In 1962, the legendary Good Friday Experiment took place in Marsh Chapel at Boston University and demonstrated that psilocybin can catalyze mystical experiences in people who are religiously inclined and take it within a religious setting. For the first time since the service itself, the stirring Good Friday service by Reverend Howard Thurman (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s mentor) is available for anybody to listen to. Rev. Thurman’s sermon and service are powerfully moving on their own, without any chemical enhancement.
The Good Friday Sermon is available in 2 parts: Part 1 (67 MB mp3) and Part 2 (12 MB mp3). Right-click (or command-click) to save file to your computer – please note these are large files and may take some time to download or load in your browser.
In addition MAPS has posted Dr. Walter Pahnke’s thesis about the Good Friday Experiment and Rick Doblin’s paper on his 25-year follow-up to the original experiment. With the recent psilocybin/mystical experience research by Roland Griffiths and William Richards at Johns Hopkins, the scientific study of the mystical experience is starting to flourish in the 21st Century. Eva Pahnke, Walter’s widow, gave the tape of Rev. Thurman to Rick Doblin in 1987.
