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Psychoactive Substances And Paranormal Phenomena: A Comprehensive Review, David Luke

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper investigates the relationship between psychoactive substances and so-called paranormal

phenomena falling within the study of parapsychology. It is primarily concerned with extrasensory

perception (ESP)—telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance—as well as out-of-body experiences

(OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs). Psychokinesis (PK), aura vision, encounter experiences,

and sleep paralysis only make a very limited contribution to this review as they are seldom related

to psychoactive drugs within the parapsychological literature. The paper borrows widely, but by no

means exhaustively, from parapsychology as well as transpersonal studies, anthropology, ethnobotany,

phytochemistry, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and neurobiology, particularly

neurochemistry. It is organized into neurochemical models …