Psychedelics and Spirituality

Tucker Max's spiritual journey, more on Christianity and Buddhism, and a newsletter meet-up in Indianapolis.

I’m going to be hosting a newsletter meet-up here in the Indianapolis area on Tuesday, May 28th from 6p-8p. It will be at Sun King Brewing in Midtown Carmel.

This is a great chance for me to meet some of you, and also for my readers in the Indy area to get to meet each other.

The event is free (though has a cash bar), but please register for it so I have an accurate count of who is coming because space is limited.

If you are in Indy, please sign up and come, because I’d love to meet you.

Christian Buddhism Follow-Up

Both the Social Pathologist’s guest essay on Christian Buddhism and my follow-up piece on the “Buddhist mood” in evangelicalism have generated a lot of interesting discussion, some agreeing and some disagreeing. I love this kind of conversation.

One of my readers emailed me to say:

Thank you for this article. I noticed this clearly when I returned from Bangkok after eight years living with Buddhists. I was amazed at how many Buddhist ideas and attitudes were pervasive in the church. I listened to one of the songs in my home church and made the comment to our temporary pastor that the words could have been sung by a Buddhist. He reacted immediately saying the worship wars were over and he did not want to start them again.  

And, just a day after TSP’s piece, Paul Kingsnorth made an explicit comparison between Christianity and Buddhism.

So, there it was. These were our instructions, and they were the same ones that St Macarius was instilling into his novice by sending him on his trips to the cemetery. Spiritually, we must all descend into the grave. This is what a Buddhist would call detachment from what a Sikh would call Maya, because in all spiritual traditions it is understood that attachment to the things of this world is a trap that will keep you from the truth.

Kingsnorth, a British writer, has become very influential in certain circles and is seen as something of a sage by some. I have not read him in depth, but his work has never resonated with me. For one thing, he’s obviously deeply alienated from modernity and from the West; he expatriated, he adopted a foreign religion (Romanian Orthodoxy), and seems to completely eschew modernity, living a sort of off the grid lifestyle in rural Ireland. Before becoming a Christian he had embraced Buddhism (and tried Wicca as well), and it’s clear he holds it in high regard.

Alienated, extreme people like Kingsnorth can be sorts of inspirational prophets of a sort. I’ve admired Ivan Illich for this. John Michael Greer is perhaps similar. But their views always need to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

This piece by Michael Foster addresses similar themes to my Buddhism series.

Contemporary American Spirituality

After reading my recent pieces on Christian Buddhism, someone sent me a link to this recent Tucker Carlson interview with Tucker Max. You can read more about Max on Wikipedia, but he was a famous “bro” writer from about 12-15 years ago who wrote a number of bestselling books about getting drunk, sleeping with lots of women, and his general life of debauchery, the most famous of which is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. He says he’s sold four million total books. He disappeared for several years then resurfaced with his redemption arc story. He’s now married with a family and is living a homestead lifestyle in Texas.

At the very end of this interview, there’s an interesting segment where Max talks about finding God. It hits several themes in contemporary American spirituality, notably psychedelic therapy opening oneself to a spiritual connection. He also directly talks about Christianity and Buddhism. Here’s that clip:

Partial transcript:

I’d never done any drugs in my life, never. Until I found - as part of my therapeutic protocols I did psychedelic medicine - like MDMA, LSD,  mushrooms - with a guide, and not recreationally. I don’t know how you do that stuff. People take LSD and go to concerts. I took LSD and cried and found God.…I knew Jesus’ and Buddha’s teaching academically, but then it was one very specific experience. It was LSD.  I remember thinking, “Oh, f—. The kingdom of heaven is within. Now I know what Jesus was talking about. ‘If you meet a buddha on the road, kill him.’ Ah - now I know what Buddha was talking about.”

…

I’m very much a God guy but not in the way most God guys are - not in a religious way. I think religious dogma - some people need it, like it, and that’s cool. I don’t need dogma. I think dogma it gets in the way. And I think if you actually look at the teachings of Christ, and definitely the teachings of Buddha, they say the same thing.

Max is very smart, charismatic, is a great storyteller, and knows how to say things that connect with an very large audience. So it’s worth paying attention to the way he talks about spirituality, because that’s probably something that resonates with a lot of people.

It also tells me that we are going to continue hearing a lot of Buddhist inflected language in evangelicalism, because that mode of thinking is resonant and relevant in today’s world, hence it will be effective at some level in reaching the market. French philosopher Chantal Delsol also noted the growth of the influence of Eastern religious concepts on Western thinking in a post-Christendom world.

Boy Scouts Ditch the Boys

It was essentially inevitable, but the Boy Scouts of America have officially changed their name to Scouting America in light of their decision to admit girls.

The Scouts are an example of the decline in civil society in America. They had a massive pedophile problem. They abandoned their core middle class values in order to chase the shifting fads of elite culture. Membership is in steep decline. I’ve heard complaints from people deeply involved in scouting that being an Eagle Scout doesn’t mean what it used to, because so many troops have become “eagle factories.”

It’s also an example of the relentless attacks against any male only spaces in America. There’s an incredible underlying envy of men in the American woman. That’s one reason why they themselves ascribe the highest status to what men are doing, rather than to what women do or mixed gender groups do.

The Scouts still have a ton of assets and brand equity, but as with many such organizations, this is most likely only going to dwindle over time. People will build alternatives, but they will almost certainly never achieve the cachet of the Boy Scouts.

Best of the Web

Anthony Bradley: Fraternities Saving America

Vermont Public Radio: Universities and colleges search for ways to reverse the decline in the ranks of male students

Brad Wilcox: The Closing of the American Heart

Institute for Family Studies: The Motherhood Wage Penalty Is Declining, But Only For Some Women - a study says that the motherhood wage penalty disappears for women who have children after the age of 30.

An interesting X thread from Lyman Stone on Negative World Christianity and costly status signaling.

New Content and Media Mentions

I was a guest on the Ministry Watch podcast discussing Life in the Negative World. And Rick Plasterer wrote a review of it for Juicy Ecumenism. I was also mentioned the Conservative Woman (UK)

New this week:

• Guest writer the Social Pathologist on the problem of Christian Buddhism.

• My followup on the Buddhist mood in Evangelicalism.

• My podcast on trying to bail other people out of their problems.