Extract:
Since their earliest popularization among the intelligentsia, psychedelics, above all other psychoactive substances, have been noted for their potential to induce ostensibly paranormal phenomena, for a plethora of reasons. Much of this reasoning is owed to the time-honored observation that paranormal experiences such as ESP or psychokinesis, collectively termed psi, largely occur during altered states. Alterations in the perception of self, space, and time available through the use of such substances are of particular value to parapsychological concepts, which defy the usual rules governing these factors. In a less immediate sense, psychedelic drugs are also capable of broadening ideas about reality on an ongoing and durable basis, opening people up to the possibility of all kinds of transpersonal experiences. Perhaps more obviously, neurochemicals are doubtless involved in subjective paranormal experiences and there exist some well-evidenced and reasoned conjectures about the role of tryptamines, beta-carbolines, and ketamine in the function of OBEs, NDEs, and apparent psi experiences (see Jansen, 2001; Roney-Dougal, 1991, 2001; Strassman, 2001).