Christian Churches and Psychedelics
What are Psychedelics?
According to Psychology Today, psychedelic agents are substances—most of them naturally derived from plants—that change people's mental states by temporarily altering their perception of reality. As a result, the substances can lastingly induce changes in thoughts and feelings.
Plant-derived hallucinogens such as psilocybin, mescaline, and ibogaine have been safely used, primarily in traditional cultures, since ancient times. Typically, they are consumed ritualistically in healing ceremonies and religious rites to facilitate communication with the gods [demons], all under the guidance of experienced elders [witches].
How Psychedelics Work
Psychedelics as Medicine
Psychedelics Research and Psilocybin Therapy
Psychedelics Research and Psilocybin Therapy
The extraordinary therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs, explained
"Though psychedelic drugs remain illegal, guided ceremonies, or sessions, are happening across the country...Guiding itself has become a viable profession, both underground and above, as more Americans seek out safe, structured environments to use psychedelics for spiritual growth and psychological healing. This new world of psychedelic-assisted therapy functions as a kind of parallel mental health service. Access to it remains limited, but it's evolving quicker than you might expect."
Christians and churches are embracing psychedelics.
"We are a collaborative community of clergy, religious educators, scholars, spiritual guides, philanthropists, and psychedelic researchers dedicated to making direct experience of the sacred available to all who desire it through the responsible legal use of psychedelic medicine and within the context of the Christian contemplative tradition."
"The tea tasted bitter and earthy, but Lorenzo Gonzales drank it anyway. On that frigid night in remote Utah, he was hoping for a life-changing experience, which is how he found himself inside a tent with two dozen others waiting for the psychedelic brew known as ayahuasca to kick in."
The Psychedelic Roots of Christianity
"If psychedelics played such an important role in the religious lives of early Christians and Greeks, it's possible they could be part of something like a religious revival today."
"He helped pay for one of Dr. Griffiths's final studies, which gave psilocybin to 20 religious leaders to see whether it changed the way they practiced their ministry."
Christians are taking Psychedelics to "Experience" God
The Importance of Group Healing with Psychedelic Medicines
"We are also excited to see the Christian focused nonprofit Ligare and Jewish focused nonprofit Shefa getting traction. These organizations promise to pave the way for integration of psychedelic medicines into traditional churches and synagogues, where trained religious professionals will one day be able to offer psychedelic-assisted therapy as part of hospice care and in healing circles akin to the Alcoholics Anonymous model within religious communities."
Entheogenic Sects and and Psychedelic Religions
"Unfortunately, the courts and law enforcement in the United States are rarely sympathetic toward the use of psychoactive sacraments. This article clarifies some of what is being suppressed with regard to churches that use peyote or other psychedelics or Cannabis.
The Wild Goose Festival...Link.
"It is a place where all are welcome. Seriously, ALL. Because we are rooted in a progressive Christian tradition, we welcome you, whatever your age, race, culture, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religious tradition, disabilities, different abilities, whether you have money or not, whether you have a degree or not, whether you have a strong faith or no faith, or perhaps a billion questions about faith, whether you have a home or not, whether you're an extrovert or introvert, everyone is welcome here. Even eye-rolling teenagers. And rambunctious little kids. Rambunctiousness is, in fact, encouraged. We welcome all to come and seek the common good together.
"How are Christians already engaging and supporting the "psychedelic renaissance"? What do psychedelics have to offer Christianity, and what does Christianity have to offer psychedelics? Non-ordinary states of consciousness and the possible paths to an experience of God are nothing new in the Christian tradition, with many examples in Scripture and in the Church's mystical and contemplative tradition. Tragically, the Church also has a history of violently oppressing these paths, including the Indigenous communities that have historically and ritually used entheogenic plants and fungi to open to the Holy. As entheogenic/psychedelic substances such as psilocybin and MDMA are receiving renewed interest and respect for therapeutic healing and spiritual growth, more and more Christians are discerning their own engagement through a Christian lens. Ligare, a Georgia-based non-profit and the host of this conversation, is an educational network working at the intersection of contemplative and mystical Christianity and the exploration of the spiritual and religious engagement with entheogenic/psychedelic plants and fungi. A small group of panelists across intersectional backgrounds are sharing their own experiences and ideas for the future of emotional healing and spiritual growth and development."
