I wasn't aware that there was a competition. Although I guess that depends on who you're out to beat.
Personally, I'm fine with Jewish input. Although the Jewish thing per se isn't pivotal for me as far as accepting or rejecting it, I wouldn't know how to do without it. It's provided in abundance. I would expect nothing less, on a topic like this one.
There shouldn't be a competition. Yet, here we are. You read Jules Evans. He reports on the intersection between psychedelics and Christianity. I don't know if you read Jamie Wheal. But, it’s the same Mother Mary meets mushrooms narrative. Why? Because it’s not on their radar. The United States and UK are largely Christian nations. Who gets to tell the story of religion meets psychedelics? The Jews are largely left out of the conversation because they do not represent the mainstream. And, of course, there’s nothing inherently competitive about living under capitalism. Even as a person who comes from a lesser known Protestant donomination, I feel marginalized. America is mostly MAGA Christian. How do you think they feel about the Jews?
"America is mostly MAGA Christian. How do you think they feel about the Jews?"
I don't know. I don't get into speculations like that one, concerning collective attitudes. The larger the group the more the likelihood of error in any given case. That's something that can only be determined from interacting with other individual awarenesses.
There's also the question of opinion- feel how, exactly? That's a complicated question.
I don't even know how the label "Christian" gets properly defined any more, in terms of group affiliation and identity. Especially in the United States of America. I can only guess. I reject the notion that "America is mostly MAGA Christian". There's no way of knowing that for sure, and I'm not about to concede that turf to the backers of Trump and Musk. Conclusions like that also imply a narrative of Stasis--adherence to the view that political attitudes are intractably immoveable, not amenable to any amount of persuasion or adjustment on the basis of new events or knowledge. That sort of cynicism is the wheelhouse of anti-democratic reactionaries, and I reject it. I don't view votes in Presidential elections as definitive signifiers of political attitudes, for that matter. Especially given the absence of ranked choice voting. People vote for and against for all sorts of reasons, all too often after having been cornered into picking between two options that they find basically unpalatable. And a lot of Americans don't vote, including Christians. So I don't write people off. I'm also cognizant of the reality of people with psychedelic experience--of all sorts of religious or nonreligious persuasions--who are enthusiastic for the MAGA thing, which I view as pernicious hokum. And there, we have a contest. Politics, affecting aspects of common material reality.
I haven't read Jamie Wheal.
I don't think that Jews have been left out of the conversation about psychedelics, either. At least not if the word "Jew" is defined in the more encompassing sense of the word, as a signifier of cultural heritage and perspective. Jewish thinkers and their signature modes of inquiry and analytical commentary have already informed a lot of investigation into the realm of psychedelic experience. I think there are aspects of psychedelic experience that elude verbal ratiocination, but the part that's language~able is important. We have to try. It's a discussion that is open to digression, whimsy, humor, definition and redefinition, and disputing. With no requirement for acrimony or hostility.
As someone who's deeply involved with Synagogue life, and who has had years of psychedelic experience, and consider myself an advocate of psychedelics, I was thrilled and surprised to see this pop up on my feed. I will reread it later and leave a more thoughtful comment.
I feel the Torah describes psychedelic experiences more than once, and psychedelics are not incompatible with halacha.
You write "Judaism, if we’re being honest, doesn’t have a relationship with mushrooms. There are, however, a lot of Jews who have taken mushrooms (and LSD, and Syrian rue, and MDMA, and and and) and they understand that experience to carry meaning for their Jewish selves."
Your statement is NOT true, because "if we're being honest", not ALL of the Jews who "...have taken mushrooms (and LSD, and Syrian rue, and MDMA, and and and)...understand that experience to carry meaning for their Jewish selves."
You write "Now, these arguments for religious or therapeutic use might be entirely sincere, but that doesn’t mean they’re descriptive of all the ways that a religion values psychedelics."
What are called "arguments" are arguments. What are called "arguments" are not "truths". How can an argument, or anything else, be "entirely sincere"?
(By definition, ALL religions are, at best, "creepy".)
