From the Things You Thought You'd Never Live To See Department

[featherynscale]

Court okays use of hallucinogenic tea for religious group.

Wow. On the one hand, they are a faith-based organization, and we're big on looking the other way on what churches do these days provided that they also talk about Jesus, but the last time I checked, we were also big on Drugs being Bad. Mixed feelings abound.

Comments

[rio-luna.livejournal.com]

this is awesome! yes the tea is hallucinogenic, but no one seems to be doing ayahausa as a street drug. for one thing, it's not convenient, easy to produce or handle, and the effects areincredibly unpleasant. the experience starst with participants digging a hole into which they will vomit. then they get off and vomit. it's not a party drug for sure. apart from recreational-use prejudice, this shows a level of cultural sensitivity i would not have expected.

[infintysquared.livejournal.com]

Also, if most Christian churches use wine as a sacramental object, that helps open the door just a teensy crack.

Yes, I know that the wine isn't being used for intoxication. Still, it is a mind-altering substance that is used with Church fiat.

I suppose my argument breaks down when I acknowledge that alcohol is legal, and ayahuasca isn't.

[infintysquared.livejournal.com]

And this brings up a memory of spending half an hour with my friend, teaching him to properly pronounce "AYE-a-WASS-ca."

He was always a visual reader instead of a polyglot phonetic reader, self-taught on the whole-word method. I was self-taught on phonetics, heh.

[kieyra.livejournal.com]

I was sitting here trying to think of something intelligent to say about ayahuasca besides the obligatory vomiting references, and was about to give up. Then I saw the icon. I'd forgotten about that. Yay! (I still have nothing intelligent to say. Well, I guess one could theorize that ayahuasca is unlikely to challenge any of the big moneymaking street drugs (see: vomiting) and therefore the Gov't is willing to give it a pass. And, as you say, 'faith-based'. Hm.)

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Hell, drugs are good and religious groups worshipping as they wish to is good. Everyone's a winner as far as I can see.

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

I think there are genuine spiritual experiences that can occur through very judicious uses of drugs used under very strict supervision by an experienced Elder. However, as I'm sure most folks are aware, that's so very rarely the case. Instead, we see folks choosing the easy route, or what they percieve as the easy route via drugs.

After all, incense can be definately "mood altering", and we do use alcohol (moderate amount via cake & ale) in ritual. I'm sure there are folks out there that judge those rather mimimalist uses, as well.