the jerk that you used to be before the mystic experience?

When people falsely try to measure, when Roland Griffiths attempts to measure whether you had a mystic experiencing, by looking to your ordinary conduct of life and your improved mundane life as evidence that you really did have a mystic experience, this is the wrong type of long-term transformation that they are looking for.

The genuine mystic experience, advanced multiple sessions, experienced and high-dose, and advanced (redosing / “secondary” “booster” dose forming a trapezoid dual mountain intensity curve) — Max Freakout’s “really really really intense” , powerful, advanced high-dose mystic experiences, repeated over 10 sessions, produces a transformation effect which is not their ordinary-state based, expected type of transformation effect.

The actual long term effect is transformation of your mental world model about time and control and possibilities branching.

Mental model transformation from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking.

References

Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin
Frederick Barrett, Mathew “No Buddha Statues” Johnson, Roland Griffiths
2015
Search: https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Validation+of+the+revised+Mystical+Experience+Questionnaire%22
Pubmed url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ – for PDF, click “FREE Full text PMC” button in upper right

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Pahnke

— Cybermonk Dec 31, 2022

11-Factors Questionnaire with All 13 Groups of All 66 OAV Effects Questions Shown

The 11-Factors Psychedelics Effects Questionnaire with All 13 Categories, All 66 Effects Questions, and Both Category Levels Shown in a Complete Hierarchy Tree (Studerus 2010)

Contents:

Intro

Studerus is at fault for Griffiths’ mistake of overlooking the non-factor 8 Unpleasant effects that are in 11-Factors questionnaire, because Studerus fails to show their final resulting 11-Factors questionnaire, including:

Theme: Show us the final, concrete, hierarchical, tangible OAV or 11-Factors questionnaire, don’t just talk around it, indirectly.

Deliver the concrete thing, that’s all I ask!

11-Factor questionnaire authors failed to do that, and so Griffiths got confused and conflated the 21-item Dread category with the 13-item sum of ICC+ANX items from Studerus, losing 8 questions, including item 54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

Dedication to Charles Stang

The present article is dedicated to Charles Stang.

See my commentary and excerpts where Stang rejects Griffiths’ conception and representation of what mystic experiencing is when validating psilocybin:
Stang Rejects Griffiths’ Conception of “Mystic Experiencing” Used to Experimentally Validate Psilocybin
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/02/stang-rejects-griffiths-conception-of-mystic-experiencing-used-to-validate-psilocybin/

Stang confronted Griffiths in the first episode of the Harvard video interview webinar series Psychedelics and the Future of Religion, for failing to match the archive data reports of mystics, and misrepresenting mystic experiencing as solely positive and pleasant.

— Cybermonk, December 30, 2022

The Secret Unknown “Unpleasant Experiences” and “Pleasant Experiences” High-Level Categories of the 11-Factors Questionnaire

If Studerus had better communicated that the 11-Factors questionnaire (or system of scales) has two different levels of categories, Griffiths would have added the “Unpleasant Experiences” 21-question high-level category to their Initial Item Pool, instead of only adding the 13 ANX+ICC factor items.

Then it would have been harder for Griffiths’ CEQ to end up with a paltry 3 of the 21 DED items, and harder to recklessly remove challenging psychedelics effects question 54: “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

Studerus 2010 p. 16:

“However, even if only higher order factors [high-level categories for psychedelics effects] are considered, we have not found evidence for a parsimonious fit of a three-factorial solution [like OAV’s Ocean/ Angst/ Visionary high-level categories].

“The ICLUST [cluster/ category-detection software] procedure indicated that only two factors [Unpleasant vs. Pleasant] account for the variance between OAV items [effects questions] on a high level of the construct hierarchy.

“Whereas one of these two factors was equal to the original DED factor [OAV’s 21-question Dread of Ego Dissolution dimension], the other [category; Pleasant] consisted of OBN and VRS items [group together all the OAV’s 27 Oceanic Boundlessness + 18 Visionary Restructuralization effects questions].

“This suggests that, on a high level, the OAV items are best divided on the basis of whether they describe pleasant (OBN and VRS) or unpleasant (DED) experiences. …”

Next, Studerus says it’s good to have high-level categories as well as our 11 lower-level more granular categories of psychedelics effects, so our 11-Factor scheme includes also a high-level division of Unpleasant vs Pleasant:

“Thus, although the total scale is multidimensional [jumbles distinct effects categories] and therefore forms ambiguous correlations with other psychological constructs, the general factor saturation is high enough to justify its use for the prediction of complex criteria (cf. [68,89]).