"...as Christian Greer noted, it neatly ignores Christian-inflected Native American churches that have been using psychedelics for centuries...."
This is a mistaken and inaccurate claim. The Native American Church began around the turn of the 19th-20th century and was eventually chartered by Christianized American tribal people—graduates of schools like the Carlisle Indian School, who began using peyote on their return to their communities and found resonances to Christian teaching in the experience. Most of the founders were members of northern Great Plains tribes, who had only begun using peyote in the late 19th century, after they had already been interned on reservations. In the late 19th century, Peyote spread from the tribes of northern Mexico Texas-Oklahoma like the Tarahumara, Tonkawa, and Kiowa geographically northward, and by 1914, as far north as tribes in Wisconsin, like the Menominee and Potawatomi.
The Native American Church founders were the product of publicly funded schooling that emphasized “killing the Indian within” in order to remake the children as Western-acculturated and educated role models for their fellow tribespeople. This acculturation included Christian religious teaching. But the returned graduates—the successful proteges—often found themselves alienated on their return to their communities. The old dilemma of in-betweenness, half-assimilation, culturally neither “White” nor “Indian.” Some of those prodigal sons found a solution by sharing in the newly acquired peyote ritual (a practice which as of c.1900 was still novel to nearly all of the American tribes residing north of Texas,) They incorporated Christian interpretation into the classic Kiowa peyote ritual, a type of syncretic religious practice. The founders of the Native American church were also savvy enough to defend their case before Congress with the aid of one of America’s leading ethnographers, James Mooney, who eventually helped them charter the church officially in various US states. It’s also worth noting that the first generation of NAC included the first indigenous people to graduate from American colleges.
Hmmm, interesting that such an event would even be happening at Harvard nowadays. And if I had attended that, I would have brought my own Louisville Slugger like the Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds. I'll bet Salman Rushdie doesn't leave home without a .38 Special anymore. I guess, if I had to take a wild leap into speculation, that there is not a robust psychedelic culture in Islam because they're currently at the stage of celebrating rapists and baby killers? Not like a thousand years ago, when they were building mosques with amazing geometry and Penrose tile patterns. But today, they are overwhelmingly committed to rape, slavery, and murder. At least the ones who control the culture globally. It must have taken a Herculean effort for you not to mention that in passing, since it's a daily occurrence somewhere in the world. Surely the Muslim student you mentioned who was expelled from a student group for trying psychedelics would not have been shunned for extolling slavery, rape, or murder, as long as it was perpetrated by Muslims against dhimmis. Think about that for just a minute. We are in a zero sum cultural conflict with Islam, and you seem surprised that these people are not particularly fans of the psychedelic experience, or any form of personal liberty. Lest you think I sound like a crazy right wing paranoid, read this comment one year from now and tell me then if I was right or wrong.
Thanks for the memory trigger. I haven't thought about those days for a long time. Relevant to your article,I had a rabbi friend whose family I would stay with over Shabbat a lot. He would sometimes toke up before candle lighting time to have a nice buzz for erev Shabbat. All guests, of course, were invited to join him and the joint was passed around.
I remember Ram Dass and his book, Be Here Now. I remember The House of Love and Prayer, where I stayed for a while when on a post university trip from Toronto to Central America via Vancouver.
What is the reason Jews should take drugs in terms of our collective mission of rebuilding the 3rd temple. And when and where should it be used and for what purposes?
This article ended up in my feed randomly. Interesting that you mention Zalman and then go ahead and write an article right out of the sixties that might have been penned by anyone in the Jewish renewal movement. Having personally been well acquainted with many people involved in Zalman’s havura and Jewish renewal lluminaries like Arthur Green I can tell you exactly why Jewish Renewal failed and hence Jewish Psychedelics is most certainly not the future: because most of the people involved just happened to be Jewish & liked the Jewish vibe but had no moorings in actual Jewish life. And those like Zalman who did, got lost in the Pardes & went off the deep end. That’s why the Jewish renewal movement morphed into JVP & lost any ties or relevance to the vast majority of Jews. In any case if Jewish consciousness expansion is what you want, join the Bretslov. I’m pretty sure those guys do drugs but at least they have serious Jewish roots. Btw I’m currently reading Michaelson’s book on Nonduality. The latter might have deep Jewish roots, is definitely fascinating but has nothing to do with drugs.
