På seglats i själens djup - en studie av droginducerade mystika tillstånd och erfarenheter

Abstract

The use of hallucinogenic plants has throughout human history been used for religious purposes, in order to induce mystical states of mind, often interpreted as meeting with gods and spirits. In recent years, this practice has been taken up by people interested in the exploration of their psyche and spiritual side. This group of people, referred to as “psychonauts”, communicate with each other through internet based forum, where they share their experiences in so called “trip reports”. The aim of this study was to see what role psychedelic drugs can play when used in a spiritual/religious context, and whether these sorts of mystical states of mind could tell us about more traditional mystical experiences. Eleven trip reports from the Swedish psychonaut forum 'Magiska Molekyler' were analysed to see how the psychedelic mystical experience was described, what central themes were present, and in what way it correlated with definitions of traditional mystical experiences. Seven central themes were found; ego and death of the ego, a feeling of unity of both inner and outer kind, fractal hallucinations, passivity and acceptance, relativization, a distorted sense of space, time and the ability to associate, and finally a therapeutic effect. Of these themes, five were found to be collateral to the first theme, death of the ego, while the last theme, the therapeutic effect was found to be a consequence of the aftermath of the same theme. The nature of the psychedelic trips were found to correlate pretty well with definitions of traditional mystical experiences. The differences found are likely due to the fact that drug induced effects are active under a prolonged time, that they occur without regard to the psychonaut's state of mind, which is not the case with the traditional mystic, and that the psychonaut writes to an audience presumed to already be familiar with the mystical experience. Due to the hermeneutic nature of the analysis, it is certainly possible to find other present themes if the reports were to be read in another way.