How does a lab make headlines? By having religiously inclined subjects pop shrooms while lying in a comfy bed listening to classical music, and then advising them to get spiritual. Results were (not surprisingly) positive, but remarks one candid chemist who worked on the experiments, "If you take psilocybin and go watch 'Friday the 13th,' I can guarantee you won't have a mystical experience."
And speaking of Friday, keep in mind this is nothing new, but recalls the 1962 Good Friday Experiment. Why on earth researchers chose the darkest day of the church year to send Seminarians on a psycheledic romp is beyond me. Then again, it was the 60's. Folks weren't exactly lucid.
In the meantime serious laypeople, and most especially monks and nuns, have been, and will continue to be, meeting God the hard way - through disciplined spirituality that translates into concrete action. It's a thought that leads me to wonder how many Habitat for Humanity chapters were initiated by highpriest of acid Timothy Leary?