"More in-depth studies on the effects of psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin that investigated longer term changes in users’ states and traits could help deepen our understanding of what it means for personality to change and how people understand themselves when they rate their own personal characteristics."
The significance of personality change is of paramount interest. But as a subject for mere psychological study - what if, as a matter of its very nature - personality change proves as much a function of societal, cultural and historic context - as psychological dynamics or processes?
Could a 'deeper understanding of what it means for personality to change' - come about, in that case - by removing it from its real life context, human reality - based as much in societal and cultural determinants as psychological?
Any 'paradigm of study' for personality change - that doesn't look at the cultural, societal and historic context - excluding its 'real life' context (the post-psychedelic milieu), in which question comes up - might not have vital ground underfoot, to stand on.
Especially in view of the psychedelic movement in society, and new age milieu it spawned historically - its 'values' as expressed even exhorted - a simplistic ethos (or presumption) of "openness" - that 'open is good, closed - bad' ...
... never asking, 'open, or closed - to what?'
Quoting a classic from the late 1970s - "SNAPPING: AMERICA'S SUDDEN EPIDEMIC OF PERSONALITY CHANGE" by Conway & Seigelman - 2nd Edition:
"The tides of change are running high ... confusion has grown so acute ... people have become unable to act upon, or even think through, these sensitive issues and the urgent questions they raise ...
Profound changes of mind and personality may be brought about ... by spiritual and personal growth experiences, covertly induced beliefs, subtle suggestions, nonverbal cues, group dynamics, simple mind-altering practices, and other everyday uses of information and human communication
... neuroscience has provided further clues to ... specific neurochemical changes that may constitute the physical pathways of snapping and information disease.
Yet ... there has been almost no serious inquiry into the impact of it all ... not just material losses, losses of identity and feelings of human worth ... human moorings of culture, social connection and spirituality ... strained and in so many ways sundered."
Excitement over radiant possibilities of 'personality change' from psychedelics, especially to make us more 'open' - might be less warranted than cause for pause, more of doubt than faith. I don't get a sense of any reasonable concern about the reality of what's going on in our milieu, and what it portends - as relates to the psychedelic factor - as a powerful vector of personality change since the 1960s. The consequences as they are playing out - affecting all kinds of things in various, highly ambiguous ways - seem profoundly unaccounted for.
Based on the evidence, the whole evidence - and nothing but the evidence.
Where Psychedelics And Personality Change is subject of discussion - I encounter a consistently unsettling sense of - no response. A certain silence seems to prevail - about the larger, more deeply complicated perspective, urgently calling to inquiry and study - yet almost unanswered, as Conway & Seigelman note. To the ear its almost deafening. And to the eye, it looms like an 'elephant in the room' - unacknowledged, unmentioned, with attention directed - away from it.
I submit to the author of the above - the most vital questions about the "nature of personality change" - lie in directions of 'reasonable doubt' - not faith.
The 'personality change and psychedelics' subject seems to attract a concertedly one-sided interest - not only among pop enthusiasts. Even those who ought to know better - seldom display reasonable concern as to human issues of real life, in all their gory complexity - and end up deficient, for theoretical balance and ethical validity alike.
As a subcultural pattern, tripperdom conveys enthusiasm about prospects of getting into people's minds - to adjust their default settings (to more 'open'?) - and revise society to better suit the tenets and teachings of the subculture - open good, closed bad. That elicits an uncomfy uncozy sensation.
Specialists and critical inquiry don't need to be 'off alert' about issues multiplying and deepening apace. Attn Mr MacGreal and researchers in general - as would take up with such precarious, issue-laden subject matter.
The ground upon which inquiry stands needs to be solid enough for research validity, not just theoretically but ethically and relationally as well. A lack of any such approach so fqr prevails - even deepening apace, darkening.
There seems no adequate framework of research in our milieu, where this 'personality change and psychedelics' business arises - against rip tides of cultural societal and historic scope and scale. Researchers need to be aware and not asleep at the wheel about human reality in the here and now - if they take up such subject matter for study, however innocently - and even with whatever 'good intentions.'
The latter famous pave - not some stairway to heaven, rather - the proverbial road to hell. Danger, Will Robinson. Beware the dark side Luke. But throughout narrative history and from myth to literary composition - such warnings are given, only to be ignored.