A preliminary survey of paranormal experiences with psychoactive drugs

Abstract

Since the earliest anthropological reports began relating the traditional use of psychoactive plants with shamanism, witchcraft, and magic (e.g., see Schultes & Hofmann, 1992), there has been an association between such substances and paranormal phenomena. Following the discovery of the psychoactive effects of LSD by Albert Hofmann in 1943 and the subsequent boom in interest in so-called substances, a body of anecdotal reports of paranormal experiences began surfacing among researchers (Luke, 2006) and, beginning in the 1950s, several experimental research projects were conducted to investigate the utility of psychedelic drugs in inducing ESP (for a review see Luke, in preparation). For the purpose of the present paper, a psychedelic drug is one which, without causing physical addiction, craving, major physiological disturbances, delirium, disorientation, or amnesia, more or less reliably produces thought, mood, and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychoses. (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1998, p. 9) The dated medical term hallucinogen has not been favoured here because the clouded notion of hallucinations in relation to psychoactive drugs obscures far more than it explains (see Shannon, 2003). The term defying a good consensus definition, is here used to include a number of apparent phenomena beyond current scientific explanation that are commonly researched by parapsychologists--such as psi (ESP, psychokinesis), mediumistic communication, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), and near-death experiences (NDEs). Several apparent phenomena not so commonly investigated within parapsychology but which are of interest are also included here under this rubric--such as entity encounters, perception of auras, past-life experiences, and several mystical-type experiences. Following political and legal sanctions in the industrialized nations, by the 1970s most experimental research with psychedelics had ceased whereas popular use of these substances continued, albeit illicitly. Consequently, research investigating the relationship between the use of these substances and the ostensibly paranormal has since been conducted largely through surveys, though often indirectly with psychoactive drug use as just one of many co-variables within surveys of paranormal experience. Conducting a postal survey of paranormal experiences, Palmer (1979) created a questionnaire that included several items relating to drug use, which was randomly distributed within the state of Virginia. The questionnaire was subsequently adapted for use with members of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (Kohr, 1980) and Indian students (Usha & Pasricha, 1989a, 1989b). Palmer found a relationship between the reported use of mind-expanding drugs and being an ESP agent, having recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) and haunting experiences, having aura vision, and having OBEs, with some differences between the student and townspeople samples. The special sample surveyed by Kohr did not show any such relationship, most likely due to the diminished use of drugs among this group, whereas the Indian research found, similarly to Palmer, an association of drug use with ESP and OBEs, and additionally with apparitions and deja vu. Furthermore, 18% of the Indian sample and 28-29% of the Virginian sample reporting the use of such drugs also had psi experiences while under their influence. More recently, Kumar, Pekala, and Gallagher (1994) developed a drug-use scale to complement their measure of paranormal belief, ability, and experience, along with a measure of fear of the paranormal, which were combined to create the Anomalous Experiences Inventory (AEI). A number of subsequent surveys conducted exclusively with convenience samples of university students have consistently found a positive but weak correlation between the drug-use subscale and two of the AEI's other subscales, paranormal experiences (r = . …