The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys

by James Fadiman

A brief explanation for readers who have no idea how statistics are used in psychology: Any measurement is rated against how likely it is that the same result would happen by chance. The p means probability. The number following the p is how far from chance the actual result is. In psychology, if your data would happen by chance one out of ten times (written as p = .10), you can call it a trend or a tendency or an inclination. If it would happen by chance five times out of one hundred (p = .05), you can call it “significant.” That means it probably is really so. If it would happen by chance only one time in one hundred (p = .01), you do a little dance and thank the gods because that is very significant. There aren’t many results in psychology better than that. In this research, however, the data were often overwhelmingly better than (p = .01): sometimes one in one thousand (p = .001), one in ten thousand (p = .0001), or greater. There is almost no other research on any kind of psychotherapy that makes such a strong showing.