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A Wild Ride

Abstract

It is time for the study of psychoactive mushrooms in Christianity to fulfill its promise. It is an area of research that has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the history of Christianity, as well as the ability to influence the future of psychedelics. In concluding I would like to briefly mention three reasons why documenting the historical presence of mushrooms in Christian art could be relevant to the Psychedelic Renaissance. First, it may in time provide the catalyst for the Catholic Church’s return to its mystical roots involving direct entheogenic experience of the divine. Second, it may open the door for the establishment of religious retreat centers, the “modern Eleusis” that Albert Hofmann envisioned, where the Church would offer the faithful safe psychedelic journeys for healing and revelation in the presence of trained guides. Third, it may meet the “bona fide traditional ceremony purposes” requirement specified in the U.S. federal 1993 Religious Freedom Reform Act, thereby establishing the basis for the legalization of the religious use of psychoactive mushrooms as a First Amendment right. This would be similar to the rights to integrate psychedelics into religious ceremonies currently granted to members of the Native American Church who use peyote, and to members of several U.S. branches of the Brazilian churches of Santo Daime and União do Vegetal who use DMT-containing ayahuasca in religious ceremonies.