Mysticism and Drugs
Religious Studies June 1, 1978 James Kellenberger 10 citations
Scholars of mysticism and psychological researchers have debated whether drugs can induce genuine mystical experiences. R. C. Zaehner, an expert in Eastern and Western mysticism, argued that drug-induced experiences differ from theistic religious mystical experiences. He rejected Aldous Huxley's comparison of his feeling of oneness with a chair to the Beatific Vision, and later critiqued Timothy Leary's claims about LSD. The core disagreement was not whether the experiences were real, but whether they matched the mystical states achieved through spiritual discipline. Psychological researchers like Walter N. Pahnke and R. E. L. Masters and Jean Houston pursued this question through laboratory experiments.