The Happiness Myth_ An Expose - Jennifer Hecht [59]
The big news at the time of the Good Friday Experiment was that even our modern religion could be enhanced through drugs. People were moved enough to wonder if drug experiences accounted for the origins of religion. In 1963 Mary Barnard asked readers of the American Scholar, “Which…was more likely to happen first, the spontaneously generated idea of an afterlife in which the disembodied soul, liberated from the restrictions of time and space, experiences eternal bliss, or the accidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants that give a sense of euphoria, dislocate the center of consciousness, and distort time and space?”12 Other well-known thinkers have also argued that drugs invented religion.13 A year later the great historian of religion Huston Smith published an article in the Journal of Philosophy entitled “Do Drugs Have Religious Import?”14 The piece had a huge impact—and no wonder, as it remains insightful today. At one point, Smith asks the reader to choose which of the reported enlightenment experiences was drug induced:
I) Suddenly I burst into a vast, new, indescribably wonderful universe. Although I am writing this over a year later, the thrill of the surprise and amazement, the awesomeness of the revelation, the engulfment in an overwhelming feeling-wave of gratitude and blessed wonderment, are…fresh…. The knowledge which has infused and affected every aspect of my life came instantaneously and with such complete force of certainty that it was impossible, then or since, to doubt its validity.
II) All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud…. there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness…[then] an intellectual illumination impossible to describe…. I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is…a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life…that the happiness of…all is in the long run absolutely certain.15
Along with the fun of this game of Guess Who Was High (the first one), I cite the quotations here because they seem packed with information. Most important, the first quote is further evidence that the positive effects of the drug experience last long past the event. Also important is the quotations’ vivid illustration of Smith’s point—not just that drug and religious enlightenment are similar, but that they are so similar and so amazing that they essentially prove each other. The normal life of us bony bags of goo often feels lonely and meaningless, but every once in a while we are treated to a different experience that is exactly as real and all encompassing as this one, but that feels united, sublime, and blissfully happy. Smith reminded his readers of a variety of religious uses of drugs, including “the wine used in our own communion services,” peyote, soma, marijuana of the Zoroastrians, the benzoin of Southeast Asian Zen, the pituri of the Australian aborigines, and “the mystic kykeon that was eaten and drunk at the climactic close of the sixth day of the Eleusinian mysteries.”16
What are the rules about how we use alcohol, painkillers, depression medication, illegal drugs, and religion? Since the culture uses all these drugs anyway, is it not reasonable to look at the way these drugs function for us? People take Percocet to go to church, and they have a great time. A religious flock that wouldn’t come drunk and doesn’t even know much about hallucinogens might well be drugged with all sorts of mood stabilizers and pain relievers and hence find it easier to have a religious experience. Government stores in India today sell bhang cookies: what looks like a rum ball will take about two hours to kick in, and then you find yourself in a world without time, a world of unfathomable instability, for about six hours. We talk about ourselves as pill-popping, but maybe people in most of history have taken a lot more drugs than we