Extract from In Search of the Ultimate High by Nicholas Saunders, Anja Saunders, Michelle Pauli. Published by Random House. Copyright Anja Saunders 2000. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the copyrightholder.
Shifting Perceptions?
In contemporary society the established religions, while holding the view that the use of psychoactive substances is wrong, are unable to ignore the issue of the the impact of drugs in society. Since the 1960s the world religions have had to respond to major changes in society and the emergence of a new youth culture in which drugs and drug imagery play a major role.
The use of drugs by young people who have grown up within the faith is a particular dilemma for religious leaders. In 1995 the Evangelical Alliance commissioned a survey of the use of drugs amongst young British Christians. In the 17-30 age-group it was found that 46.1% had been offered drugs and 23.3% had tried them, broadly similar to the figures found general surveys of young people.
Mainstream religions often have to tackle drug use in society in ways which other groups do not. With the rise in the use of heroin and crack cocaine in recent years, inner city ministries, in particular, have been on the front line through their pastoral work helping drug casualties.
Their experience of the problems that drugs can cause may well lead to a further hardening of the attitude that all drug use is, or leads to, abuse and is therefore dangerous. But such work can also lead to a greater understanding of the complexity of the drug scene (or scenes).
There are individuals within the established faiths who believe that psychoactives may have a role to play in spiritual practice, albeit in a limited way. Their potential role is as a starting point in a spiritual journey. Drugs may have a place in establishing an initial spiritual connection which can be developed through more accepted practices and structures.
The spiritual teacher Ram Dass, formerly known as Richard Alpert, was a lecturer in psychology at Harvard University when his explorations into human consciousness led him to conduct intensive research with LSD and other psychedelics. The controversy this caused resulted in his dismissal from Harvard (along with Timothy Leary) and he travelled to India where he met his spiritual teacher Neem Karoli Baba and received his new name. His book "Be Here Now' has become a classic spitual guide. In an interview in a Buddhist magazine he commented that:
"I don't see psychedelics as an enlightening vehicle, but I do see it as an awakening vehicle. I see them as beginning a process that awakens you to the possibility...".
Reverend Dr Kenneth Leech is a community theologian working in the East End of London. He has a wide experience of drug work, having been a curate in London throughout the 60s and 70s. He was a founder of the Soho Drugs Group and also Centrepoint, an all-night shelter for homeless young people. In Drugs and Pastoral Care he says:
"I have never understood why, in principle at least, mind-altering chemicals should not be used in the context of the spiritual journey".
Intrigued by this we interviewed him and asked him to expound on this point:
"I've seen people whose consciousness of reality is one-dimensional and very, very rigid and they regard the whole area of the transcendent and the whole imaginative world as a lot of nonsense. Then they take a psychedelic drug and their whole way of looking at the world changes. That may or may not be a positive thing but in many cases it has been.
I think the people I've seen where that has been a positive development are people who haven't gone on to use drugs on a very regular basis. They haven't become anti-drug either, they've simply said "this has helped us, this has taken us part of the way, we now need something else to take us further".
These were the people Allen Cohen termed the meta-hippies - people who had initially started to take an interest in spiritual paths because of their drug experience and might never have done so had they not taken drugs.
It seems to me that there is no basic difference between getting absorbed in drug highs and getting absorbed in any other kind of high. There's a whole range of aids to spiritual experience which have been used and can also be misused. There's nothing special about drugs.
I think the question about drugs is whether they can have a place within a framework of creating a 'healthy ecology of the spirit'. I would say, in principle, yes. But I think we need to move on and say what kind of place and in what conditions and with whom. I wouldn't say that any use of anything is necessarily right for everybody.
It's curious that Christians should use the problems of drug use as an argument as there is a long tradition in the church that the abuse of something does not alter its legitimate use. This is a basic teaching of moral theology since the time of Thomas Aquinas onwards, but people seem to forget it when they're talking about drugs."
Kenneth Leech has been criticised by both politicians and others within the Church for his views, but there does seem to be a growing recognition that young people, in particular, are seeking a sense of transcendence in places other than churches, synagogues and mosques.
One attempt to address this problem was the introduction of rave-style services in the 1980s with the Nine O'Clock Service in Sheffield, England. There is more on this phenomenon in the chapter Rave Spirituality.
A rabbi, albeit one with unconventional views, spoke to Nicholas on this issue facing the traditional religions:
"Nowadays, young people are more likely to have a spiritual experience at a rave than in a church or synagogue. The feeling of oneness and seeing life from a new aspect is an equally valuable experience for ravers. Priests who want to understand young people should take ecstasy for themselves, both in order to understand them, and to see the validity of spiritual experiences produced by drugs".
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