“The same is true for the OBN, DED and VRS and the ‘‘pleasant’’ and ‘‘unpleasant’’ scales, which also showed strong general factor saturations despite clear rejection of unidimensionality [they jumble distinct categories of effects] by CFA [confirmatory factor analysis].”

They go on to say unlike Dittrich, they are going to form lower-level categories (11 Factors) as well as high-level categories (Unpleasant vs. Pleasant experiences).

See Figure S1, which shows large headings “Unpleasant Experiences” & “Pleaseant Experiences”:


Figure S1: Hierarchical item clustering tree diagram based on
Pearson correlations of uncategorized OAV items.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930851/bin/pone.0012412.s001.pdf

Weasel Wording, Lie of Omission, or Accidental Conflation? Silent Scope Shrinking

p 2: “The OAV sub-scale “dread of ego dissolution” (DED) covers a wide range of negative experiences, and is generally considered an overall “bad trip” scale (Studerus et al., 2010).

“This meta-scale of possible negative effects covers many (e.g. panic, loss of ego/control, feelings of insanity) but not all (e.g. sadness/grief/ depression) possible categories of challenging experiences.”

Griffiths paints the connotation association: “Studerus” = DED (21 items) discussion. But below, suddenly, “Studerus” means only ICC+ANX (13 items).

The above scope of attention and critique is the ENTIRE DED dimension (21 questions). The scope silently narrows below to only 13 of 21:

“The 5DASC consists of 94 items …” – p. 4 Griffiths 2016 CEQ article

Then Griffiths gives the world’s most misleading, confused, confusing wording, along with drastically reducing scope from DED to only ICC+ANX:

“The 13 items of the 5DASC that constitute the ICC and ANX sub-scales were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ.”
– p. 4 Griffiths 2016 CEQ article

Above should have said, most clearly:

“The 21 items of the 5D-ASC that constitute the Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) dimension (and the Unpleasant Experiences high-level scale of the 11-Factors questionnaire) were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ.”

or at least:

“The 21 items of the 5D-ASC that constitute the Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED) dimension were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ.”

or:

“The 21 items of the 5D-ASC that constitute the Unpleasant Experiences high-level scale of the 11-Factors questionnaire were retained for the initial item pool for the CEQ.”

lower on p 2 of Griffiths:

“Studerus and colleagues (2010) revealed a rescoring of the 5DASC that includes a separate scale for impaired control and cognition, and for anxiety [and includes also 8 DED questions not placed in those scales, but within the same high level scale, Unpleasant Experiences].

“While these represent psychometrically justifiable subscales, these two sub-scales [and what about the 8 non-factor member items?] do not address shortcomings of the DED scale (e.g. they do not address the wide range of potential dimensions of challenging experience that are suggested by previous literature).” p 2 Griffiths

The Entheogen Scholarship Comedy Show Continues, 21st-Century Style

So we’re going to remove 18 out of 21 effects question items, removing 86% of negative effects, to add wider coverage of negative effects than DED (21 effects) or than ICC+ANX (13 effects). Reducing 21 to 3 gives broader coverage than 21. Somehow.

Look at our wonderful Grief grouping of effects question items!

Such comprehensive, broadened coverage of negative psychedelic effects now!

All it took was removing 18 out of 21 of the DED questions we criticized for being too narrow of coverage.

Why It Was in Griffiths’ Interest to Make This Mistake of Conflating DED’s 21 Questions with 11-Factors’ 13 ICC+ANX Questions

Griffiths was eager to conflate OAV’s DED dimension with the shrunken subset that’s the ICC+ANX factor categories containing only 13 questions.

Doing so puts Griffiths 8/21 = 38% closer to their goal, of moving the limited, competitive spotlight of attention off of the DED/Dread questions and instead onto the new Grief set of questions that Griffiths is intent on gathering and tracking.

The PR narrative story tale is one of “adding scope of coverage beyond just Dread effects” – but the REAL STRATEGY under the cover of “broadening” is to MOVE attention, to REPLACE coverage, from Control to Grief; to REMOVE coverage of Control, which competes for attention – the main competitor – against Griffiths’ pet Grief category, the new biggest category instead of the old Control-challenges Dread category being the biggest category of negative effects questions.

