
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"
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{{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