What a fascinating article! Thanks for writing it. I think (modern) Judaism is a lot less hierarchical than Christianity and Islam, which makes what those at “the top” say a lot less powerful. And one of the hardest things about anyone claiming to say it’s “not our hashkafa” (I don’t think most will really claim there are strong halachic reasons to outlaw psychedelics) is that they’d have to try it first to even know what they are talking about, which would render any subsequent allowances suspect… Anyways, quite curious where this leads.
I think the reason there's little halakhic discussion is that the classical sources don't deal with this. When dealing with intoxicating substances, they most often deal with wine. There are no specific laws I know of for beer and whiskey besides "they're chametz," for example. We know that ancient Israelites had access to cannabis, partially because of Tel Arad, and partially because the Mishna and Talmud actually use the word "cannabos" to describe a plant that can be used for fabric making. Rambam describes cannabis being used as a medicine. Yet the classical sources neither require or forbid the recreational usage of substances such as "cannabos," meaning that all arguments that they are forbidden that modern rabbis can make are on shaky ground.
Really, absolutely no talk of halakha at all?? Not even a passing reference to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's prohibition on cannabis, even just to comment on its cultural assumptions?
David, your article intrigues me but the notion of subjecting my mind to such an experience scares me. Can you describe what that experience would be like?
There are many, many possibilities, depending on both the substance and the context. I'd recommend reading Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind as a way to learn about the range. If you're looking for a firsthand report, Huxley's Doors of Perception is popular for a reason.
"Psychedelic Judaism is going to win"
I wasn't aware that there was a competition. Although I guess that depends on who you're out to beat.
Personally, I'm fine with Jewish input. Although the Jewish thing per se isn't pivotal for me as far as accepting or rejecting it, I wouldn't know how to do without it. It's provided in abundance. I would expect nothing less, on a topic like this one.
There shouldn't be a competition. Yet, here we are. You read Jules Evans. He reports on the intersection between psychedelics and Christianity. I don't know if you read Jamie Wheal. But, it’s the same Mother Mary meets mushrooms narrative. Why? Because it’s not on their radar. The United States and UK are largely Christian nations. Who gets to tell the story of religion meets psychedelics? The Jews are largely left out of the conversation because they do not represent the mainstream. And, of course, there’s nothing inherently competitive about living under capitalism. Even as a person who comes from a lesser known Protestant donomination, I feel marginalized. America is mostly MAGA Christian. How do you think they feel about the Jews?
"America is mostly MAGA Christian. How do you think they feel about the Jews?"
I don't know. I don't get into speculations like that one, concerning collective attitudes. The larger the group the more the likelihood of error in any given case. That's something that can only be determined from interacting with other individual awarenesses.
There's also the question of opinion- feel how, exactly? That's a complicated question.
I don't even know how the label "Christian" gets properly defined any more, in terms of group affiliation and identity. Especially in the United States of America. I can only guess. I reject the notion that "America is mostly MAGA Christian". There's no way of knowing that for sure, and I'm not about to concede that turf to the backers of Trump and Musk. Conclusions like that also imply a narrative of Stasis--adherence to the view that political attitudes are intractably immoveable, not amenable to any amount of persuasion or adjustment on the basis of new events or knowledge. That sort of cynicism is the wheelhouse of anti-democratic reactionaries, and I reject it. I don't view votes in Presidential elections as definitive signifiers of political attitudes, for that matter. Especially given the absence of ranked choice voting. People vote for and against for all sorts of reasons, all too often after having been cornered into picking between two options that they find basically unpalatable. And a lot of Americans don't vote, including Christians. So I don't write people off. I'm also cognizant of the reality of people with psychedelic experience--of all sorts of religious or nonreligious persuasions--who are enthusiastic for the MAGA thing, which I view as pernicious hokum. And there, we have a contest. Politics, affecting aspects of common material reality.
