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Supreme Court Sides With Church in Drug Case | 8 comments (8 topical)
Re: Supreme Court Sides With Church in Drug Case (none / 0) (#7)
by TomK on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 12:22:26 AM EST
What about my definately spiritual, but not affiliated with any organized religion, ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms 4-6 times a year? If those aren't religious experiences, I don't know what is. The big irony here is that Jesus himself was a gnostic street preacher who used these sorts of substances himself, and who gave them to his disciples as his 'body' to induce mystical experiences which lead them to believe he was divine (and was also a gay black man). I think this is a great oppritunity to open up some dialogue on the potential of psychedelic substances. For example, DNA was discovered when one of the co-discoverers had an LSD induced vision of a double helix structure. The researcher had intentionally ingested a smallish dose of LSD to catalyze an insight into the problem he was working on. Another example is the success at using psilocyban to treat anxiety about death in terminal hospice patients. A very high percentage of test subjects reported drastic improvement in quality of life during their last bit of time on this planet after an experience, with reduced anxiety, depression, and greater levels of happiness and satisfaction and acceptence of their impending death. MDMA also shows promise in this way. Another example is the early success in treating alcoholism with LSD. Alcholics anonymous was founded after Carl Jung told an alcoholic that the only thing left for him to try to overcome his addiction was a genuine spiritual experience. This person went on to have one by attending tent revivals. Then, he later developed AA based on this experience. However, AA is not very effective at treating alcoholics. LSD, when used by an experienced psychologist, can induce a life changing spiritual experience that is more successful then AA at treating alcoholism, and faster and cheaper to boot. MDMA could treat obsessive complusive disorder, and also post tramautic stress disorder. These substances also have the possibility to greatly enhance creativity. Ohh, all rock music. There were some prison experiments with psilocyban where prisoners given psilocyban were less likely to reoffend and more likely to break free of the cops and robbers game then prisoners who did not receive this. I'm not saying that psychedelics should be used by everyone every single day. They aren't for everyone. But they can catalyze change and insight into the world and the users sense of self, including technological change (DNA, computer technology, for example) personal psychological growth, spiritual growth, treatment of psychological problems, and creativity. This is a great development. Why doesn't everyone interested go look at some ayahuasca art, or read some trip reports on erowid.com and take the oppritunity to inform yourself about this issue? These people are not crackheads and meth addicts. They are very together. The larger population of responsible psychedelic users makes up the cutting edge of the cultural creative class. This is a group of people whose development we should be encouraging, not stalling. And lets legalize pot while we are at it. Marijuana laws are racist in their intent and enforcement and the world would be a much better place if more people would use marijuana as a substitute for alcohol.

Supreme Court Sides With Church in Drug Case | 8 comments (8 topical)

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