Back in 2002 John Hopkins University had 46 people take psilocybin mushrooms in a rare study of psychedelic drugs. In interviews now 6 years later two thirds of the participants called it a very positive experience in their lives.
"It was a joyful, ecstatic thing at the same time, like the joy of being alive, there was this sense of relief and joy and ecstasy when my heart was opened." Said 66 year old Dede Osborn (no relation to Ozzie) who summed it up most typically. Osborn and others went on to say it was a life changing spiritual experience. Study: Long-term benefit in ‘magic mushroom’ drug
In the late Seventies there was also a Rack Jite Study of psilocybin mushrooms that took place over several years in trips to one of the top mushroom turista spots of the world. The Mayan Ruins at Palenque in the jungle state of Chiapis in Mexico. Though the Mayan ruins added to the spiritual side of the experience it was the pain suffered the following day that is most memorable. [The Rack Jite Study was overseen under controlled conditions by Tutu Tom and Hongo Harry.]
The pain in the muscles of our cheeks and abdomens caused us to have to take precious days off before doing it again. Beer and Tequila sufficed in the meantime. The pain was primarily due to Mexico being a very funny place in general, but more specifically the humor we found in the colors they paint everything paintable. And of course many many yucks concerning so many different kinds of animals doing what animals to in the overhead racks of the buses. Sometimes laughing jags could last up to an hour over just one colorful piece of silliness. One very long term laugh I remember was Tutu Tom trading his calculator for a turkey we ended up dealing with for a week in our laps. He finally did get et.
Doing my best to capture the sillyciban experience in just a few words I would say, "Doing Hongo in the Jungo makes God funny." Finding so much humor in the old man had a profound effect on my subsequent spirituality. Having a laugh with religion is far superior to using it to poke others in the eye.
Though the study would like to go forward to use what it has learned to help various medical and addiction issues, the government (the Bush Administration) with its recent scathing report (that sounds like it is from the 1935 movie Reefer Madness) that marijuana will kill you, is sure to keep any more experiments with such drugs relagated only to the more Republcian aspects of war and torture.