"We're All in This Together": Who Was Dr. Roland Griffiths

Image: Nicki Adams using an adapted photo from the Griffiths Fund

Pioneer: “Develop or be the first to use or apply a new method, area of knowledge, or activity.”

Hero: “A person who is admired or idolized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.”

There have been many names that come to mind when discussing psychedelics: Albert Hofmann, Timothy Leary, and Maria Sabina to name a few; however, it may be Dr. Roland Griffiths’ most recent research with psychedelics and other mood-altering substances that take center stage in the world of psychedelic research. His research has bridged a gap between modern scientific theory, and spiritual belief and occurrences.

Roland Griffiths was born July 19th, 1946, in Glen Clove, New York to parents William and Sylvie Griffiths. He later attended Occidental College, one of the largest liberal arts schools on the West Coast, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 1968.  He then furthered his education by attending the University of Minnesota where he obtained a Ph.D. in the fields of psychology and pharmacology in 1972.

After earning his Ph.D., Dr. Griffiths began working for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. During his tenure, Griffiths’ primary areas of focus were sedative-hypnotics, using hallucinogens as medicine, and the mechanisms of dependence on mood-altering drugs, but also included research studies about caffeine dependence where he showed that caffeine was addictive, withdrawal could be painful, and that caffeine dependence was a ‘clinically meaningful disorder’”.

It was in 1999 that Dr. Griffiths founded the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The purpose of starting the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research was to focus on how psychedelics can help patients deal with terminally ill diagnoses, such as terminal cancer or end-of-life circumstances. 

With continued research and study, Dr. Griffiths later published a paper in August of 2006 that was shocking in the world of psychedelic research. Entitled “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance”, was published in the magazine Psychopharmacology, and outlined the findings of the study. 

This was the first ever double-blind study in years where participants had no prior experiences with psychedelics. The goal was to find the effects of a psychedelic on what researchers considered healthy individuals. The findings were truly astonishing.

According to Griffiths, “Over eighty percent of the participants described the experience as among the most revelatory and spiritually meaningful episodes of their lives, akin to the death of a parent or birth of a child.”

What Griffiths found was that psychedelics offered mystical experiences that could alter a person’s fundamental world view. The shared experiences and feelings amongst participants was that there was a sense of interconnection, they considered their experiences sacred, and lastly, that the experience was more real than everyday waking consciousness. 

Even more surprising to Griffiths were the lasting effects of their experiences. “Weeks, months, years after having their experience, our volunteers were attributing enduring, fundamental, and positive changes to that experience.” 

After the findings from the 2006 study, Griffiths decided to delve even further into the world of psychedelics and the spiritual experiences associated with their use. He established The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Professorship Fund in Psychedelic Research on Secular Spirituality and Well-Being. 

The purpose of the endowment is to “establish a world class, rigorous, empirical program of research with psychedelic substances to advance understanding of well-being and spirituality in the service of promoting human flourishing for generations to come.” 

With the passing of Dr. Roland Griffiths on October 16th 2023, we lost both a hero and a pioneer. A man that humbly and diligently took on the challenge of finding out just how psychedelics can help not only improve our own personal daily lives, but also help us become better humans to each other in the sharing of such experiences. His pursuits of psychedelic knowledge and human empathy will be, and should be, studied for decades to come. He will be truly missed. 

“At the personal level, what is more important than a much deeper understanding of who we are as these evolved conscious creatures? It is the most fundamental and basic question that I think we can ask of ourselves: What the hell is going on here? How am I gifted with this opportunity to be awake, alive in this experience of sentience, of consciousness? Scientifically, we are nowhere near addressing this question. I wonder if it’s ever going to be known. But that’s the excitement I have for the endowed research project – it is going to use the power of the scientific method to address this very topic in the service of human flourishing.” - NY Times Interview