Secret Mission: Get Rid of Control Coverage, and Add Grief Coverage Instead

Griffiths removes the Control challenges category and 18/21 of the Dread (DED) questions, and then makes their new Grief category bigger than any other category in their CEQ set of effects categories.

Studerus’ Error of Communication: the Supplemental Document Figure S1

Hey Griffiths: Some Easy Basic Little Questions for You:
How Many Dread Questions Are There? (21, not 13!)
How Many Questions Are in the 11-Factors Questionnaire? (66, not 42!)

“The items comprising the CEQ in Study 1 were taken from three separate and extensive instruments (the HRS, with 104 items total, the SOCQ with 100 items total, and the 5DASC with 42[sic] items), each with a different response format.” p. 9, Griffiths’ CEQ article 2016

Facts:

OAV has 66 items (questions).

11-Factors has those same 66 items.

42 of 11-Factors’ items are members of the 11 factors, 24 are direct members of high-level categories “Unpleasant Experiencing” (= DED, 21 items) or “Pleasant Experiencing” (= OB Ocean (27) + VR Visionary (18)). See Figure S1 & S2, Studerus 2010.

“5DASC with 42 items” is false. This should read:

11-Factors with 66 items: 42 factor member items and 24 direct members of the two high-level categories “Unpleasant Experiencing” & “Pleasant Experiencing”.

When 11-Factors says “we dropped an item”, they mean from a factor, not entirely; the item reverts to a direct member of the “Unpleasant Experiencing” or “Pleasant Experiencing” high-level category.

Griffiths mis-perceives 11-Factors as an exercise of entirely removing items, and CEQ becomes misguidedly a project of entirely removing items, removing 18 of 21 (86%) of negative psilocybin effects questions. While claiming to be a superset of DED’s 21 questions and covering broader scope.

No surprise that the too-positive creators of MEQ, when they go to cover their gap, again omit negative experiences, from their negative experiences complement (CEQ) to the MEQ.

CEQ is a malformed corrective epicycle; epicyclic correction of the malformed MEQ.

MEQ and CEQ are both incomplete; CEQ fails to complete MEQ.

Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ)
Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ)

Charles Stang is right, even after adding CEQ to MEQ. Griffiths continues to omit essential mystic experiences.

Mysticism (Christian brand, 1960) is the Old Theory. The Egodeath theory is the New Theory.

The Egodeath theory replaces the theory, the explanatory model, Mysticism 1960 per Walter Stace’s book Mysticism and Philosophy.

The Egodeath theory has and needs no equivalent of “the ineffable”, while Griffiths (following Pahnke and Stace) defines 1/4 of mystic experiencing as “ineffability”.

The actual nature of mystic-state experiencing is the eternalism experiential mode, vs. the possibilism experiential mode.

The eternalism mode causes formation of the “eternalism” mental model.

How Many Questions Are in 11-Factors’ “Unpleasant Experiences” High-Level Category? (Yes, Exists! 21, not 13)

This awful idea of a “supplement” Figure S1, which is and is not part of the 11-Factors article, is where it is tangible and clear that 11-Factors contains 66 questions including all 21 of the Dread questions from OAV – not just the 13 that are in the ICC+ANX factor subcategories.

Studerus lost 8 questions regarding clear effective communication, and that caused Griffiths to literally lose those 8 Dread effects questions entirely.

The result? Griffiths’ final Appendix 1 mockup set of 26 questions only includes 14% (3 of 21) of the Dread questions.

How to Eliminate 86% of the Bad Trip Effects from Psychedelics

After all is said and done by Studerus and then Griffiths’ misreading of Studerus, Griffth’s resulting Appendix 1 CEQ mockup questionnaire contains just 26 questions, and only 3 of those effects questions are from Dittrich’s OAV: Dread category of 21 negative effects.

3/21 = 14% kept, 86% discarded into Hanegraaff’s Rejected wastebasket, including question 54, “I was afraid to lose my self-control.”

😱🐉🚪🏆–>🗑

Griffiths by sloppy, careless, reckless accident removes 86% of bad trip effects from psychedelics, in the course of adding his pet “Grief” effects coverage category.

“OAV’s DED dimension (Angst/Dread of Ego Dissolution) is considered the “bad trip” questionnaire subset” – Griffiths, CEQ article.

By Griffiths’ accidental mistake due to Studerus’ poor communication of what the 11-Factors questionnaire is, Griffiths magically eliminates 18/21 = 86% of the negative, challenging effects from psychedelics. 🎉

Griffiths did not mean to ignore the 8 non-factor-member Unpleasant effects questions.

