Where the term comes from

The list of features goes back to the philosopher W. T. Stace’s 1960 book Mysticism and Philosophy, drawn from accounts across religious traditions. On Good Friday 1962, Walter Pahnke gave psilocybin or an active placebo to 20 divinity students in a Boston chapel for his Harvard doctoral research: four of the ten given psilocybin met his threshold for a complete mystical experience, and none of the controls did. His questionnaire grew into the 43-item Mystical Experience Questionnaire, which a 2012 factor analysis reduced to the 30-item MEQ30. Its four scales cover unity, insight and sacredness (scored together), positive mood, transcendence of time and space, and ineffability; a score of at least 60 percent on each counts as a “complete” experience.

What the research shows

In a Johns Hopkins study, 22 of 36 healthy volunteers had a complete mystical-type experience after a high dose of psilocybin, and 14 months later how strong that experience had been was closely tied to how meaningful they still rated the session. Of the measures of personality, mood and quality of life taken before and after, though, only a mysticism scale had changed. A 2022 review found that in 10 of 12 therapy studies, stronger mystical-type experiences went with greater symptom relief, but half of the studies were open-label and samples were small.

What it does and does not mean

Whether the experience itself drives any benefit is debated: some researchers argue the subjective effects are necessary, while others note that the evidence is largely correlational. Scholars of religion add that the questionnaires carry assumptions from Christian mysticism. For what these findings do and do not mean after a big win, see why success feels empty.

Related terms

Ego Dissolution: the loss of the sense of self that often comes with it.

Set and Setting: expectations and surroundings that make it more or less likely.

Psilocybin: the compound used in most of the studies.