LSD and other pyschotropic drugs (including DMT; previous post) are likely to play a key role in any neurotheology research program. They evoke behaviors and experiences which clearly have much in common with the religious and are experimental design-friendly.

The New York Times ran an interview with Albert Hoffman, discoverer of LSD, on the occasion of his 100th birthday. The following struck me:

“I was completely astonished by the beauty of nature,” he said, laying a slightly gnarled finger alongside his nose, his longish white hair swept back from his temples and the crown of his head. He said any natural scientist who was not a mystic was not a real natural scientist. “Outside is pure energy and colorless substance,” he said. “All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”

This entry was posted on Monday, May 8th, 2006 at 15:15 and is filed under neurotheology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.