The Mystical Experience Questionnaire measures how strongly a past experience had mystical-type qualities. The version most used today, the MEQ30, was first developed in an online survey of psilocybin mushroom experiences, then validated in 184 participants from five laboratory psilocybin studies (Barrett et al., 2015). In those studies, higher scores predicted lasting changes in attitudes, behaviour and well-being that participants attributed to the session (Barrett et al., 2015).
Its roots go back to Walter Pahnke’s 1962 Good Friday Experiment, whose scale of mystical experience is the ancestor of today’s questionnaires (Doblin, 1991). DMT studies have used it too: in a 2018 study of 13 healthy volunteers, all four MEQ factors were higher on DMT than on placebo (Timmermann et al., 2018).
Limits: the MEQ30 was validated with psilocybin, it relies on self-report after the fact, and a high score describes an experience, not a benefit. Whether mystical-type experience causes improvement in trials, or simply travels with it, is still debated.
Sources
- Barrett et al., Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2015
- Timmermann et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2018
- Doblin, 1991, Good Friday follow-up (MAPS archive)
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