MEQ30

The Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) is a 30-item self-report measure developed at Johns Hopkins University by Roland Griffiths, Matthew Johnson, and colleagues to assess the occurrence and intensity of mystical-type experiences during psychedelic sessions. It measures four factors: mystical (15 items), positive mood (6 items), transcendence of time and space (6 items), and ineffability (3 items). Each item is rated 0–5, and scores are typically expressed as a percentage of maximum. A ‘complete mystical experience’ is defined as scoring ≥60% on all four factors. The MEQ30 has become the standard measure of acute subjective experience in psilocybin research and has demonstrated that higher mystical experience scores predict greater therapeutic outcomes in depression, addiction, and end-of-life distress. It was derived from the original 43-item MEQ and validated against Pahnke’s and Stace’s criteria for mystical experience.