Sacred knowledge
Subtitle: psychedelics and religious experiences
By: William A. Richards ; foreword bt G. William Barnard
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780231174060
Subjects: Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience
Description: In the early 1960s, scientists openly advocated for experimentation with psychedelics. This effort, however, quickly turned into a discredited enterprise involving recreational drug use. But what if a study of psychedelics was undertaken with trusted scientific rigor? William A. Richards does just that in Sacred Knowledge, the first well-documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness, and revelatory religious experiences.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword, by G. William Barnard; title: Preface: One Discovery of Transcendence; title: Acknowledgments; title: Introduction; title: Note to the Reader; title: Part I. Setting the Stage; title: The Death and Rebirth of Psychedelic Research; title: Orientation, Definitions, and the Limits of Language; title: Revelation and Doubt; title: Part II. Mystical and Visionary Forms of Consciousness; title: Intuitive Knowledge; title: Approaches to Unitive Consciousness; title: New Perspectives on Time and Space; title: Visions and Archetypes; title: Part III. Personal and Interpersonal Dynamics; title: The Interpersonal and the Mystical; title: Experiences of Meaninglessness, Despair, and Somatic Discomfort; title: Religious Conversion and Psychodynamic Experiences; title: Discipline and Integration; title: Reflections on Death; title: Part IV. Present and Future Applications of Entheogens; title: Psychedelic Frontiers in Medicine; title: Psychedelic Frontiers in Education; title: Psychedelic Frontiers in Religion; title: Maximizing the Probability of Safety and Benefit; title: Part V. Onward; title: Fears of Awakening; title: Entering Into a New Paradigm; title: Movement Into the Future; title: Epilogue: A Concise Report of Insights from the Frontier Where Science and Spirituality Are Meeting; title: Selected Bibliography; title: A Hopkins Playlist for Psilocybin Studies (2008 Version).