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‘Far out man. I saw Zappa.’

Preliminary results from this Johns Hopkins experiment are beginning to come in.

Margaret Soltan, July 10, 2017 10:58AM
Posted in: forms of religious experience

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6 Responses to “‘Far out man. I saw Zappa.’”

  1. Bernard Carroll Says:

    Some rules for psychedelic studies: (1) beware of built-in bias, which leads to self-fulfilling prophecies; (2) beware of pseudo-profundity that passes itself off as the real breakthrough insight thing. I recall a story about RD Laing from the 1960s… one subject excitedly wrote down his insight during a session… upon returning to the document, he was crestfallen to read “A door is a device for passing through a wall.”

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Barney: LOL!

    And as my example suggests, you really don’t know what’s going to be revealed – a point related to what you’re saying. I think it’s a very bad sign that the researchers are already all soft and gooey about how it’s all going to be about yielding rich spiritual insight.

    By the way: I sent the article describing the project to Marc Abrahams as an Ignoble nominee, and he wrote back right away, very appreciative.

  3. charlie Says:

    So Jesus thinks I’m a jerk? Why doesn’t he have a talk with his old man, that’s a jealous, petty, maniacal jackhole if ever I saw one….

  4. Bernard Carroll Says:

    It’s all in the framing of the issues/questions, UD. Good luck with the Ig proposal – nice idea.

  5. Jack Says:

    Why priests, rabbis and bhikkhus? Call it the Reverend Lovejoy bias. Isn’t that like an experiment on the university using only VPs and deans? (Though I do like the idea of dosing the likes of them.)

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Jack: I know, I know. And that’s only a tiny bit of the bias.

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