TRIPPING DOWN RELIGION ROAD

Exploring the Argument for Drugs As a Means of Spiritual Enlightenment

Have you ever escaped the confines of time? Have you ever felt the
presence of God in your living room? Have you ever had a moment of
complete wholeness? How about a feeling peace with the universe and
your role in it?

Imagine hearing what you see, smelling what you touch or seeing what
you taste. If you can do this without the aid of chemicals, consider
yourself up there with the likes of Moses and monks. The rest of us
generally have to cut corners and take mind-altering drugs to achieve
anything conceivably "beyond this world." Without the aid of a tab of
acid, a hit of DMT, a dose of mushrooms or the like, some of us would
find the search for God impossible, or at least darn boring.

A Battle of Image?

Hallucinogenic drugs, also known as psychotropics, have been of great
interest to societies for millennia because of their power to induce
mystical experience. Today, we take a great interest in psychotripics
for their forbidden and alien effects. Popular culture and the media
have stigmatized the use of these drugs, forcing a reassessment of the
validity of psychadelic experience, especially in spirituality. The
idea of mystical experiences resulting from drug use has generally
been shunned by Western societies, which champion the power and worth
of man as a self-determining, responsible ego, entirely in control of
himself. To Western society, then, nothing could be more absurd than
the notion of spiritual or psychological growth through the use of
drugs.

However, this is a simplistic view; no distinction is drawn between
the many categories of drugs, and few studies have conclusively
documented the health effects of psychotropics. At the moment, the
struggle for fair and non-arbitrary prohibition laws is a battle of
image not substance. The "War on drugs" and unfounded social stigma
are hindering opportunities to realize and harness the positive
effects of psychotropic drugs. To remove mental filters, to breakdown
our psychological barriers and pursue a higher understanding should
not be a crime, especially if used for spiritual or self-exploratory
reasons.

Drugs and Religion: A History

Hallucinogens' relevance to mystical experience is a formative element
of many religions and continues to guide the non-religious in their
search for wholeness. Some have proposed that the Delphic oracle
Pythia's prophecies were a product of inhaling ethane emissions that
seeped into her chamber. Shamans in South and Central America continue
to use naturally growing psychadelics to communicate with their God.
Peyote, for example, is a legal sacrament for the Navajo people of the
Southwest. Other indigenous groups in Mexico use psilocybin mushrooms
which they call teonanactl -- flesh of the gods. Amanita muscaria (fly
agaric) is used by shamans in Siberia to visually distort the scale of
their environment. And the list goes on.

Since mescaline, magic mushrooms, salvia, and ayahuasca were and still
are used religiously in Mexico and South America, couldn't our Western
synthetic-chemical equivalents induce equally valid religious
experiences? Our post-modern culture coping with the hypocrisy of
organized religion has quite a stock of shortcuts to "higher" states
of being: phenethylamines (the 2C family, MDMA), tryptamines (DMT,
psilocin, LSD, ibogaine, the 5-MeO's), and dissociatives (ketamine,
PCP, DXM, and nitrous oxide), for example. All can be subsumed under
the category "psychedelics," or ethogens -- a Greek neologism meaning
"God generated within."

In an appropriate setting, the effects of these drugs can be amazingly
positive; ranging from euphoria and giggling to deep reflective
thought, these drugs have helped many work through alcohol abuse
problems and existential concerns. Often, the success of the
experience is dependent on their undertaking as a religious or
mystical experience, which is not at all uncommon.

A Psychedelic Trip

A recent study at John Hopkins University gave a standard dose of
psilocybin to participants ranging in age from 24 to 64 years old who
had identified themselves as having "religious or spiritual
interests." One-third of the participants described the experience
with psilocybin as the most spiritually significant of their lifetime,
while two-thirds of participants rated it among their five most
meaningful experiences. Further, eight out of ten reported moderately
or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction up to two months
after the study. The researchers also noted no negative long-term
effects from the use of psilocybin.

These results are similar to LSD icon Timothy Leary's own studies in
which psilocybin was given to theology students at a Good Friday
service. Many of these devout men admitted to having had a religious
experience, leading Leary to conclude that mystical experience can be
induced chemically.

Here in Canada, during the fifties and sixties, Humphrey Osmond, a
well known British psychiatrist, treated alcoholics with LSD. Patients
reported a personal and sometimes spiritual awakening following their
LSD session. Follow-up to treatment confirmed that the sessions had a
lasting, positive effect on the subjects, fifty per cent of which
remained sober for at least six months.

In controlled settings, psychedelics have been proven to amplify and
alter sensory experience, often providing an unbiased and unfamiliar
perspective on the everyday. Possible uses in treatment range from
helping terminal ill cancer patients accept their fate, to forcing
drug addicts and alcoholics to examine their own lives. Many academics
conducting research on the therapeutic use and mystical experience
provided by psychoactives are also optimistic about their value.

Righteousness Revamped

If we are to abide by notions of cultural relativism and rational
policy-making, why is the spiritual use of drugs valued in an
anthropological context, yet vilified by our society and laws?
Likewise, how can many credit organized religion as the only
"legitimate" path to enlightenment? Whether or not you believe in
other realities or alternate consciousness, recognize that for some,
drug-induced moments of revelation are of value for their medicinal
and spiritual worth. While they are not for everyone, drugs should be
approached without prejudice for in these voluntary moments of chaos
and deconstruction, many derive hope, purpose, direction, meaning and
even God.