When Griffiths’ final page of the pdf article has heading “ICC” & “ANX”, it should have “Unpleasant” instead, or add “Unpleasant: General” containing 8 items in addition to the 7+6=13 items shown – to add to the Initial Pool which was intended to be all the challenging effects questions from all 3 questionnaires.

Not only the subset of the Dread questions which made it into the ICC or ANX factor-categories of 11-Factor questionnaire.

All 66 questions, in categories.

All de-facto categories: 13, not 11: cover questions which aren’t in the 11 factor-categories, which is a set of 8 Unpleasant questions and a set of 16 Pleasant questions. Leveral fully Figure S1 (or S2) hierarchy tree.

All 2 levels of categories:

Unpleasant (21 items) includes 3, not 2, subcategories:
General – Unpleasant: 8 items <– overlooked by Griffiths, incl. question 54.
ICC 7 items
ANX 6 items
total: 21 items. Not “all 13 ANX + ICC” per Griffiths as if that’s same as the Dread dimension’s questions from Dittrich, which has 21 not 13 items.

Pleasant (66-21 items = 45 = 27 Ocean + 18 Visionary) includes 10, not 9, subcategories:
General – Pleasant (16 items) <– missing from clear representation
Bliss
Disembodiment
Religious experiences
Complex imagery
etc.

11-Factor Questionnaire (66)

Numbers in parens are total contained item count of questions.

Divided into two high-level categories aka subscales: Unpleasant Experiences, and Pleasant Experiences, containing all 66 items.

Order the factor sections by Figure S1; eg Unpleasant Experiences first.
Within each of the 11 factors, sort items by bold key terms first.

Unpleasant Experiences (21) – overlooked high-level dimension

This high-level category defined by Studerus as part of their 11-Factors questionnaire has the same scope and 21 items as OAV’s A dimension;
Dread of Ego Dissolution (DED)
Anxious Ego Dissolution (AED) – the ‘A’ of OAV
Angstvolle Ichauflösung (AIA)

Bold redmeans key for Control challenges, and experiencing Eternalism.
Bold means high interest for psychedelics Control challenging aspects of effects.

For good views of the bold items of interest, see:

Custom categories and best questions about Control-challenges from the OAV & SOCQ & HRS questionnaires:
ECQ – “Eternalism and Control Questionnaire”
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/eternalism-and-control-transformation-effects-in-the-psychedelics-effects-questionnaires/

The 7 best Control-challenges questions only (5 from OAV’s DED, 1 SOCQ, 1 HRS):
How to Partly Redeem the CEQ: Add a “Control” Category and the Surveys’ Specific Questions About Experiencing the Threat of Loss of Control
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/how-to-redeem-the-ceq-add-a-control-category-and-the-surveys-questions-about-experiencing-the-threat-of-loss-of-control/

Unpleasant: General (8) – CEQ overlooks – Shadow Factor 13

🤦‍♂️💥🔥😵⚰️ 🐉🏆

54. I was afraid to lose my self-control.
Fig S1: in Anxiety.
Fatal Fail: CEQ overlooks this topmost DED question b/c it’s not in Studerus’ final set of items in ANX or ICC (it got “dropped” from the ANX factor due to cross-loading or ambiguity, eg it fits in ICC as well as ANX), so this challenging psychedelics effect wasn’t added to Griffiths’ Initial Item Pool that was supposed to consist of all challenging items from OAV (entire DED dimension they call “an overall bad trip scale”), SOCQ, & HRS questionnaires:
“The OAV sub-scale “dread of ego dissolution” (DED) covers a wide range of negative experiences, and is generally considered an overall “bad trip” scale (Studerus et al., 2010).” – Griffiths 2016, p. 2

3. I felt surrendered to dark powers.

12. I felt tormented.
Fig S1: in Anxiety.

59. Time passed tormentingly slow.

36. I experienced an unbearable emptiness.

55. I stayed frozen in a very unnatural position for quite a long time.

62. Everything around me was happening so fast that I could no longer follow what was going on.
Fig S1: in ICC.

41. My body seemed to me numb, dead and weird.
Fig S1: in ICC.

Evidence that the correct items are in this group: In Studerus 2010, see Figure S1 top – 4 non-factor members, + 2 items in Anx, + 2 items in ICC; those 4 items aren’t in Figure 1, therefore they reverted to direct members of Unpleasant (Figure S1 upper-right label).

