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Fascinating scientific study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/ The criteria used in the study: volunteers completed the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire (Griffiths et al., 2006), which assesses seven domains of mystical experiences: - internal unity (pure awareness; - a merging with ultimate reality); - external unity (unity of all things; all things are alive; all is one); - transcendence of time and space, - ineffability and paradoxicality (claim of difficulty in describing the experience in words); - sense of sacredness (awe); - noetic quality (claim of intuitive knowledge of ultimate reality); - and deeply-felt positive mood (joy, peace, love). Ratings were made on a 6-point scale relative to the participant’s overall life experience. The observations were made over 14 months periodof time. Some comments from the article: The most striking finding from this 14-month follow-up evaluation of the effects of psilocybin and methylphenidate administered to hallucinogen-naïve volunteers is that a large proportion of volunteers rate their “psilocybin experience”1as among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives. Fifty-eight percent and 67% of volunteers, respectively, rated the experience as being among the five most personally meaningful experiences of their lives, and the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives; 11% and 17%, respectively, indicated that it was the single most meaningful experience, and the single most spiritually significant experience.