Growing scientific interest in spirituality and promising findings on psychedelic-induced spiritual experiences for treating psychiatric disorders are paralleled by risks. Indiscriminate use of psychedelics to induce spiritual experiences may foster psychospiritual pathology, notably spiritual bypassing. This risk arises because psychedelics can trigger transcendental phenomenology, the dominant mechanistic-reductionist paradigm inadequately addresses spirituality, and New Age beliefs promote psychedelics as growth tools. Given the frequency of transcendental phenomenology in psychedelic experiences, psychospiritual assessment and support are needed. Incorporating wisdom from Eastern and Western philosophical and spiritual traditions, from a secular, transcultural perspective, could guide informed practices in psychedelic research and therapy.
Consciousness can be described as an internal representational reality that each individual experiences and creates. Hypnosis acts precisely on this representational reality, producing profound effects across all its dimensions because mental representations have a receptor basis. The consequence is that hypnosis can act on the receptor system, thereby affecting representations. Although strong correlations are known between the central nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, and a person's representational world, the precise nature of these correlations and how hypnosis works remain unknown. Similarly, while individual receptor systems are known, their mutual interrelationships are much less understood.