Anxiety (6)

38. I felt threatened.

63. I had the feeling something horrible would happen.
1 of the 3 Unpleasant effects allowed in CEQ

29. I was afraid without being able to say exactly why.

19. I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever.
1 of the 3 Unpleasant effects allowed in CEQ

30. I experienced everything terrifyingly distorted.

32. I experienced my surroundings as strange and weird.

Impaired Control and Cognition (7)

53. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own.

5. I felt like a marionette.

33. I felt as though I were paralyzed.

16. I had difficulty making even the smallest decision.

24. I had difficulty in distinguishing important from unimportant things.

44. I felt isolated from everything and everyone.
1 of the 3 Unpleasant effects allowed in CEQ

45. I was not able to complete a thought, my thought repeatedly became disconnected.

Pleasant Experiences (45) – overlooked high-level dimension

Pleasant: General (16) – Virtual Factor 12

To group items, used strategy: Match Studerus 2010 Figure S1 & Figure 1 & hints/ deductions from my OAV page:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/29/oav-questionnaire-1994-oceanic-boundlessness-angst-of-dread-of-ego-dissolution-visionary-restructuralization-dittrich/

Pleasant: General, from Oceanic (10)

26. I felt unusual powers in myself.

31. The world appeared to me beyond good and evil.

23. Like in a dream, time and space were changed.

1. I felt like I was in a fantastic other world.

2. Bodily sensations were very delightful.

22. Worries and anxieties of everyday life seemed unimportant to me.

50. I felt totally free and released from all responsibilities.

47. Many things seemed unbelievably funny to me.

9. I felt I was being transformed forever in a marvelous way.

4. I saw things that I knew were not real.

Pleasant: General, from Visionary (6)

48. The boundaries between myself and my surroundings seemed to blur.

40. Things came to mind, which I thought I had forgotten long ago.

64. I was able to remember certain events unusually clearly.

58. Things around me appeared smaller or larger.

61. Everything around me seemed animated.

39. Many things appeared to be breathtakingly beautiful.

Audio-Visual Synesthesia (3)

11. Noises seemed to influence what I saw.

14. The shapes of things seemed to change by sounds and noises.

51. The colors of things seemed to be changed by sounds and noises.

Complex Imagery (3)

Fig S1 draft title: Vivid Imagery

57. My imagination was extremely vivid.

25. I saw scenes rolling by in total darkness or with my eyes closed.

49. I could see pictures from my past or fantasy extremely clearly.

Elementary Imagery (3)

Fig S1 draft title: Elementary Visual Alterations

8. I saw regular patterns in complete darkness or with closed eyes.

13. I saw colors before me in total darkness or with closed eyes.

20. I saw lights or flashes of light in total darkness or with closed eyes.

Blissful State (3)

7. I enjoyed boundless pleasure.

60. I experienced a profound peace in myself.

65. I experienced an all-embracing love.

Insightfulness (3)

34. I felt very profound.

46. I gained clarity into connections that puzzled me before.

52. I had very original thoughts.

Spiritual Experience (3)

Figure S1 draft name of factor: Religious Experience

6. I had the feeling of being connected to a superior power.

56. I experienced a kind of awe.

66. My experience had religious aspects.

Experience of Unity (5)

35. I experienced past, present and future as an oneness.

27. I experienced a touch of eternity.

10. Everything seemed to unify into an oneness.

21. It seemed to me that my environment and I were one.

28. Conflict and contradictions seem to dissolve.

Changed Meaning of Percepts (3)

18. Things around me had a new strange meaning for me.

17. Everyday things gained a special meaning.

37. Objects around me engaged me emotionally much more than usual.

Disembodiment (3)

15. It seemed to me as though I did not have a body anymore.

42. I had the feeling of being outside of my body.

43. I felt as though I were floating.

References

See https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/29/oav-questionnaire-1994-oceanic-boundlessness-angst-of-dread-of-ego-dissolution-visionary-restructuralization-dittrich/#References

Dec. 31, 2022: I’m reading from PubMed:
Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin
Frederick Barrett, Mathew “No Buddha Statues” Johnson, Roland Griffiths
2015
Search: https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Validation+of+the+revised+Mystical+Experience+Questionnaire%22
Pubmed url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ – for PDF, click “FREE Full text PMC” button in upper right

— Cybermonk, December 30-31, 2022