"The Jesus Rave is an interactive, spontaneous, spirit-led worship experience that embodies the values of Wild Goose."
Pioneering Clergy of Diverse Religions Embrace Psychedelics
"Welcome to the first installment of "God on Psychedelics," a series of feature articles by the veteran religion journalist Don Lattin examining how the revival of psychedelic spirituality fits into the larger story of religion in America.
"It sounds like the setup for an irreverent joke. A rabbi, a Protestant preacher and two priests walk into a room and are given a hefty serving of magic mushrooms. But it's not a gag, and what happened next was anything but irreverent.
"Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, Lutheran pastor James Lindberg, and Episcopal priests Roger Joslin and Hunt Priest were among some two dozen "psychedelically naive" religious professionals who participated in a yet-to-be published study by researchers at Johns Hopkins and NYU.
After careful screening and preparation, each was separately given two doses of synthesized psilocybin, the chemical that puts the magic in those mushrooms, in a comfortable, supervised setting. The idea was to measure whatever mystical experiences they might have had and follow-up to see how that divine encounter helped — or hindered — them in their ministry.
"It's surprising how many clergy have never had a mystical experience," said Joslin, who shepherds two Episcopal churches in Long Island, NY. "How are you going to incorporate mystery into the life of your congregation if you don't know what that's like yourself?"
"Institutional religion has a lot to learn from psychedelics," said Hunt Priest, the Episcopal priest in Savannah, Georgia. And the psychedelic community has a lot to learn from organized religion.
"Psychedelics, said Lindberg, 'cracked me open and showed me that my views of the world were small and limited, compared to what I had just experienced.'"
"Lindberg, a Lutheran pastor in Nebraska, said his first psychedelic trips left him with something that could be called a 'crisis of faith.'
"For a while, I struggled with what it means to be an identified member of the clergy who is supposed to promulgate the doctrines of that religion," he explained. "I became more humble when I spoke about God. God is bigger and more vast than I can wrap my head around."
Who's Financing this Psychedelic Renaissance?
Cohen Psychedelic Research and Health Initiative
"Millions of Americans suffer from depression, anxiety, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Alzheimer's, and other mental health conditions. Unfortunately, too often the current treatment approaches have limited effectiveness resulting in lifetimes of unbearable symptoms, lowered quality of life, and high rates of mortality.
However, psychedelic compounds present a new opportunity for addressing these treatment-resistant conditions. Based on early studies, psilocybin, the active ingredient of "magic mushrooms", has positive and long-lasting effects on some of the most debilitating and chronic medical conditions, including addiction, anxiety, and major depression. Similarly, in a study of MDMA [extasy]-assisted psychotherapy, approximately two-thirds of patients with treatment-resistant PTSD no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD at the one-year follow-up.
Research on these psychedelic compounds has been postponed for decades while millions of Americans have profoundly suffered. It's time to unlock the potential of psychedelic medicine and improve the lives of patients and their families.
Currently, the Foundation is one of the largest private funders of psychedelic research in the country as we push to fund ground-breaking projects and bring hope to patients with these devastating conditions.
Given to psychedelic Projects: $46,803,199
Funders at Johns Hopkins Shape The Future of Psychedelic Research
"By any measure, Matthew Johnson is one of the most influential scientists in the world of psychedelics. He is a professor of psychiatry and top researcher at Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, the leading psychedelic research institution in the U.S., where more than 40 physicians, psychologists, social workers, guides and support staff are conducting five clinical trials and preparing to begin six more. Johnson leads the team of researchers that last year secured the first government grant in more than half a century to investigate the therapeutic benefits of a classic psychedelic."
Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research
"Our Vision: To advance the scientific understanding of psychedelics and their potential for treating mental health disorders, enhancing well-being, and expanding our understanding of consciousness. [Timothy Leary "Tune in, Turn on, and drop out" couldn't have said it any better
"Scientists today are entering a new era of studying a truly unique class of pharmacological compounds known as psychedelics. Although research with these compounds was first started in the 1950s and '60s [hippiedom], it abruptly ended in the early 1970s in response to unfavorable media coverage...
After a decades-long hiatus, in 2000 our Founding Director, Dr. Roland Griffiths, and colleagues at Johns Hopkins was the first to obtain regulatory approval in the United States to reinitiate research with psychedelics in healthy, psychedelic-naive volunteers. Our 2006 publication on the safety and enduring positive effects of a single dose of psilocybin is widely considered the landmark study that sparked a renewal of psychedelic research world-wide."
The Heffter Research Institute
"The Heffter Research Institute promotes research of the highest scientific quality with the classic hallucinogens [LSD] and related compounds (sometimes called psychedelics) in order to contribute to a greater understanding of the mind leading to the improvement of the human condition, and to alleviate suffering. "
"Since its inception, Heffter has been helping to design, review, and fund the leading studies on psilocybin at prominent research institutions in the US and Europe. Our research has explored psilocybin for the treatment of cancer-related distress and addiction, for understanding the relationship between the psychedelic experience and spirituality, and for basic science research into the physiology of brain activity, cognition, and behavior. The Heffter Institute believes that psychedelics have great, unexplored potential that requires independently funded scientific research to find their best uses in medical treatment. We are not an endowed foundation, and so there is a continuous need for funding to support this critical research.
"The River Styx is the main underworld river that the ferryman Charon would take the souls of the dead across into Hades." (L)
"The RiverStyx Foundation is a philanthropic organization that strives to work at this boundary place. Through grant-making and seeding non-profits, Riverstyx attends to the places in society and our psychology which have been relegated to the shadows- out of fear, ignorance, and puritan influence- recognizing that which is repressed only festers and breeds pathology in its unnatural separation."
"Since 2008, RSF has been funding research into the class of compounds known as 'psychedelics' as among the most promising tools for reinstilling access to vital and often repressed parts of our psychic lives. Psychedelics lower our perceptual filters and can provide meaningful expression to relinquished and unbidden material within ourselves and the world around us, allowing them to speak to us through the language of images, archetypes, and emotions, bypassing the defensive or socially conditioned mind." [This means that Psychedelics bypass one's conscience.]
Judaism's Psychedelic Renaissance (Tablet Magazine)
"Meanwhile, Jews of the counterculture who led the way in psychedelic exploration—think Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi or Ram Dass—have set the stage for today's generation to engage with mystical or transcendent elements within the religion, only to discover that these rituals have indeed been part of Judaism since ancient time."
The Jews Remembered Psychedelics from Egypt
This article makes some interesting points. It looks like the Jews remembered psychedelics from Egypt.
"The first sparks, he explained, were thought to have gone into Egypt, and so it was the job of the Hebrews to form a nation and extract those sparks, which mostly came in the form of the acacia plant, central in Egyptian theology and relating to the gods Taurus and Osiris. The tribe that Moses led out of slavery brought with them acacia extraction technology that Moses learned from the Egyptians, Rozenberg said, as well as plants that Jacob made them plant when they arrived in Egypt. He adds that Rashi says they would stare at the trees while in slavery to gain hope for future redemption.
"The whole process culminates with a man standing in a room filled with plant extract smoke to go into the sparks, take it back up, elevate it, and bring it into his brain," Rozenberg said during the panel.
Some Jews believe taking Psychedelics can Atone for Sin
"What I want to suggest in the overlap between the psychedelic state and the mystical experience is we know when you're on these plant medicines, you're activating the neurological network where trauma is stored ... so when we're using the words 'rectifying the sin of Adam,' we can start to see the science and replace it with erasing generational trauma that we are storing in us." Only the blood of Jesus Christ can "erase the trauma of Adam's sin" and NOT acacia smoke or any other psychedelic experience.
Psychedelics can Activate the Third Eye.
