William A. Richards

William (Bill) Richards, PhD, has had a private practice in psychotherapy since 1976, and is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center, where for the past 17 years he has participated in the design and implementation of research projects with psychedelic medicines. His graduate degrees include a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, a Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) from Andover-Newton Theological School, and a Ph.D. from Catholic University. Richards studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. Richards first published his findings in the Journal of Religion and Health in 1996 in an article coauthored with Walter Pahnke titled, ‘‘Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism.” His highly acclaimed book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016) has been called “…the most comprehensive overview of the actual use of psychedelics in psychotherapy and of the transformative power of mystical experiences” (Torsten Passie, MD, PhD Hannover Medical School). Research results of his most recent studies into psilocybin treatment for existential anxiety in cancer patients was reported in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, December 2016. He has also authored a tribute to Abraham Maslow together with a report of his 25 years of doing psychedelic therapy research for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, September 2016.