Just Let the Hippies Have Their Drug Church

Hippies in Santa Fe, New Mexico just want to build their "church" and drink ayahuasca out back, in the shed, and trip balls. Neighbors are not so happy about it. It's a classic religious freedom case. With magical elves.

In rural Brazil, ayahuasca really is used for its mystical, spiritual properties. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, ayahuasca is used by hippies who equate spirituality with drugs. Which is okay, because they're a certified church, and this is their right! It is not any more crazy than "Jesus."

The WSJ reports that neighbors say they're worried about hippies driving all crazy after getting wasted on psychedelics, and also they're worried that teenagers will break into their hippie greenhouse and steal the two separate plants it takes to brew up ayahuasca, which, haha, not when it's much easier to steal your prescription Valium, mom. Anyhow, who are you to say god is not actually a transforming machine elf?

"They" were also definitely in the house. It may be that Terence McKenna has simply seeded the meme-space that surrounds some tryptamines with his famous tales of self-transforming machine elves that proffer various alien objects/machines/languages with an almost malignant glee. But I certainly know what he is talking about, and these fellows now haunt the tryptamine realm for me. Tonight they leaned in quickly: "Oh you are back. We suckered you in here once again!" And they proceeded with their mischevious chittering bee-dance, as if they were coaxing me into some kind of hyperdimensional circuit that would leave sanity far behind. I never "gave in" though, whatever that means, and by the end of the trip, I was utterly tired of their cavortings.

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