"He went on to explain that the priest's daughter was called Bat Pineal, indicating that the priest himself went by Pineal (yes, like the pineal gland). Called the "seat of the soul" or the "third eye," the pineal gland is a part of the brain that secretes endogenous DMT. So why was the priest called Pineal? "Because the Talmud says he goes and serves in the innermost chamber,
"Rozenberg said. Indeed, there's the innermost chamber of the Temple, and then there's the innermost chamber of ourselves—the metaphysical home of our own internal divinity, which psychedelics can help us access."
Israel is at the Vanguard of a New Psychedelic Revolution
"After half a century of being inextricably linked to counterculture, mind-altering drugs are on the cusp of upending mainstream medicine."
The Birth of Pharmaco-Hasidism (not Jesus Christ) can Atone for Sins
"Young Jews are eager to employ hallucinogenics in their practice: they may be connecting to a tradition they think they've left behind."
This article about Pharmaco-Hasidism seems to be giving hope that taking psychedelics may atone for sins (and not Jesus Christ).
"One result, Summit attendees learned, would be 'activating the neural network where trauma is stored.' With Pharmaco-Hasidism [a combination of drugs and witchcraft], it would appear, atonement is at once a religious and a therapeutic process, a return to the 'Garden of Eden' of full spiritual and psychological integration."
Psychedelics are being used to Promote World Peace (without Jesus Christ).
"The Israeli – Palestinian conflict has escalated and the whole world is watching - including psychedelic researchers. They are working to uncover the potential of psychedelic plant medicines, such as the ancient Amazonian brew Ayahuasca to help nations and the global collective move towards peace, harmony, and political liberation. The revisiting of not only personal, but intergenerational and historical trauma, exemplifies the potential of psychedelics to help break the patterns of generational genocides and conflicts."
Could Psychedelic Ceremonies help people Navigate a Path to Peace?
"19 May 2021
"Ayahuasca ceremonies involving Israelis and Palestinians are shedding light on the potential for psychedelics as a tool for peace-building
"New research is exploring whether group sessions with psychedelics can lay the groundwork for building peace."
"Personal psychedelic experiences can be profound, with some individuals reporting lasting shifts in perception and empathy which carry through to everyday life. But the impact of collective experiences is less clear."
"One Imperial researcher is digging deeper by exploring whether ayahuasca ceremonies in the Middle East, in which participants share a potent psychedelic brew, can have a lasting impact and deepen relations between different groups.
Leor Roseman, from the Centre for Psychedelic Research, has been observing and speaking to Palestinians and Israelis taking part in these ceremonies.
He says his work, published this month in Frontiers in Pharmacology, suggests that profound psychedelic experiences can lead to lasting shifts in perception, helping to bridge long-standing social, political and cultural divides.
Ryan O'Hare spoke to Leor to find out more about the project and the potential psychedelics hold for conflict resolution and long term peace-building.
"During the ceremonies, a common event occurring to individuals or to the group involved moment of 'unity', 'oneness', or a strong sense of 'togetherness,' whereby participants were able to relate to each other based on shared 'universal similarities' and 'sense of humanity', beyond collective identities (Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.)"
Religions are Finding Common Ground with Psychedelics to facilitate Satan's one world religion
It looks like psychedelics are being used to facilitate the creation of Satan's One World Religion. Diverse religions are finding common ground in psychedelics and in psychedelic experiences in order "to get closer to god."
Facilitators may be asking the diverse and interreligious groups the following: "Can we all agree that we need to get closer to God? And, if possible, wouldn't we all love to have our own 'god experience?' Can we then all agree that psychedelics will enable us to experience God as he wishes to reveal himself?"
The diverse interreligious group will then be experiencing a tolerant and "loving god" who never judges and who has unified diverse religions and achieved world peace without Jesus Christ.
Video: "Why I won't Drink Ayahuasca [Psychedelics] Again"
This Finding Fulfillment Together video about taking psychedelics is excellent. As stated, Satan is using psychedelics to pull people away from God and to convince people that with psychedelics, they will be able to tap into their power within to "be like God." Psychedelics are only really getting men in touch with a "Counterfeit god," who is Satan.