I haven't read Jamie Wheal.
I don't think that Jews have been left out of the conversation about psychedelics, either. At least not if the word "Jew" is defined in the more encompassing sense of the word, as a signifier of cultural heritage and perspective. Jewish thinkers and their signature modes of inquiry and analytical commentary have already informed a lot of investigation into the realm of psychedelic experience. I think there are aspects of psychedelic experience that elude verbal ratiocination, but the part that's language~able is important. We have to try. It's a discussion that is open to digression, whimsy, humor, definition and redefinition, and disputing. With no requirement for acrimony or hostility.
As someone who's deeply involved with Synagogue life, and who has had years of psychedelic experience, and consider myself an advocate of psychedelics, I was thrilled and surprised to see this pop up on my feed. I will reread it later and leave a more thoughtful comment.
I feel the Torah describes psychedelic experiences more than once, and psychedelics are not incompatible with halacha.
You write "Judaism, if we’re being honest, doesn’t have a relationship with mushrooms. There are, however, a lot of Jews who have taken mushrooms (and LSD, and Syrian rue, and MDMA, and and and) and they understand that experience to carry meaning for their Jewish selves."
Your statement is NOT true, because "if we're being honest", not ALL of the Jews who "...have taken mushrooms (and LSD, and Syrian rue, and MDMA, and and and)...understand that experience to carry meaning for their Jewish selves."
You write "Now, these arguments for religious or therapeutic use might be entirely sincere, but that doesn’t mean they’re descriptive of all the ways that a religion values psychedelics."
What are called "arguments" are arguments. What are called "arguments" are not "truths". How can an argument, or anything else, be "entirely sincere"?
(By definition, ALL religions are, at best, "creepy".)
https://open.substack.com/pub/moshekoppel/p/a-vessel-to-capture-the-sparks?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=47j0nh
"...as Christian Greer noted, it neatly ignores Christian-inflected Native American churches that have been using psychedelics for centuries...."
This is a mistaken and inaccurate claim. The Native American Church began around the turn of the 19th-20th century and was eventually chartered by Christianized American tribal people—graduates of schools like the Carlisle Indian School, who began using peyote on their return to their communities and found resonances to Christian teaching in the experience. Most of the founders were members of northern Great Plains tribes, who had only begun using peyote in the late 19th century, after they had already been interned on reservations. In the late 19th century, Peyote spread from the tribes of northern Mexico Texas-Oklahoma like the Tarahumara, Tonkawa, and Kiowa geographically northward, and by 1914, as far north as tribes in Wisconsin, like the Menominee and Potawatomi.
The Native American Church founders were the product of publicly funded schooling that emphasized “killing the Indian within” in order to remake the children as Western-acculturated and educated role models for their fellow tribespeople. This acculturation included Christian religious teaching. But the returned graduates—the successful proteges—often found themselves alienated on their return to their communities. The old dilemma of in-betweenness, half-assimilation, culturally neither “White” nor “Indian.” Some of those prodigal sons found a solution by sharing in the newly acquired peyote ritual (a practice which as of c.1900 was still novel to nearly all of the American tribes residing north of Texas,) They incorporated Christian interpretation into the classic Kiowa peyote ritual, a type of syncretic religious practice. The founders of the Native American church were also savvy enough to defend their case before Congress with the aid of one of America’s leading ethnographers, James Mooney, who eventually helped them charter the church officially in various US states. It’s also worth noting that the first generation of NAC included the first indigenous people to graduate from American colleges.
Hmmm, interesting that such an event would even be happening at Harvard nowadays. And if I had attended that, I would have brought my own Louisville Slugger like the Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds. I'll bet Salman Rushdie doesn't leave home without a .38 Special anymore. I guess, if I had to take a wild leap into speculation, that there is not a robust psychedelic culture in Islam because they're currently at the stage of celebrating rapists and baby killers? Not like a thousand years ago, when they were building mosques with amazing geometry and Penrose tile patterns. But today, they are overwhelmingly committed to rape, slavery, and murder. At least the ones who control the culture globally. It must have taken a Herculean effort for you not to mention that in passing, since it's a daily occurrence somewhere in the world. Surely the Muslim student you mentioned who was expelled from a student group for trying psychedelics would not have been shunned for extolling slavery, rape, or murder, as long as it was perpetrated by Muslims against dhimmis. Think about that for just a minute. We are in a zero sum cultural conflict with Islam, and you seem surprised that these people are not particularly fans of the psychedelic experience, or any form of personal liberty. Lest you think I sound like a crazy right wing paranoid, read this comment one year from now and tell me then if I was right or wrong.
