While I was reading
the chapters and looking at the parallels Wagner draws between video games or
virtual reality and religion, I couldn’t help but draw a similar parallel
between both of those and drugs. More specifically, hallucinogenic drugs.
Drugs, video games and religion all hold a similar allure. For example, many
people try and continue to try hallucinogenic drugs in search of a transcendent
experience or to connect with a higher being. I feel like games and religion do
the same or similar things. This isn’t new either. The ancient Greeks used
kykeon to connect with the ‘other’. Native Americans used peyote for the
same reason. Wagner says “Both religion and virtual reality can be viewed as
manifestations of the desire for transcendence”. I think we can safely add
certain drugs to that sentence as well. Some who continue to use peyote, LSD,
mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs claim to do so to enter an enlightened
reality. Its like Timothy Leary’s turn on, tune in, and drop out experiments.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Leary, here is an excerpt about his
experiments from the Daily Nexus,
“One of Leary’s
earliest experiments, the Marsh Chapel Experiment on Good Friday, 1962, aimed
to facilitate a sort of religious experience — to see if ingesting psilocybin
could stimulate the feelings of awe and transcendence typical of feeling closer
to a higher power. In the study, graduate degree divinity student volunteers
were divided in two groups. Half of the students were given psilocybin (the
psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms) while the control group received a
large dose of niacin, a placebo.
The results of the
experiment were remarkable. The experimental group, that is the number of
students who received psilocybin, reported transcendence of time and space and
closer connection to God. What’s even more fascinating about the study,
however, occurred ten years later. Out of the subjects, all of who were
training to become pastors or priests at divinity school, 90 percent of those
who ingested psilocybin later became religious pastors, whereas absolutely none
of those in the placebo group went on to become religious figures.”
While I’m not saying we
should all go get some magic mushrooms, I do think it is interesting to think
of all the ways we as little humans continuously (even 2,000 years ago) search
for something bigger than ourselves. What does that mean? Do we as humans
subconsciously acknowledge an ‘other’ or ‘supreme being’ exists?
I want to leave you guys with this quote from
page 7 of Godwired, “Human beings are notoriously creative, imaginative
creatures and will find ways to craft meaningful experiences whether or not we
feel comfortable labeling them as explicitly ‘religious’”.
--This is Bree--
ReplyDeleteThat quote from Godwired was one of my favorites.
This is a great point. I like what you brought up regarding different groups of people (Greeks, Natives) using different hallucinogenics for the very same reason. People that, at least at the time, had absolutely nothing to do with each other. No matter who we are, it seems like deep down we're all very motivated by similar things.
On that note, my mom would say that she's not 'religious,' but that she's a very 'spiritual' person (splitting hairs). She would say, "I don't know how or why BreAnn, but whether it be some chemical reaction or something cosmic, there's something in all of us that ties us together."
Personally, I think it's lodged in our DNA somewhere. I do think we all share some sort of connection, but more on the biological side of the spectrum. I think on some level, regardless of our backgrounds, a lot of us want to think there is something more out there than what we've been given to physically experience. If we want something more, it must mean that we feel like we're lacking in something. So, I think people try to fill up that empty space with the discovery of a higher power. I'm not saying drugs = God, just, again, that I think people are motivated to do different things for similar reasons.
Okay, crazy story. My friend Matt Shields was obsessed with Timothy Leary and Leary's drug studies. Matt was a polemic, violent, and objectivist athiest looking at religion as a complete and total crock. On top of that, I always considered him one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. Matt was also a daredevil sort of guy and was always getting into absurd amounts of trouble and telling epic stories.
ReplyDeleteHe got into acid for a while and stayed off the grid for the most part. But of all people I was one of the only people he kept in touch with... Eventually his letters became more and more spiritual sounding and less and less athiestic. Eventually he was baptized a Christian. After a lot of dialogue, he went off the grid again and I didn't hear from him in a while. He just called me two weeks ago, he is preaching the law and gospel on the streets of Portland. How insane is that?
I am more opt to blame an abuse of drugs before anything else, but he is such a different person it weirds me out. I still don't even know what to think of it. His most striking words from his conversion experience were that it finally made sense that "God is love."
In any case, I loved reading your post. That dug up some memories of my friends for sure.
-Frank
I am also curious if he is still doing acid while preaching...
ReplyDelete-Frank