Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

[BidenPresident]

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that studies themes such as the fundamental nature of reality, consciousness, and free will. Research has shown that most people hold distinct metaphysical positions—even if we are not fully aware of it. Metaphysical beliefs interface with such basic domains as health, religion, law, politics
and education and are entwined with a society’s culture and its stability.

Focusing specifically on psychedelics, recent evidence has demonstrated that psychedelics can reliably and
robustly induce intense, profound, and personally meaningful experiences that have been referred to as ‘mystical type’, ‘spiritual’, ‘religious’, ‘existential’, ‘transformative, ‘pivotal’ or ‘peak’.

Some specific facets of these potentially transformative psychedelic experiences include: a perceived transcendence of the physical bounds and laws of this ‘consensus reality’, encounters with ‘supernatural’ beings, and an ‘ultimate reality’, and the witnessing or comprehending of spatial and temporal vastness, a sense that the ‘cosmos is fundamentally conscious’ and/or that all things are essentially inter-related or connected, i.e. the so-called ‘unitive experience’

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01209-2

 

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Discussion

The present study sought to test the hypothesis that psychedelic experiences mediate changes in metaphysical beliefs concerning the nature of reality, consciousness and ‘fate’. Converging cross-sectional, prospective observational and controlled research data suggest a relationship between psychedelic experiences and shifts away from positions of hard physicalism and towards panpsychism, dualistic, and fatalistic beliefs.