We are currently experiencing a renaissance of research into psychedelics. More evidence is accumulating that point to the therapeutic effects of these fascinating substances. Chemicals like psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, have been shown to effectively alleviate the symptoms of treatment-resistant depression. Indeed, many users of psychedelics swear by their transformative properties, improving…
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What is that one thing that is typical in all of us these days? What is it that we all go through on a daily basis? Yes, it is stress. Our life is governed by the stress we experience and things we worry about. Stress and worry are constants in our daily routine. We stress…
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The philosopher Bernard Williams defines authenticity as “the idea that some things are in some sense really you, or express what you are, and others aren’t.” This concept can also be encapsulated by the phrase, “to thine own self be true”, spoken by the character Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Authenticity means realising and manifesting your…
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There are possibly many ways in which we can define a religious experience. We need to ask ourselves: What features should such an experience exemplify? There is also the issue of trying to ascertain whether a certain experience is pathological in nature. For reasons which will become clear, I will be using the term religious…
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In 1927, the French dramatist Romain Rolland wrote a letter to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in which he coined the phrase ‘oceanic feeling’. It is oceanic because the experience seems to be “without perceptible limits”. Rolland believed that this feeling of ‘the eternal’ was a religious feeling independent of any organised religion, but…
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