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Can Drugs Help Your Religious Life?

Another recent study about psychedelics proclaims these drugs can have a transformative impact on users, though in this case, the impact is not only on psychological health, but spiritual health as well. At first glance, you might immediately bristle at any association between drugs and religious life. Yet the centrality of psychoactive substances for spiritual enhancements is a time-tested, globally widespread recipe for social and individual well-being.

Psychedelic Medicine published the paper, "Effects of Psilocybin on Religious and Spiritual Attitudes and Behaviors in Clergy from Various Major World Religions," which suggests that drugs, and in particular, for this study, the psychedelic substance psilocybin, might be useful for religious revivification within the world's religions. "Suggests" is a bit of a stretch, though, since making any kind of generalizations based on such a small group is suspect from the get-go, especially in terms of religious diversity. Roughly 25 subjects were dosed twice in the long-term study, most of whom were Christian and white, though there were a few Jews, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. All are identified as clergy and as the title suggests, supposed to represent "various major world religions."

Source: Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

This is a significant publication, not necessarily because of the content and findings of the article, but because it was even carried out in the first place. Faculty from the schools of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and New York University performed the study, which is something of a follow-up to the less rigorous, more rebellious psychedelic study known as the Marsh Chapel Experiment from the 1960s. These are hefty institutions of higher education, and their backing of the study speaks to the powerful presence psychedelics have in popular consciousness—not just presence, but drawing power.

Regardless of the demographics, their representational accuracy and other concerns with the ethics of its execution, the study does most definitely raise an intriguing couple of questions: does altering consciousness with psychoactive substances have religious value, and will Americans accept drugs as enhancers for religious life?

I have been thinking about these questions a lot lately, and have a new book coming out that explores some of these provocative possibilities called Sacred Drugs: How Psychoactive Substances Mix with Religious Life. Psychedelics is one of the chapters, with others focused on topics like alcohol, cannabis, coffee, pharmaceuticals, and addiction. In American popular consciousness, however, psychedelics are certainly one of the most publicly prominent drugs intersecting with religious, or spiritual if you prefer, life at the moment.

It might come as a shock to some readers, but the answer to both questions is a resounding and unequivocal "yes." The religious value of drugging agents can be found throughout time and across cultures, so there is a solid foundation for the seemingly natural connections between psychoactive substances and spirituality in various forms. This study, however, brings a scientific framework to bear on the question and concludes after rigorous (a word emphasized numerous times) analysis of questionnaires, graphs, tables, assessments and other data that, yes tripping can make a difference in a person's life, including their religious outlook. Or in the measured language from the article: "In this population of clergy, psilocybin administration was safe and increased multiple domains of overall psychological well-being, including positive changes in religious attitudes and behavior as well as their vocation as a religious leader."

The scientific efforts to understand how psychedelics bear explicitly on religious life, as opposed to psychological afflictions and struggles, is an unsurprising development in the midst of the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance. So much of the convincing research about the therapeutic effectiveness of psychedelics for depression, PTSD, anxiety, addiction, and other struggles hinge on a perceived mystical component in the experience, a supposedly "ineffable" quality that is constantly described but whose obvious religious implications are often left underdeveloped in much of the literature.

The authors are also pointing the way ahead for more scientific inquiry, asserting that further studies of religious leaders can be carried out with "reasonable safety" provided the appropriate rigor in executing the study. In particular, they encourage trials with a wider variety of religious traditions and non-religious participants, and to look at such questions as whether psychedelics can be used in religious training and education, or if they encourage greater religious tolerance.

The religious value of psychedelics, at least within the scientific framework, is determined by heavily controlled, monitored, and measured participant experiences of being under the influence. This more sober, clinical approach to spirituality and psychedelic experience has a much greater chance of finding the mainstream, the authors suggest, than the more unhinged, "indiscriminate," and non-clinical, drug-infused spiritual celebrations if not revolutions of the 1960s that led to a clampdown on psychedelic research and illicit drug use more generally.

Spirituality Essential Reads

Americans today already accept and integrate certain mind-altering substances into the rhythms of religious life. Wine for some Christians, cannabis for Rastafarians, peyote in the Native American Church, and more recently ayahuasca in Santo Daime churches, are a few examples of a wide range of interactions that cumulatively enliven a vital though understudied part of America's religious landscape. Ritual drug use for spiritual relief and reinvigoration outside of legitimate institutions like "churches" or, now, clinics, is another part of the landscape that remains uncharted but vitally important in the religious lives of Americans.

Psychedelics like psilocybin seem primed for integration into more religious communities, with increasing numbers of congregants willing to just say yes to drugs to enhance, rejuvenate, and even revolutionize their place within the so-called "world religions" in America.

The celebrated therapeutic effectiveness of psychedelics fueling this current Psychedelic Renaissance, or perhaps even better, Psychedelic Great Awakening, has let the religious cat back out of the bag, so to speak, bringing to the cold light of day the potential benefits of what the study refers to as a sacred experience. Medical research and testimonials from both subjects and scientists, therapeutic breakthroughs and health care mentalities, and other developments in health sciences are contributing to a recognition of what many a shaman has long recognized as the religious values of these potent, consciousness-modifying, hallucinatory, agents of change.

Science may indeed provide convincing evidence for the sacred powers of drugs in twenty-first-century America. On the other hand, it also seems the science itself is showing traces of religiousness, with doctors becoming shamans, set and setting establishing new sacred rituals, and psychological well-being tying into notions of mystical experience.

GD Bans Drug Replacement Therapy, Psychotropic Imports For Private Sector

Private entities will be banned from offering opioid replacement therapies, as well as from importing and distributing psychotropic drugs, according to the amendments fast-tracked by the Georgian Dream one-party parliament during a July 1-2 extraordinary session.

Per changes to the Law on Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Precursors, and Narcological Assistance, passed amid the ruling party's intensified anti-drug rhetoric, the state will assume full responsibility for both services.

Announcing the changes at a June 25 briefing, GD Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze accused "pseudoliberal ideology" of deliberately promoting drug addiction, calling it "the gravest illness" and saying it had been "artificially imposed" on Georgian society. Kobakhidze also claimed the ideology tries to "present the consumption of marijuana and so-called club drugs as fashion."

"This pivotal legislation encapsulates the interests of every family and citizen," Georgian Dream MP Zaza Lominadze said during the plenary session, further claiming that the changes would contribute to Georgia's "well-being" and the "prosperity of future generations."

Georgia currently runs two drug replacement therapy programs: a state-operated methadone program and another using buprenorphine/naloxone, which is partly managed by private entities. Narcologist Zurab Sikharulidze estimates that about 14,000 people use the state program, while 2,500 are treated privately.

Kobakhidze alleged that private programs are designed not to cure patients but to "legally supply narcotics," driven by a commercial interest in maximizing drug sales. He voiced similar concerns about psychotropic drug imports, accusing private companies of "artificially encouraging" demand.

Still, some experts question the necessity of the move. Sikharulidze noted that the Health Ministry already controls the import and sale of psychotropic substances.

The move comes amid Georgian Dream's declared "uncompromised" fight against drug dealers and its broader tightening of drug policy. During the same July 2 session, GD lawmakers also made possession of more than five grams of marijuana a criminal offense, punishable by up to six years in prison.

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