The Psychedelic ChristianBorn Again on LSD: Part 3
So, Neil is now in police custody, and I am facing down my slightly angry, though heretofore ignorant parents while tripping on LSD.
Now, to be fair to Neil, he absolutely knew what planet he was on. I learned later, when all the dust had settled, that he had indeed gotten lost and wound up in town, about a mile or so away. In an attempt to find his bearings, he asked some police officers — of all people — for directions to the local gas station, as he was pretty sure he could find his way back from there. Even now I wonder to myself about his choice of people to ask. Was there truly no one else? Regardless, something about Neil’s inter-galactic state of mind must have been written on his face, because they responded with a rhetorical ‘Is it on planet earth?’ which, in fairness might have confused even the soberest of Baptist preachers. Needless to say, they didn’t exactly help the situation. So, to make a long story short, Neil was now in police custody; which is ultimately how word got around to my parents about the situation, albeit a word with the police’s own colorful spin on it.
Nevertheless, I can imagine that Neil’s reaction to the police was probably not too far from my own response to my parents’ — that is, stupefaction.
About now, things really began to fall apart for me. In fact, I hesitate even continuing with this story lest there be some kids out there reading this and getting the wrong idea. I’d hate to give anyone the impression that there is much of anything about it that’s exemplary, or worthy of imitation in any way. Frankly, there is precious little about these goings-on that I would condone. Indeed, I believe that if anything good came out of it at all, it was through the sheer grace of God, and even that took literally years for me to formulate into anything resembling a clear thought. The truth of the matter is that things could have gone much further south than they did. And, I know a lot of hay is being made about the potential positive effects of a psychedelic experience, but if anyone is in doubt of the equally real possibility of psychological trauma being done, they need only look to the likes of Charles Manson as a reminder of this — though an admittedly extreme one.
And, for the few of you living under a rock who are not familiar with this dark chapter of American history — in short, Charles Manson was a very charismatic megalomaniac who used LSD (among other things) to help convince his followers that he was a kind of modern, hippie Messiah. Through these means, he successfully recruited them as minions in instigating a race war in America. Upon his orders, they murdered certain socialites for him, the most famous being Sharon Tate, in the hopes that they would sort of inherit the earth once the dust had settled. For more on this devilish, wiry little man with a persuasive southern lilt, I refer you to two of my favorite podcasters — Josh Clark and Charles Bryant and the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Back in January of 2018 they crafted a fascinatingly informative two-part episode on the Manson Family Murders.
I know I’m probably beating a dead horse here, but I just wanted to really drive the point home that there are ways of undergoing a psychedelic experience that are better than others, and those ways are legal, prayerful, and intentional; and they are best book-ended by periods of preparation and periods of post-assessment.
And, having said that, I should also mention that even if you do all the proper preparation, there is no guarantee that your trip is going to be all tulips and butterflies. What I mean is, sometimes trips are hard and not because you failed in some way — not praying enough beforehand, or having the right amount of candles in the room. You might be shown things about yourself that you’d rather not see, or be asked to let go of something that you don’t think you can live without; and even in the best environment, it will not be easy, and that’s ok. As the old adage goes, ‘You get the trip you need, not necessarily the trip you want.’ So, with that in mind, perhaps we should make room in our assessments of psychedelics for the hard trip.
Notice that I didn’t say ‘bad’ trip, though that is the term generally used. For more on this subject, I recommend to you a short, insightful, and easy to read account of just such a trip written by the Harvard Divinity School student Rachel Petersen; which can be found in the library. In this article she helps open her readers up to a more affirming approach to ‘bad’ trips, pointing out that when experiences like that are reported, they are often branded as ‘statistical outliers, flukes resulting from flaws in set and setting, or vulnerabilities of the patient’ and not indicative of the true nature of entheogens (psychedelics); when the truth is that they may very well be a very natural and intrinsic part of the psychedelic experience.
