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What comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “The Joshua Tree”? I’m just back from a week at Joshua Tree National Park. I was enormously fortunate to attend a fabulous Jewish Wilderness Spirituality program of Torah Trek, the brainchild of Rabbi Mike Comins. Comins’ book, A Wild Faith, is the fundamental starting point for examining the [...]
Archive for the ‘Spirituality and Religion’ Category
January 10th, 2012
December 24th, 2011
An essay on moral and painterly perspective, round a great paintind by Piero della Francesca
November 14th, 2011
Category: History, Spirituality and Religion
I was surprised and very pleased to find that Tantor Audio has recently released the Jefferson Bible on audio. More Americans — and particularly more Jewish Americans — should get to know this work much better. What is the Jefferson Bible? Recall the 3rd President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson loved Jesus. He told [...]
October 11th, 2011
Category: Psychology, Spirituality and Religion
There exists an experience you can (probably) have, in a single day, that may lastingly improve your outlook on life, even if you’re in fear because the end of your life is near. Researchers are once again using psilocybin to occasion such experiences in patients facing life-threatening illness. Steve Ross, a psychiatrist at NYU, has [...]
October 6th, 2011
Category: Psychology, Spirituality and Religion
My colleagues at Johns Hopkins have a new paper out, reporting that psilocybin, the “magic mushroom” chemical, can bring about significant and lasting changes in the key personality domain called “Openness.”
August 23rd, 2011
Category: Spirituality and Religion
If scholars in several hundred years ever write the obituary of American Judaism, a key source document will surely be this piece from The Forward. Its title says it all: Rabbis Go Hollywood for High Holy Day Sermon Tips: Same Rules Apply to ‘Mad Men’ Episodes and Rosh Hashanah Talks. The piece concerns “the High [...]
July 27th, 2011
Category: Spirituality and Religion
That some hallucinogen experiences are trivial does not mean that none is profound.
July 14th, 2011
Category: Psychology, Spirituality and Religion
Last month’s report on a Johns Hopkins study of psilocybin and spirituality, of which I’m a co-author, has drawn numerous comments on blogs and on-line news articles. A fraction of those comments have raised questions or criticisms which I’d like to try to address. (On the RBC, see Mark’s posts and Andy’s critique.) For those [...]
June 20th, 2011
Category: Drug Policy, Spirituality and Religion
Mark is no doubt right that taking magic mushrooms under controlled conditions makes people less depressed, in the extreme case beatific. The question is whether that state is worth having at the cost of false beliefs.
June 17th, 2011
Category: Drug Policy, Spirituality and Religion
The Hopkins team zeroes in on the Goldilocks dose of psilocybin.
