Wainwright on Drug-induced Religious Experience

Abstract

Conducting experiments and investigations, some researchers have tried to prove that mystical and religious experiences can be created through drug injection. W. J. Wainwright distinguishes between theistic and monistic mystical experiences. Assessing research done by Clark, Pahnke-Houston and Masters, he believes that although psychedelic drugs can induce some kind of monistic mystical experience, they cannot produce theistic mystical experiences. There is no significant evidence in the research based on which one can attribute theistic mystical experience to drug injection. Analysis of the research results showed that the drug induced experiences were mainly extroversive and only a small percentage of the experiences were introversive. According to Wainwright, there should be some considerations in scientific explanation of the mystical experiences. First, it seems necessary to pay attention to the object of the experience and to distinguish between different kinds of mystical experiences. This implies that we might not be able to offer a scientific explanation for the object of every experience. Second, one cannot determine the nature of religious and mystical experiences, for such experiences are something internal and thus cannot be measured by external criteria.

Keywords

• w. j. wainwright
• mystical experiences
• psychedelic drugs
• theistic experiences
• introversive experiences