To this point, as early as 1965, The American Journal of Psychiatry published an article by Thomas Ungerleider et al. which failed to detect any differences between LSD users who were later admitted to psychiatric units from those who were not. She posits that this truth isn’t seen as normal, let alone celebrated within much of the psychedelic community, particularly as current leaders in the field wish to put the most positive spin on entheogens as possible. This is an understandable attempt to finally undo some of the damage done by the over-enthusiasm of Timothy Leary, and the damaging misinformation of government programs like D.A.R.E. This aversion to the darker side of psychedelics is ameliorating, but possibly at the expense of the rich affect that ‘difficult’ trips can have on us not because they are a source of great insight per se, but precisely because of their elusiveness. To illustrate this, Petersen holds up the story of Job, particularly how its climax does not culminate in a greater understanding of theodicy and why things are the way they are, but rather in a peace in not knowing. God is in heaven, and Job is on earth. The greatness of divinity will always be beyond Job’s ken, and Job becomes ok with that.
Many other spiritual traditions seem to bear the challenging nature of divine encounters out too, as can be seen in the examples of shamanic initiation mentioned in Graham Hancock’s Supernatural; which describe disturbing and somewhat gruesome trance-state accounts of organs being taken out, or limbs being severed. With this, let’s take (with a grain of salt) the early Spanish historian Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s report in his Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España of psilocybin mushrooms bringing on visions among the locals that are ‘sometimes frightening and sometimes humorous.’
More to our point, the distressing and sometimes down-right frightening nature of intense religious experiences is testified of in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures beyond that of Job. Consider the ‘great dread’ that fell on Abram when God made a covenant with him (Gen 15:12). Think too of Isaiah’s vision in the temple, and his lips being burned with a live coal. Perhaps it is no wonder why the most repeated injunction in these collected books is ‘Don’t be afraid’ when an angel appears, as if that is exactly what a typical response would most likely be. And lastly, though it is so obvious that it may not need mentioning, is Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane, and ultimately being tortured to death on the cross. This last experience sums up the nexus of divinity and humanity so perfectly to many Christians, that its symbol is in, I dare say, every single church in the world. Let us not forget that it was an experience of horror and utter isolation for the God-Man, and yet, somehow in a mystery, it was also theosis.
With regard to these divine encounters, most Christians are in agreement — they were uncomfortable, to say the least. However, I think we can all agree that good came out of them. We can probably even go one further and say that the subjects would most-likely agree with us, too — that though it may have been trying to the utmost, it was worth it, and that their relationship with the Father deepened in ways that they would not trade for anything. To underscore this point, I bring up a study done by Johns Hopkins on 1,339 people who underwent a ‘bad’ trip — 84% of them said that they benefited from the journey, and 46% went so far as to say that they would do it again if they had the choice. Having gone through a ‘challenging’ psychedelic experience myself, I can testify to the veracity of this study.
But, before we end, let us return to our night-time scene: As it turns out, Neil had buckled under the pressure and confessed to the police that he was actually tripping balls — to use the modern parlance of our time. And, as you can imagine, this fact was conveyed to my parents who in turn interpreted this circumstantial evidence as implicating my brother and I as well. So, they asked me outright if I was on LSD, too.
Just loosen the reins of your imagination for a moment. How do you think I might have behaved while lying while on LSD? Are you picturing rivulets of sweat in tiny waterfalls running down my face, winding their way around saucer-sized eyes and clenched teeth? Yeah, that’s what I would have imagined, too. The fact is, I must have put on a pretty convincing performance for a moment, as I simply looked at my loving and concerned parents and held my peace while shaking my head with a look of silent shock and inner pain at their lack of trust in me. And, for a bit of dramatic flourish, while slowly walking up the stairs, I paused briefly on the landing just to look down and shake my head again, as if gripped with incredulity at the slight given.
This Emmy-worthy bit of acting didn’t last long, however. Though I did succeed in my deception, I, like Neil eventually broke and confessed all. I just couldn’t keep up the charade.
An older friend of mine recounted a similar experience when he told his father that he was on LSD. Upon receiving the news, he didn’t call the police and he didn’t even raise his voice. On the contrary, this friend’s father made him tea, and played cards with him all night. Oh, that my parents had had that kind of wisdom! But, that wasn’t to be my lot. Rather, they did call the police, and even an ambulance for good measure. And soon, their twinkling lights would be in our driveway. The rear ambulance door would open, beckoning me in to what I thought was the great by-and-by.
But, more on that next time.