U.S. pays for people to take "illegal" drugs!!

NEOPO

I suppose this is "normal".

To base an opinion on one article, on our parents beliefs, on personal experience alone or a combination is very common it seems.

Sagan - To live a short yet aware life versus a long yet ignorant one......hmmm.
I wonder if cancer was genetic or perhaps a result of the environment, asbestos etc etc... kinda hard to say.

Just another example of how we put 1 with 1 and make 3.

gg3 - good work Wink

gg3

Tommy, ten points for copping to an error; if more people did that the world wouldn't be going down the toilet at the moment.

As far as lasting changes are concerned, that depends on individuals and contexts. This is why combined approaches are useful. Now we have pretty solid results saying psilocybin is "safe & effective when used as directed," and does produce mystical experiences. The next step forward is to find ways to reduce the dosages and increase the cognitive discipline aspects of an overall treatment protocol.

The goal here would be a protocol that uses the minimum dosage of psilocybin plus as much of the cognitive element as possible. This is consistent with conventional pharmacotherapeutic approaches to all forms of physical and psychiatric illness, that always call for using the minimum dosage of whatever compound for whatever purpose.

So for example we might find the protocol eventually goes like this:

Four weeks of daily practice of prayer, meditation, study of scriptures, and so on, with charitable good works one day each weekend, and where relevant, attendance of worship services (or for the atheists and anyone else who's interested, attendance of group discussions of relevant philosophical principles). One evening each week, a one-hour check-in session with the therapist (or whatever you'd call this person in this context) to discuss relevant ideas & experiences.

Then one weekend, a properly guided session involving let's say 10 milligrams of psilocybin (rather than the 30 used in the Griffiths study) and all day prayer & meditation on the events of the past four weeks.

Then an additional four weeks of the daily practice regimen. Then one weekend of a guided session involving prayer & meditation but no psilocybin, the point of this being to anchor the entire series of experiences into a form that can be sustained over the long term.

At that point you'd be looking for persistent positive changes in attitude & behavior, including the regular ongoing practice of the various cognitive disciplines.

(And note here, for atheists, substitute philosophical studies for prayer and scriptural studies. We are not trying to make theists out of atheists, only trying to provide a framework for practices that lead toward a more integral outlook and behavior.)