God in a tea-cup
I tried to create a link to a news story but I'm not sure where it shows up on this thing, so just click around the page for a while and you'll probably find it. Anyway, was anyone else contacted by a reporter for the Daily to comment on the Supreme Court ruling that allows some native tribe to use a hallucinogenic tea for their religious ceremonies? I figured she found us through this blog and decided we're all a bunch of acid-dropping, tea-drinking hippies. My e-mailed response did little to combat that notion. Here it is:
Hi Angela,
I’m aware of the Supreme Court ruling and I think it’s a very interesting development -- one which is indicative of the country’s changing attitudes towards hallucinogenic drugs and the religious experience in general.
The tea that was legalized is known to various peoples in South America as “ayahuasca” (which means “vine to the gods”), and it contains DMT, or dimethyltryptamine. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of the drug make it easy to understand why natives have a certain reverence for the substance. Essentially, the use of ayahuasca results in a chemically-induced spiritual experience which is remarkably similar to those described in virtually every religious tradition in history, not just the so-called “primitive” cultures of the deserts and rainforests. What sets it apart from other psychedelics such as LSD is that it’s naturally produced by the human body, in the pineal gland, which is near the center of the brain (the history of the pineal gland is also worth mentioning -- Rene Descartes called it “the seat of the soul,” and mystical traditions of both the east and the west have associated it with the highest attainable level of spirituality). There are several hypotheses involving the natural instances of DMT production -- one is that it occurs during REM sleep and is largely responsible for our dreaming processes, and another is that DMT is released at the moment of death. This would help explain countless reports of Near-Death Experiences.
The court ruling is also encouraging because the history of the West’s interaction with native cultures and religions has previously been one of arrogance and persecution. Early missionaries with the Catholic church denounced the religious traditions of Native and South Americans, calling their use of ayahuasca and other spiritual aids “demonic,” and their attacks effectively destroyed any way of life which conflicted with their own dogmatic assertions. You saw a similar situation when Americans began using psychedelics in the 1960’s for experimental purposes. Any and all psychedelic substances were outlawed and demonized through propaganda, and the taboos which surrounded it then are still in place today -- you just don’t hear any reasonable discussions going on about the potential benefits of hallucinogenic drug use, and that’s a shame. Consciousness and the religious experience are the greatest mysteries of mankind, and I think a better understanding of those phenomena could help unify the human race by showing us how we are all essentially the same. When you strip away outward appearances and behaviors and cultural differences, you’re left with a single species which is driven by this universal impulse to express itself, and to know and celebrate the mysteries of life and the universe. That’s what religion is all about -- it’s not about the rituals, customs, traditions, and beliefs. Those are specific to one particular religion or another, and they are meant to serve as guides to a transformation of thought, and towards a level of consciousness which is beyond words or symbols. The inexpressible reality which a person encounters in that state of mind is what we call “God.” And somewhere in New Mexico right now there’s a very small group of people who are refusing to borrow God from their ancestors [yep, I "borrowed" that phrase from Mr. Zimmer], and who are instead choosing to experience it directly through active participation in the divine spiritual powers of the human mind. And who knows, maybe in the very distant future us “civilized” Westerners will have the courage to grasp hold of that vine to the gods and see what we’ve been missing out on over the past couple thousand years.
Hi Angela,
I’m aware of the Supreme Court ruling and I think it’s a very interesting development -- one which is indicative of the country’s changing attitudes towards hallucinogenic drugs and the religious experience in general.
The tea that was legalized is known to various peoples in South America as “ayahuasca” (which means “vine to the gods”), and it contains DMT, or dimethyltryptamine. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of the drug make it easy to understand why natives have a certain reverence for the substance. Essentially, the use of ayahuasca results in a chemically-induced spiritual experience which is remarkably similar to those described in virtually every religious tradition in history, not just the so-called “primitive” cultures of the deserts and rainforests. What sets it apart from other psychedelics such as LSD is that it’s naturally produced by the human body, in the pineal gland, which is near the center of the brain (the history of the pineal gland is also worth mentioning -- Rene Descartes called it “the seat of the soul,” and mystical traditions of both the east and the west have associated it with the highest attainable level of spirituality). There are several hypotheses involving the natural instances of DMT production -- one is that it occurs during REM sleep and is largely responsible for our dreaming processes, and another is that DMT is released at the moment of death. This would help explain countless reports of Near-Death Experiences.
The court ruling is also encouraging because the history of the West’s interaction with native cultures and religions has previously been one of arrogance and persecution. Early missionaries with the Catholic church denounced the religious traditions of Native and South Americans, calling their use of ayahuasca and other spiritual aids “demonic,” and their attacks effectively destroyed any way of life which conflicted with their own dogmatic assertions. You saw a similar situation when Americans began using psychedelics in the 1960’s for experimental purposes. Any and all psychedelic substances were outlawed and demonized through propaganda, and the taboos which surrounded it then are still in place today -- you just don’t hear any reasonable discussions going on about the potential benefits of hallucinogenic drug use, and that’s a shame. Consciousness and the religious experience are the greatest mysteries of mankind, and I think a better understanding of those phenomena could help unify the human race by showing us how we are all essentially the same. When you strip away outward appearances and behaviors and cultural differences, you’re left with a single species which is driven by this universal impulse to express itself, and to know and celebrate the mysteries of life and the universe. That’s what religion is all about -- it’s not about the rituals, customs, traditions, and beliefs. Those are specific to one particular religion or another, and they are meant to serve as guides to a transformation of thought, and towards a level of consciousness which is beyond words or symbols. The inexpressible reality which a person encounters in that state of mind is what we call “God.” And somewhere in New Mexico right now there’s a very small group of people who are refusing to borrow God from their ancestors [yep, I "borrowed" that phrase from Mr. Zimmer], and who are instead choosing to experience it directly through active participation in the divine spiritual powers of the human mind. And who knows, maybe in the very distant future us “civilized” Westerners will have the courage to grasp hold of that vine to the gods and see what we’ve been missing out on over the past couple thousand years.
posted by Joe at
6:10 PM
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