twenty divinity students received a capsule of white powder during a Good Friday service at Marsh Chapel on the Boston University campus, ten of them containing psilocybin, ten an “active placebo”—in this case niacin, which creates a tingling sensation. Eight of the ten students receiving psilocybin reported a powerful mystical experience, while only one in the control group did. (Telling them apart was not difficult, rendering the double blind a somewhat hollow conceit: those on the placebo sat sedately in their pews while the others lay down or wandered about the chapel, muttering things
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