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The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was an experiment conducted on
Good Friday Good Friday, also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday, or Friday of the Passion of the Lord, is a solemn Christian holy day commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary (Golgotha). It is observed during ...
, April 20, 1962 at
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at
Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...
, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.


Experiment

Prior to the Good Friday service, twenty graduate degree divinity student volunteers from the
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
area were randomly divided into two groups. In a
double-blind In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expec ...
experiment, half of the students received psilocybin, while a control group received a large dose of niacin. Niacin produces clear physiological changes and thus was used as an active placebo. In at least some cases, those who received the niacin initially believed they had received the psychoactive drug. However, the feeling of face flushing (turning red, feeling hot and tingly) produced by niacin subsided about an hour after receiving the dose, whereas the effects of the psilocybin intensified over the first few hours. Almost all of the members of the experimental group reported experiencing profound religious experiences, providing empirical support for the notion that
psychedelic drug Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluc ...
s can facilitate religious experiences. One of the participants in the experiment was religious scholar Huston Smith, who would become an author of several textbooks on comparative religion. He later described his experience as "the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced". Another participant was Paul Lee, who was Paul Tillich's teaching assistant at
Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...
and one of the founding editors of the Psychedelic Review (along with much of the original cast of the Psilocybin Project). Lee was given the niacin, at least for these sessions. Amidst other intriguing journal observations, in the entry titled "The Mushroom" Lee recounted, Timothy Leary, who had supervised the experiment without institutional approval, was dismissed from Harvard in 1963.


Doblin's follow-up

In a 25-year follow-up to the experiment in 1986, all of the subjects given psilocybin except for one described their experience as having elements of "a genuine mystical nature and characterized it as one of the high points of their spiritual life". Psychedelic researcher Rick Doblin considered Pahnke's original study partially flawed due to incorrect implementation of the
double-blind In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expec ...
procedure, and several imprecise questions in the mystical experience questionnaire. Pahnke had failed to mention that several subjects had struggled with acute anxiety during their experience. One had to be restrained and injected with Thorazine (chlorpromazine) after he had fled the chapel convinced he was chosen to announce the return of the Messiah. Nevertheless, Doblin said that Pahnke's study cast "a considerable doubt on the assertion that mystical experiences catalyzed by drugs are in any way inferior to non-drug mystical experiences in both their immediate content and long-term effects". A similar sentiment was expressed by clinical psychologist William A. Richards, who in 2007 stated " sychedelicmushroom use may constitute one technology for evoking revelatory experiences that are similar, if not identical, to those that occur through so-called spontaneous alterations of brain chemistry."


Griffiths' study

In 2002 (published in 2006), a study was conducted at
Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
by Roland R. Griffiths that assessed mystical experience after psilocybin. In a 14-month follow-up to this study, over half of the participants rated the experience among the top five most meaningful spiritual experiences in their lives, and considered the experience to have increased their personal well-being and life satisfaction.


See also

* Concord Prison Experiment * God helmet * Neuroscience of religion


Notes


References

*Roberts, T. B. (editor) (2001). ''Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion.'' San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices. * *Roberts, T. B. "Chemical Input—Religious Output: Entheogens." Chapter 10 in ''Where God and Science Meet: Vol. 3: The Psychology of Religious Experience'' Robert McNamara (editor)(2006). Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.


External links

*. Includes Pahnke's doctoral dissertation "Drugs and Mysticism" * * * * * {{Ram Dass Psychedelic drug research Psychology experiments Neurotheology History of Harvard University 1962 in Massachusetts 1960s in Boston April 1962 in the United States Timothy Leary Ram Dass