Saw this posted this morning:
“Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in ‘sacred mushrooms’ can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.”
I’m not sure what to make of it. If the research is verified, the obvious conclusion would be that there is a physical basis for mystical/religious experience. Which could both explain the commonality of the phenomenon and lead people to question was there was any “outside of the human brain” agency involved in any religious experience.
Or you could argue that God made us that way…
Read the rest here: Scientists show hallucinogen in mushrooms creates universal ‘mystical’ experience
(Via Physics Org.)
From an evolutionary perspective, having a brain physiology that’s conducive to mystical experiences might be a positive adaptation.
And the fact that such experiences can be triggered pharmaceutically doesn’t rule out the possibility of other, outside-the-brain triggers.