SCIENTIFIC FOUNDAnONS FOR THE STUDY OF ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

One of the most significant trends in American culture today is what might be considered an anti-intellectual or anti-scien-tific trend, two of whose main highlights are the tremendously widespread use of psychedelic drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, and the tremendously increasing interest in various oriental and mystical religions. The states of consciousness produced by drugs or meditation are phenomena we know very little about, scientifically. The volume of research on such subjects, though rapidly increasing, has been quite small, compared to the extent of social involvement in them. Fur-ther, one can strongly argue that much of this research, while well-intentioned, is relatively trivial compared to the nature of the phenomena. To cite one example, a recent Gallup poll indicated that ap-proximately half of American college students bad tried mari-juana, and a large number of them use it fairly regularly. They do this at the risk of several years imprisonment and ruined careers. Why? Conventionalresearch on the nature of marijuana intoxication tells us that the primary effects of marijuana are a slight increase in heart rate, reddening of the eyes, some difficultywith memory, and small decrements in performance on complex psychomotor tests. Would you risk going to jail in order to have your heart speed up, your eyes redden, your memory slip, and your performance on complex psychomotor tests decline? Some-how these "objective " facts about the effects of marijuana intoxication seem rather trivial in accounting for why people 11 wish to thank Ida Rolf and Seymour Caner fo ~ their asslstanee in the Writing of this paper. Ida Rolf is the discoverer of Structural Integration and Seymour Carter gave me my first session. This first session produced an immense release of energy, such that the basic themes of this paper Came to me within a few hours after the session, and the paper was finished a few days later. presentanti-intellectual,anti-scientifictrends trivialitiesin conventional scientific research 93 some reasons for alienation from conventional science conflict unnecessary definitionof "state of consciousness&quot