Set and setting: interrelated determinants for psychointegrator and religious experiences

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This research looks at why different psychointegrators, in different geographic locations, in different cultures, are often all considered to be religious. In addition to the similar neurological environments that the various psychointegrators create, there are cultural similarities that may contribute to the consistency of all of the cultures attributing these experiences as being religious. Just as the set and setting determine the nature of a psychointegrator experience, set and setting determine the nature of any experience and its attribution as being religious. However, the psychointegrator also establishes a neurological setting that in conjunction with, while also affecting the established set, occasions the experiences attributed as having the entheogenic nature that often occurs with a psychointegrator. This is not to say that the ingestion of the substance is enough to cause a religious experience: the psychointegrator facilitates the experience that many deem to be religious. This investigation speaks to the nature of the religious experience and supports a definition of religion based upon set and setting. Experiences are deemed religious by the people who have them, then groups of people collaborate together to create religion; that there exist substances that contain the potential to facilitate this experience is quite significant in a world that is divided by religious differences.