Thanks for the memory trigger. I haven't thought about those days for a long time. Relevant to your article,I had a rabbi friend whose family I would stay with over Shabbat a lot. He would sometimes toke up before candle lighting time to have a nice buzz for erev Shabbat. All guests, of course, were invited to join him and the joint was passed around.
I remember Ram Dass and his book, Be Here Now. I remember The House of Love and Prayer, where I stayed for a while when on a post university trip from Toronto to Central America via Vancouver.
Ah. Memories.
What is the reason Jews should take drugs in terms of our collective mission of rebuilding the 3rd temple. And when and where should it be used and for what purposes?
Oh wow. Like you can really look at your hand.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marlowe1/p/the-bella-lingua-the-stories-of-john?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=sllf3
No hippie. It's not going to win. Because drugs are for children.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marlowe1/p/the-bella-lingua-the-stories-of-john?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=sllf3
This article ended up in my feed randomly. Interesting that you mention Zalman and then go ahead and write an article right out of the sixties that might have been penned by anyone in the Jewish renewal movement. Having personally been well acquainted with many people involved in Zalman’s havura and Jewish renewal lluminaries like Arthur Green I can tell you exactly why Jewish Renewal failed and hence Jewish Psychedelics is most certainly not the future: because most of the people involved just happened to be Jewish & liked the Jewish vibe but had no moorings in actual Jewish life. And those like Zalman who did, got lost in the Pardes & went off the deep end. That’s why the Jewish renewal movement morphed into JVP & lost any ties or relevance to the vast majority of Jews. In any case if Jewish consciousness expansion is what you want, join the Bretslov. I’m pretty sure those guys do drugs but at least they have serious Jewish roots. Btw I’m currently reading Michaelson’s book on Nonduality. The latter might have deep Jewish roots, is definitely fascinating but has nothing to do with drugs.
What a fascinating article! Thanks for writing it. I think (modern) Judaism is a lot less hierarchical than Christianity and Islam, which makes what those at “the top” say a lot less powerful. And one of the hardest things about anyone claiming to say it’s “not our hashkafa” (I don’t think most will really claim there are strong halachic reasons to outlaw psychedelics) is that they’d have to try it first to even know what they are talking about, which would render any subsequent allowances suspect… Anyways, quite curious where this leads.
I think the reason there's little halakhic discussion is that the classical sources don't deal with this. When dealing with intoxicating substances, they most often deal with wine. There are no specific laws I know of for beer and whiskey besides "they're chametz," for example. We know that ancient Israelites had access to cannabis, partially because of Tel Arad, and partially because the Mishna and Talmud actually use the word "cannabos" to describe a plant that can be used for fabric making. Rambam describes cannabis being used as a medicine. Yet the classical sources neither require or forbid the recreational usage of substances such as "cannabos," meaning that all arguments that they are forbidden that modern rabbis can make are on shaky ground.
No dude. Drugs are only fun on vacation, not on a regular basis.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marlowe1/p/bloodbath-at-landsdale-towers-by?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=sllf3
Really, absolutely no talk of halakha at all?? Not even a passing reference to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's prohibition on cannabis, even just to comment on its cultural assumptions?
Rav Moshe's teshuva doesn't seem to have had a major influence on Jewish practice over the last 50 years.
David, your article intrigues me but the notion of subjecting my mind to such an experience scares me. Can you describe what that experience would be like?
There are many, many possibilities, depending on both the substance and the context. I'd recommend reading Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind as a way to learn about the range. If you're looking for a firsthand report, Huxley's Doors of Perception is popular for a reason.