About This Lesson
You may believe that mystical experiences are ineffable -- nothing that can be clearly and soundly stated about them. In this course, you will discover that belief is totally wrong. While “ineffable” is one thing people regularly say about their mystical experiences, there is a common universal phenomenology of these experiences that has been verified and replicated by researchers at Johns Hopkins University Center for the Study of Psychedelics and Consciousness. Dr. Roland Griffiths, Director of the Center and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health for his entire career at Johns Hopkins, lays out the protocol for studying awakening and shows us the similarities between controlled psychedelic interventions, encounters with God (in whatever form), spiritual enlightenment, being “reborn” in an Evangelical way, and Near Death Experiences. In this cutting-edge conversation, you will learn about addiction, awakening, and the awareness of awareness.
If you believe that we cannot say much about mystical experiences or that consciousness is “just a mystery,” this course will change your mind in precise and profound ways.
At the end of this course, you will:
1. Be able to describe the universal nature of mystical experiences
2. Understand what happens in controlled interventions for addiction and psychic pain, using psychedelics at Johns Hopkins Univeristy
3. Contrast substances or compounds that create dependence with compounds that create new awareness but not dependence
4. Describe an “ontological shock” that permits people to change their minds and move away from addictions and into healthier habits
Your Co-Hosts:
Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D.
and Mark Matousek
Beyond the Fringe is co-hosted by psychologist, author and podcaster Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. and author and teacher Mark Matousek, these courses herald a new perspective for mental health practitioners, spiritual seekers, and researchers alike who seek insight into the mind, the brain, awakening, relationships, spirituality, and death.
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center on Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute on Health and he is author of over 400 journal articles and book chapters. He has conducted extensive research with sedative-hypnotics, caffeine, and novel mood-altering drugs. Therapeutic studies with psilocybin include treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients, treatment of cigarette smoking cessation, and psilocybin treatment of major depression. The Hopkins laboratory has also conducted a series of internet survey studies characterizing various psychedelic experiences including those associated with acute and enduring adverse effects, mystical-type effects, entity and God-encounter experiences, and alleged positive changes in mental health, including decreases in depression and anxiety, decreases in substance abuse, and reductions in death anxiety.
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