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Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
Author Index | Title Index
The Psychobiology of Consciousness.
Davidson, Julian M., and Davidson, Richard J. (Editors). (1980).
New York: Plenum.
ISBN: 0-306-40138-X
Description: Hardcover,
xviii + 489 pages.
Contents: Contributors,
foreword, 15 chapters, index.
Contributors: Seymour
M. Antelman, Anthony
R. Caggiula, Julian M. Davidson, Richard J. Davidson, Stephen
Franklin, Gordon
Globus, E.
Roy John, Kenneth
S. Pope, Karl
S. Pribram, Marjorie
Schuman, Jerome L. Singer, Charles T.
Tart.
Note: Chapter 13 " Toward
a Psychobiology of Transcendence: God in the Brain" by Arnold
J. Mandell will be of interest to readers of this guide.
Excerpt(s): The "delusional"
quality of these episodes [in temporal lobe epileptics] should
be addressed. The experience of a sudden attack of all-encompassing
ecstasy followed by empathic beatitude with no external explanation-such
as having taken a drug, having engaged in meditation, or having
a near brush with death-leads understandably to a projection of
its source to God. A projective mechanism for interpreting an
event felt but difficult to locate in space may be a fundamental
feature of human brain functioning. (page 436)
It is tempting to speculate that hippocampal-septal
slow waves associated with transcendent consciousness-while improving
personality features, disposition, and insightful empathy-reduce
bonding with others as the source of instinctual pleasure. The
Bhagavad Gita suggests that transcendent
consciousness is associated with "detachment" from
objects of desire, occurring automatically on the attainment of
higher states of consciousness. (page 437)
... Accounts of spontaneous religious ecstasy and
conversion characteristically include a preceding period of depression,
melancholia, pain, suffering, and duress. The most characteristic
pattern (1) begins with increasing discomfort and anxiety, including
attempts at sleep or social withdrawal, which (2) climax in an
ecstatic luminescence of insight and ecstasy and (3) are followed
by long periods of "saintliness." Mimicked
well by the effects of hallucinogens, this struggle to luminescence
and its glowing aftermath have been called many things, depending
on the context: William James called it a
"mystical experience." Saint Paul
called it "the peace that passeth understanding"; Thomas
Merton, the "transcendental unconscious"; Maslow,
"peak experience"; Gurdjieff,
"objective consciousness"; the Quakers, "inner
light"; Jung, "individuation";
Lao Tse, "the absolute Tao"; Zen Buddhism, "satori";
Yogis, "samadhi"; Saint John
of the Cross, "living flame"; The Tibetan Book of
the Dead, "luminosity"; Saint Teresa,"ecstasy";
Blake, "divine intuition"; Buddha,
"awake"; Brother Lawrence, "unclouded
vision"; Jacob Boehme, "light, which
is the heart of God"; Philo Judaes, "joyful
with exceeding gravity"; Plotinus, "divine
spirit"; Colin Wilson, "intensity
experience"; Eliade, "shamanic
ecstasy"; Arthur Clarke, "overmind";
Arthur Deikman, "deautomatization";
a Harvard undergraduate on LSD, "moment of truth"; Julian
Silverman (about an aspect of the acute schizophrenic reaction),
"the oceanic fusion of higher and lower referential process";
Walter Wasson
(about mushrooms), "the dawning of a new world"; Myerhoff
(about peyote), "mystic vision"; Tennyson,
"the loss of personality seeking not extinction but the only
true life"; Hinduism, "that"; and Ramon
the Huichol, "Our life." Are they the same? The Eastern
comparative religionist Alan Watts, after his
second LSD experience, answered "embarrassingly" so.
Like sexual orgasm, however, full of many of the same ineffable
qualities and similarly associated with long-lasting metaphysical
feelings like "being in love," manifestations of the
same nervous system reflex are often variously embellished by
personality and culture. (page 438-439)
... all may be manifestations of the drive-arrest-release
sequence in biogenic amine inhibitory systems, releasing temporal
lobe limbic, hippocampal-septal hypersynchrony that lasts for
long periods after discharge. They all may reflect the neurobiological
mechanisms underlying transcendence., God in the brain. (page
439)
Compilation copyright © 1995 – 2001 CSP
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