Breakthrough new studies could mark a “paradigm shift” in treating patients’ depression and anxiety, one researcher says.
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The results, the authors write, were “rapid, robust, and sustained”: Single doses eased depression and anxiety for longer than seven weeks and up to eight months. The authors conclude, with a remarkable assessment of their results, that “this pharmacological finding is novel in psychiatry.”
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Dinah Bazer, also of Brooklyn, said her treatment had rid her of the mental anguish she suffered following her cancer diagnosis several years ago. As an atheist, it’s hard for me to say this, but I was bathed in God’s love," she said. “And that continued for hours. When the experience was over, the fear and anxiety was still gone, and my life was changed.”
I love the power…the spirit of nature to sustain and heal. In fact there are many studies which show that mushrooms have a wide variety of reparative and healing component beginning with mycelium. But I also think that the god reference was one of internalized cultural reference, and perhaps the need to name and ‘identify’ a singular source for this love that the woman felt. Love exists. I don’t think we can truly isolate, quantify or otherwise qualify a source. Just theorizing.
I wonder if what the person in question experienced could be considered a form of pīti of the Buddha’s teachings:
Thanks for that, but having had that experience, and many more [one of which was my one and only experience with true telepathy] I can honestly attest to the power of psylocibin beyond mere conscious joy. I can only describe the larger doses as having the potential to create rapturous joy or immersion in hell or the lower realms of human consciousness. As a child of the Sixties I have been taught many things…some very Buddhist before I understood their import…by psychoactive substances. Plants are awesomely powerful teachers but not always kind. Psylocybin can definitely provide the subject with a rapturous experience, but I have never found the need to reference a god. Like NDE, Near Death Experience, it is caused by an endogenous chemical infusion. In the case of NDE the chemical is DMT but the experience is often quantified as a glimpse of “Heaven” or the path to Heaven where one reunites with deceased loved ones. To my way of thinking these experiences confirm the Buddhist assertion that all states of heaven and hell reside within our own consciousness.
Very interesting remarks!
I have never tried it and don’t think I will ever do.
The little I have learned so far about myself is enough to make me confident that having something like that in my system would drive me way beyond the threshold of sanity, very much likely with irreversible disabling consequences! 
Good morning and how nice to have such an intelligent person to have discourse with. Thanks. But as to your quote…no offense, but it sounds like fear of the unknown which as we know is the real problem. Everything that affects our consciousness -even Buddhism- is best sampled in small increments. Same is true of Psychedelics. One can titrate small doses in the beginning and gradually increase the dose. Yet I would not encourage anyone to try these powerful teachers because, as with Buddhism, the most important facet of the relationship is whether and how we are drawn to a particular experience. I was drawn to plant teachers in my late teens, and lSD as a path to a deeper understanding of my personality. But what happened created a young Buddhist without really knowing that I was on that path. Having seen the breakdown of standard phenomenology…like the fixed shapes and sizes of elements in the material world…into pure light I could never again think of this material reality as a fixed independent reality which set the stage for my present understanding of the ‘dependent arising’ nature of this apparent reality. Did this make sense?
Yes, it does make sense!
Indeed, lots of fear of unknown, but as well the acknowledgement that I better first give a try to the path I have already chosen to take: the cultivation of the eightfold path, which prescribes the abstaining of intoxicants (I consider these things as intoxicants).
I do however keep myself interested and constantly willing to learn more about how people experience existence under the influence of this powerful things and how this may help those in intense pain and suffering (hence the link I shared).
And of course I commend you for being on the right path. Just one more comment my friend, not to belabor the issue, but your reference to intoxicants is not exactly correct. For the word inTOXicant describes these substances as toxic which they are not. In fact you can not die from an overdose of mushrooms or cannabis. But I am not defending nor promoting them in general. And I do believe that Buddhism is the safest sanest choice as a path to enlightenment. Just focused on clarity using language so as not to confuse the issue. One advantage to the Eightfold Path…NO HANGOVER! [smiling] Thank you for the discussion. Namaste as always. XO
Hi Rosie,
Yes, the words are tricky.
But I mean here anything external which once ingested could bring more confusion to my mind.
In that sense and still in this topic, I have been recently seriously considering slowing down on my usual daily intake of coffee. I have noticed that depending on how I find myself when starting the day the taking of coffee sometimes leads to more confusion - i.e. anxiety and restlessness.
Coffee? Really? You are a brave and strong human. Wow! lol Good Luck!
Correction to my own most recent post:
Note to self-Buddhists don’t believe in luck
Self: Oh…right. Thanks, Sorry!