Dec 17, 2012

Blisshrooms

Can one blissful moment change your life? Producer Andy Mills introduces us to Reverend Mike Young, a man who can pinpoint a pivotal handful of minutes in the 1960s that he claims did just that. As a college student, he was part of a study in which theology students were given psilocybin (a.k.a. magic mushrooms) in a church basement during a Good Friday service. This might seem ridiculous, and in fact, it wasn't long after that the use of these kinds of drugs for both science and recreation was banned. Nonetheless, we follow our curiosity to some current psilocybin experiments that demonstrate the powerful and surprising effects of psychedelic drugs. Dr. Roland Griffiths and Charlie Bessant help us pin down these hard-to-describe, intense feelings of rapture. And Andy finds himself reassured about a deeply personal experience from his own past.

READ MORE:

Reverend Mike Young, A Preacher's Poems

Oliver Sacks, Hallucinations 

Two of Roland Griffiths' ongoing studies:

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