Introduction

Many psychedelic researchers currently consider positive mood to be among the indicators that a psychedelic experience is “mystical,” largely due to the influence of philosopher Walter Stace (Letheby, 2021, p. 25; Stace, 1961, p. 68). However, I propose that positive mood should not be among the criteria for determining mysticality of psychedelic experiences. My primary reasons are: 1) unlike rare proposed mystical criteria such as feelings of self-dissolution and time-transcendence, positive mood does not clearly separate mystical experiences from other emotionally powerful experiences like being in love; 2) other proposed mystical criteria can occur with non-positive moods; and 3) it is not true that framing all mystical experiences with only positive mood is more pragmatic.

Although the term “mystical” has historically sometimes been associated with supernatural or spiritual beliefs, reported feelings of mysticality among psychedelic research participants can be studied without making ontological claims about those feelings (McCulloch et al., 2022, p. 13). For example, versions of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire, Hood's Mysticism Scale, and other surveys have sometimes been used by researchers to assess the mysticality of psychedelic experiences (Griffiths, Richards, McCann, & Jesse, 2006, p. 5). These questionnaires ask people if their experiences included mystical-type feelings, some of which might be internal unity (merging of self with a larger reality), transcendence of time and space, or deeply felt positive mood (Griffiths et al., 2006, p. 5).

Positive mood (even deeply felt) is too common to differentiate experiences as mystical

The goal of the above surveys is to clearly delineate mystical experiences from other types of experiences (Barrett, Johnson, & Griffiths, 2015, p. 2). However, I think deeply felt positive mood would contribute little to this goal even if it reliably accompanied other proposed mystical criteria. If you are feeling deep positive mood and that your self has dissolved or you have transcended time—I think it is reasonable to say that the self-dissolution and time-transcendence are doing the heavy lifting for the rarity of this particular experience. Some might counterargue that mystical positive mood is especially strong, but this could also apply to the positive mood of being in love or bonding with a newborn baby, which are very widespread experiences (luckily for our species).

One objection here might be that if positive mood reliably accompanies mystical experiences, then it would still be accurate to include it as a criterion, no matter how often it also occurs in non-mystical experiences. I will discuss in more depth below why I do not believe positive mood reliably accompanies other proposed criteria of mystical experiences. However, even if we lived in an alternate reality where all currently known mystical experiences had positive mood, I would lean toward using Occam's Razor and being as parsimonious as possible with our criteria. If positive mood is not necessary to distinguish mystical experiences from other experiences, then including it in the process of determination might blind researchers to other mystical experiences of various moods.

Other proposed mystical criteria can occur with non-positive moods

There are many reports of people experiencing at least some mystical criteria while also feeling overall non-positive emotions. Even if these experiences are less frequent than ones with overall positive emotions, they still seem to occur. For example, William James described some mystical experiences as feeling so negative that they could be called “diabolical” (James, 2009, p. 323). Michael Pollan described one of his ineffable noetic experiences with the psychedelic DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) as “pure and terrible sensation” (Pollan, 2018, p. 277).

Obviously, most psychedelic researchers are highly aware of these non-positive experiences (Carbonaro et al., 2016, p. 2). Yet many researchers (as discussed above) persist in using positive mood as one of the markers of mystical experiences. Considering the contrary evidence, this seems inconsistent.

A possible objection here might be that perhaps a different term should be used for what I am calling non-positive mystical experiences. In this way, we could still acknowledge the power of these experiences, while reserving “mystical” for positive experiences. Maybe there could also be a separate umbrella term for experiences regardless of mood (e.g. “transcendent”), with subcategories of “mystical” and “[terms for non-positive experiences].”

However, I think this objection still ignores the earlier problem of positive mood having lower ontological importance compared to other proposed mystical criteria. Positive mood, even very deep positive mood, is a relatively common human experience compared to mystical criteria such as feelings of self-dissolution and time-transcendence. “Mystical” is a term with a long history and great linguistic weight (Jones, 2022). I do not think it is prudent to use a relatively common criterion to determine which experiences of self-dissolution or time-transcendence earn the right to be called “mystical” as opposed to terms with less linguistic weight.

Pragmatism is not a justifiable reason for including positive mood

Some dissenters might ask if there are pragmatic benefits to reframing all mystical experiences as positive, regardless of how the experiences felt when they occurred. There are reports of people eventually reframing initially non-positive psychedelic experiences as positive (Dyck & Elcock, 2020, p. 286; Carbonaro et al., 2016, p. 10). Perhaps my focus on the occasional non-positivity of psychedelic mystical experiences could be myopic or even psychologically damaging.

I agree that experiences which feel negative in the moment (whether psychedelic or not) can sometimes eventually lead to positive changes in people's lives. However, the reverse is also true. It is an understatement to note that short-term positive feelings can sometimes lead to negative long-term changes in people's lives (e.g. romantic crushes turning into abusive marriages or happy drunken confidence leading to fatal accidents). Therefore, it seems at least possible that some psychedelic insights which feel positive in the moment should actually be reframed as potentially having negative consequences. Including positive mood in the criteria for determining mysticality might then be the less pragmatic option, since it could discourage this other type of helpful re-evaluation.

Even if we were to take a very large leap and assume that all psychedelic experiences should be framed positively, it seems a fundamental mistake to thus reclassify non-positive experiences themselves as positive. Experiencing cancer or the deaths of loved ones might also sometimes lead to positive changes in people's lives, but it seems extreme to claim that these experiences are actually inherently positive.

There are, admittedly, some people who do go this far. Pope Francis has said that even the darkest suffering is a “gift of tears” (Fincher, 2013). Still, I think even most of these dissenters would agree that during the actual occurrences of horrendous life experiences, the overall mood can at least sometimes feel negative, no matter how the experiences are viewed later. It seems odd to withhold a designation of “mystical” from experiences until some unknown future time when they can finally be remembered positively. Thus, I think in regard to mystical experiences themselves, my argument to remove positive mood from the determining criteria does not seem affected by the objection from pragmatism.

Conclusion

To reiterate, 1) unlike rare proposed mystical criteria such as feelings of self-dissolution and time-transcendence, positive mood does not clearly separate mystical experiences from other emotionally powerful experiences like being in love; 2) other proposed mystical criteria can occur with non-positive moods; and 3) it is not true that framing all mystical experiences with only positive mood is more pragmatic.

I hope this paper sways at least some psychedelic researchers (as well as researchers of non-psychedelic feelings of mysticality) to recognize the existence of experiences that are both mystical and not positive. Positive mood has shown such potential as a data point in psychedelic research that I suspect it has overshadowed research into the criteria which truly make some experiences mystical. Going forward, I think it would be advisable to not conflate the effects of positive mood with the effects of mystical experiences.