The topic of entheogens is of intermittent interest to those interested in meditation. Recently, there was a meeting on this topic:: Buddhism and Psychedelics: A Community Discussion with Kokyo Henkel and James Fadiman that discussed meditative practice among other aspects of Buddhism.
Part I: youtube.com/watch?v=RYnheKnpmGs
Part II: youtube.com/watch?v=ZyeYH4xKoaY
Our research group at Johns Hopkins has just finished enrolling volunteers in a study of psilocybin and beginning meditators and we hope to start a study of psilocybin in long-term meditators within the next few months. Although some people report positive effects of psilocybin others do not. We are now conducting an anonymous, web-based survey [ shroomsurvey.com ] to characterize difficult or challenging experiences that people sometimes have on psilocybin mushrooms (i.e., “bad trips,” whether the person later regards them negatively or positively).
If you?ve ever had such an experience, we?d greatly appreciate it if you would take our survey. Importantly, if you know of others who?ve ever had a ‘bad’ psilocybin experience, please send them the link and encourage them to participate. This includes people who had a difficult experience long ago.
We think the topic is important. In addition to characterizing the phenomenology of difficult experiences, we’ll be probing the contribution of set and setting, personality, dose, and various other factors as well as assessing persisting negative effects attributed to psilocybin.
Survey link: shroomsurvey.com
secularbuddhism.org/2013/02/04/the-psilocybin-research-team-at-johns-hopkins-needs-your-help/