Spirituality

Our ancestors got high, too

*John Marco Allegro shares the potent plant roots of Christianity.  HERE Virtually all human societies use mind-altering substances. What’s more, about 90 percent give drug-induced altered states of consciousness a role in their fundamental belief systems, according to a survey of 488 modern societies. And this isn’t new. Many psychoactive plants we consume today, and those that have fallen out…

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Spirituality

Religion as a product of psychotropic drug use

*John Marco Allegro featured here in film describing his research Perhaps one of the first things to consider is whether there is any direct evidence for the entheogenic theory of religion which derives from contemporary science. On Good Friday 1962, two groups of students received either psilocybin or niacin (a non-hallucinogenic “control” substance) on a…

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Spirituality

Sincerity, ‘religiosity’ challenged In ongoing Cannabis Church lawsuit

“People from organized religions were persecuting me for my belief in cannabis as sacrament. Demanding their secular members invade temples where believers obtain sacrament and learn the ways of peace, these persecutors relentlessly attacked with words of hatred and violence.” — from the sixth of “The Nine Epiphanies. LINK Thomas Fisher, representing the state, says…

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Spirituality

Mormons and pot

The large pharmaceutical companies don’t want easily available medical marijuana. That is no surprise and it’s easy to see their motivation. If approved through the “appropriate channels” and legalized as a prescription drug, it would probably be the most profitable drug ever to hit the market. What costs around $150 per ounce in those states…

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Spirituality

Storming the gates of psychedelia: Scientists commit to collaboration in the face of capitalist competition

The trouble is that healthcare in America exists within a competitive market economy, motivated by the insatiable quest of economic growth. Privatization by means of patenting or theft often precipitates the process of making profit. This means restricting access to common pool resources (e.g., putting a fence around a field of marijuana for the purpose…

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Spirituality

75 years since LSD discovery, thousands since use… entheogens

[Dr. Albert] Hoffmann -and [the 1960’s] counterculture- met with rejection and prejudices that Indigenous cultures have had to deal with for centuries. Indigenous use of entheogens, which are substances used for spiritual reasons, usually face discrimination by “mestizos” fueled by misinformation and prejudice over the use of substances that they simply call “drugs,” making them…

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Spirituality

Inside Jamaica’s magic mushroom retreat for women

*worldwide map of psilocybin mushroom habitat The mushrooms are grown nearby, dried and ground into a fine powder before being decanted into capsules … This is the first time they’ve had a women only retreat. “The #MeToo movement has demonstrated how common sexual harassment and abuse is in our society,” says Maclean. “We wanted to…

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Spirituality

Oregon grew more cannabis than customers can smoke. Now shops and farmers are left with mountains of unwanted bud.

“This time last year, it was basically all mom-and-pop shops,” says Mason Walker, CEO of Cave Junction cannabis farm East Fork Cultivars. “Now there are five or six companies that own 25 or 30 percent. Stores are selling for pennies on the dollar, and people are losing their life savings in the process.” Deep-pocketed companies…

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