In 2015, the CENTURY published an advertisement with the headline “Seeking Clergy to Take Part in a Research Study of Psilocybin and Sacred Experience.” The notice from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine invited leaders from all religious traditions to volunteer for a study involving a psychedelic drug, psilocybin. Those who followed the link to the website learned that psilocybin is the active ingredient in what it called “sacred mushrooms.” Psilocybin, the website explained, has “been reported to occasion unitive and mystical experiences.”
The reported link between psilocybin and mystical experiences was based on earlier work done at Hopkins. In a 2006 peer-reviewed article, researchers made this stunning claim: “When administered to volunteers under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences which were evaluated by volunteers as having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual…
