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"Can a psychotropic jungle potion cure the existential angst of the McMansion set?"

By Ann Althouse

You remember hoasca (or ayahuasca), the psychedelic plant at issue in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal. Here's the post I wrote at the time about this most ironic case. The Supreme Court had narrowed the Free Exercise of Religion clause of the Constitution, saying generally applicable laws are fine even if they substantially burden religion. Congress reacted with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act forcing judges back into the task of giving religion-practitioners exceptions from general laws. And that ended up meaning that the Controlled Substances Act didn't apply to the importation of a powerful psychedelic drug when it is used for religious purposes.

So can anybody join this religion and use the otherwise-illegal drug?

For ayahuasqueros such as [the young medicine man named Lobo Siete] Truenos and the eclectic mix of button-down professionals and New Age acolytes joining him on this night, the potion may be a conduit to higher consciousness. Who exactly are these psychotropic explorers? Truenos won?t reveal much about them, except to say that the owners of the home in which they are meeting are retirees (young ones, it appears) and that participants typically include doctors, lawyers, celebrities, New Age healers and academics....

Truenos took the court decision as a green light. He and his wife, Gabriella, have been leading ceremonies for several years. They haven?t consulted attorneys; instead they take their orders from the ?Creator,? he says....

Truenos mentions a recent private ayahuasca session in which a participant experienced ?a trust crisis,? refusing to believe Truenos could heal him. Mother Ayahuasca admonished the man for such self-delusion, leaving him writhing on the floor, wracked with emotion.

Despite this harrowing episode, Truenos believes ayahuasca?s dark reputation is exaggerated. It is transformative and healing, he says, a cure for the ?cancer of indifference,? a remedy for our ?failures in integrity.? But it?s even more than that. ?Some people,? he says, ?need to be frightened by the way they live their lives.?

Full post as published by Althouse on February 02, 2008 (boomark / email).