The mystic trip: how psychedelic research fell for mysticism.
Psychopharmacology July 17, 2026 Richard Saville-Smith, Sharday Mosurinjohn
The term 'mysticism' in psychedelic research is outdated and misleading, rooted in the flawed and unexamined ideas of Walter Stace and Walter Pahnke. The paper critiques this legacy through an archaeological re-evaluation of foundational texts and a genealogical tracing of how 'mysticism' became normalized in second-generation psychedelic research. It advocates renaming the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) to the Psychedelic Experience Questionnaire (PEQ), aligning with Pahnke's later five-part typology of psychedelic experience. This change would free the instrument from a dubious quasi-religious construct that forces therapeutic outcomes into a narrow framework.