Historians of religion tell us that religions employing a psychedelic sacrament have existed on our planet for more than four thousand years, and today we’re witnessing a popular embrace of psychedelic spirituality. But do such substances as mescaline, psilocybin, LSD and DMT trigger experiences of any real or lasting value in the spiritual sense, and if so, what evidence supports that claim? In this talk, we’ll explore the history of investigations into psychedelic mysticism from the perspective of religious studies, beginning with Aldous Huxley’s theory that there exists a particular type of mystical experience, a sense of “Unity with Ultimate Reality,” that can be occasioned by psychedelic drugs. Having looked at arguments for and against Huxley’s position, we’ll shift our discussion to consider what value — if any — such an experience might afford, including Huston Smith’s view that the litmus test of all “mystical” states of consciousness is whether or not they result in improved traits of behavior in our everyday lives. Bringing our discussion up-to-date, we’ll consider the import of the recent “God Encounter” study at Johns Hopkins comparing similarities and differences in such encounters between those that occurred naturally and those triggered by psychedelics.

Sawyer is professor emeritus of philosophy and world religions at the Maine College of Art and author of biographies of both Aldous Huxley and Huston Smith.  His primary expertise is in Hinduism and Buddhism but for more than twenty years, his work has focused on comparative mysticism, theories of a “perennial philosophy,” and the possible value of psychedelic experiences.  His work has been published by the University of California at Berkeley, the State University of New York, the University of Muenster, Germany, and has appeared in such popular journals as Parabola and Tricycle: the Buddhist Review.  Sawyer is a native of Maine and summers with his family in Blue Hill.