Every Stranger article that has real experience instead of prefab team-signaling is a blessing. So thanks.

When is the stranger going to stop promoting drugs.

(My comment sounded like damning with faint praise. Let me try again: good article, thanks!)

I am not a religionist but I think the use of psychoactive drugs is very dangerous especially in a religious context. All too often religion is used to control people, like a form of sub-government. When drugs are mixed in it makes for easier control of the minds of people. My original comment, though, was about the Stranger's overall attitude toward drugs, alcohol and such in irresponsible and reckless ways.

@6 - Your ignorance is outstanding and disappointing but not surprising since you're a republican. The peyote ceremony is intended to connect natives with the universe, while many of the so-called Catholic fairy tales you speak of aren't even represented in the Bible, they're just attempts by the church to fill in gaps in their doctrine. I know because I was raised Catholic and am part Mohawk.

I would love a chance to experience this connection, it's on my bucket list.

And yet, bubba, great success in dealing with alcoholism opiate addiction and end-of-life coping is being found thru proper, controlled PROFESSIONAL use of hallucinogens. Hope your jerky knee is feeling better.

@10 Just what kind of proper, controlled, and professional administration of hallucinogens are you speaking of? It seems strange to me that giving someone mescaline or LSD can cure someone of an opioid or alcohol addiction as they are physical as well as mental maladies. As for end of life coping, I watched my mother die on a morphine drip, I cannot fathom how a psychedelic drug would have been an improvement.

You don't have a psychedelic drip like you would with morphine, it's once or twice. They have helped terminal cancer patients get a different perspective on the dread of dying and leaving everything behind.

The research on addiction is somewhat more variable in results. But the point is not that it gets you past physical withdrawal -- it doesn't -- but it can again offer perspective: what am I doing with this life?

You are equipped to Google if this summary interests you I'm sure.

@6 - If Catholics treated Catholicism as a symbolic mythology with community-defining rituals that allowed members to contemplate awe and mystery - rather than literal truths that mysteriously have no connection to the empirical sciences or any other credible epistemology - then voluntary participation in that construct mightn't warrant ridicule, and non-Catholics in a democracy might have less fear that their rights would be curtailed by votes that reflected faith in subjective moral philosophy and invisible gods.

Individuals may find solace where they may. I don't know whether Catholics are praying to a real being, or whether psychedelics genuinely connect you to another plane of consciousness. Having grown up Catholic and spent a good portion of college in a psychedelic haze, I saw some truth and some bullshit in the "illuminations" received from either. I only know that of I'm to give any credence to whatever version of "reality" you're peddling, you'll have to come up with a real, live argument.

I grew up Catholic too but basically I see the Catholic church as being the last vestiges of the ancient Roman empire, particularly of the late republic period. The state religion simply justified the government and it's ruling class. Before important decisions were made auspices were taken; whichever faction paid off the high priests got the omens they needed for whatever legislation they wanted. Later on in the common era the emperor became Christian and almost overnight the Roman state religion became Catholic; the pontifex maximus became the pope the vestal virgins became nuns and so on. During the medieval period after the fall of the empire the Catholic church continued to rule Europe though indirectly. Moa had it right; religion is the opiate of the masses.