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Timmermann C, Kettner H, Letheby C, Roseman L, Rosas FE, Carhart-Harris RL. 
“Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs”. 
Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 25;11(1):22166.
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  • Erowid RefID: 9469
  • PubMedID: 34815421
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    Abstract
    Can the use of psychedelic drugs induce lasting changes in metaphysical beliefs? While it is popularly believed that they can, this question has never been formally tested. Here we exploited a large sample derived from prospective online surveying to determine whether and how beliefs concerning the nature of reality, consciousness, and free-will, change after psychedelic use. Results revealed significant shifts away from 'physicalist' or 'materialist' views, and towards panpsychism and fatalism, post use. With the exception of fatalism, these changes endured for at least 6 months, and were positively correlated with the extent of past psychedelic-use and improved mental-health outcomes. Path modelling suggested that the belief-shifts were moderated by impressionability at baseline and mediated by perceived emotional synchrony with others during the psychedelic experience. The observed belief-shifts post-psychedelic-use were consolidated by data from an independent controlled clinical trial. Together, these findings imply that psychedelic-use may causally influence metaphysical beliefs-shifting them away from 'hard materialism'. We discuss whether these apparent effects are contextually independent.
    Comments and Responses to this Article
    #
    Status: display
    earth
    Dec 13, 2021 20:48
    In Other News: Water is Wet #
    The finding of the paper, that taking psychedelics can alter ideas is slightly too obvious. So the question of whether this is a helpful paper is how rigorously it confirms this finding and whether it can be extrapolated beyond the specific group of people studied.

    Overall, this paper doesn't deserve the title due to the obviousness and how thin their dataset is.

    Water is wet, whether the paper trying to demonstrate water's wetness is sufficient to do so.

    A paper with this title should be a review. The reviewers and editors of this paper should have demanded the title include in a group of participants with major depression after taking psilocybin or something similar.
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