Guest speaker: Roland Griffiths
PROGRAM NOTES:
Today’s podcast features a talk given by Roland Griffiths, who is a professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins Medicine. In addition to describing the current psychedelic studies being undertaken there, he also goes into detail about exactly what characteristics researchers consider when evaluating whether a person has actually had a spiritual experience. Among the research participant’s comments that he read, one of the most common themes was the interconnectedness of all things and beings. Also, he spoke about their research into the character of one’s personality in regards to how a psychedelic experience affected their openness to the experiences of life. Another interesting thing that his research group is investigating is the intersection of psilocybin and meditation, a discussion of which takes up a significant part of this talk.
“Psilocybin is a pharmacological tool that helps people recognize how it feels to embody the present moment. And that’s exactly the same of meditation. It’s about bringing yourself into the present moment.”
-Roland Griffiths
Download
MP3
PCs – Right click, select option
Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option
Johns Hopkins University Psilocybin & Spirituality
386 Loose Ends Time
Lozo, it’s really really okay man. “The McKenna Salon”
For sure.
It makes me chuckle when Palenque Norte speakers come up in my daily life from different sources. Synchronicities are so fun.
A great talk for someone who has never heard of these studies, though if you’ve been in the loop with the literature from John Hopkins and the stuff over at MAPS this is all kind of beating a dead horse from a purely ‘infotainment’ perspective. I suspect most of us saloners are well up to date on this freshly unfolding chapter of psychedelic history (or maybe its just me and I’m being an ass). It’d be nice if there were some breakthroughs, new data, etc. but most of the stuff presented here is old news! In any case, God bless Roland Griffiths and his team; and God bless Lorenzo.
If you’ve got any fresh McKenna, keep it flowing!
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: Fresh McKenna coming up soon!]