RR Pod E29 Mike Marinacci: Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches

Guest Mike Marinacci, author of Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches: LSD, Cannabis, and Spiritual Sacraments in Underground America In this very engaging conversation, Mike starts by talking about what inspired him to write this book, and then we jump into discussing several of the major psychedelic groups he discusses in his book. A few highlights of our interview: The Native American Church and their struggle to receive legal permission from the United States government to use peyote in their rituals; how non-indigenous people also tried to gain this legal permission for their own churches; the highly eventful life of Timothy Leary and his engagement with LSD, and his later League for Spiritual Discovery; the forerunner to satirical groups such as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Neo-American Church; the introduction of ‘crisis response’ help with the use of LSD by the Church of Naturalism; the switch to the use of legal drugs by the Church of the Tree of Life; the success of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church with the Rastafarians, and the downfall of the Church after the group became too highly involved in drug trafficking; and the complicated efforts to profit commercially from the use of entheogens by the present-day Ayahuasca Healings group.