Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
Author Index | Title Index

Exploring Inner Space: Personal Experiences Under LSD-25.

Dunlap, Jane. (1961).
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

ISBN: None


Description: First edition, 216 pages.


Contents: Introduction: A Psychologist Explains by Robert S. Davidson, Ph.D., 13 chapters, appendix by Robert S. Davidson.


Note: Jane Dunlap is a pseudonym for Adelle Davis who is better known for her books on natural foods and nutrition.


Excerpt(s): The author of this book volunteered to be the subject of [a medically supervised study] employing lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD-25. Her duty was to record in detail her visions while under the drug. ... Exploring Inner Space is highly individual-unlike any book ever published. It is impossible to predict its effect upon the reader. Some may find it merely an intriguing account of a mind roving dramatically free; others may react to its emotional range-from sheer terror to utter bliss; still others may find here the spiritual response they have never been able to articulate for themselves. (dust jacket)


I have heard it argued that one obtains from LSD whatever he is looking for, and that a person not interested in religion would have no mystical experiences. This point of view I disagree with heartily, thinking particularly of a report written by a man who stated that he had been an atheist before taking the drug but that he could never be again. Certainly this man was not looking for a religious experience. A rather large percent of persons given LSD have religious experiences, and peyote and certain mushrooms whose effects are similar have been used in religious ceremonies for hundreds of years. It seems to me that in this day when spiritual hungers and longings are both widespread and acute, LSD has a great potential in the field of religious development alone. (page 206)



The most lasting value of the drug experiences for me appears to be a number of convictions, most of them religious in nature, which are so strong that it makes not one iota of difference whether anyone agrees with me or not. I cannot shake them even though some are inconsistent with logical thinking. For example, time becomes real indeed each morning as the school bus nears our corner, although my LSD conviction is that there is no time except timelessness. Yet can anyone measure an activity by a trillionth of eternity? Can you measure even in light-years the length of immortality? These convictions have served to formulate and strengthen a new faith in God, a faith so satisfying and rewarding that my lasting gratitude goes to the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Laboratories which not only discovered and produced LSD-25 but are spending millions of dollars on its research. I feel they have given me a magnificent gift of a mirror in whose lovely depth one sees the refection of all humanity. (page 207)

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