For most people, Aldous Huxley, is remembered as the author of the classic dystopian novel, \u201cBrave New World.\u201d But among devotees of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD, Mescaline, and \u201cmagic mushrooms,\u201d Huxley is also known as the author of \u201cThe Doors of Perception.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that book, Huxley chronicles his experience after ingesting mescaline, the psychoactive ingredient in peyote. As anyone who lived through the Sixties might expect, these experiences include what he believed was an enhanced appreciation of music and the visual arts. Thanks to mescaline, Huxley \u201cunderstood\u201d that Vermeer \u201cwas truly gifted with the vision that perceives the Dharma-Body as the hedge at the bottom of the garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that seems less-than-helpful-or-clear to you, then you can imagine what went through my mind as I read a recent article in the New York Times about hallucinogens and terminally-ill patients. Did you see it?<\/p>\n
The lead told the story of a 55-year-old \u201cupbeat, articulate and dignified\u201d woman who was told that she had terminal colon cancer and between six and fourteen months to live. Like many people who receive this kind of terrible news, she fought back: She never stopped running even as her cancer treatments were taking their toll. And these exertions may have helped her to outlive the initial prognosis by nearly three years.<\/p>\n
But the one thing her efforts couldn\u2019t overcome was her fear of death. The longer she lived, the more anxious and depressed she became about her impending death. The question \u201cwhen?\u201d dominated her and her husband\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
So, her doctor prescribed magic mushrooms. More precisely, he administered doses of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in these mushrooms, to her and other terminally-ill patients. The idea was that perhaps the hallucinogen would enable terminally-ill patients to see their impending death in a new way \u2014 as one researcher put it, through the carefully administered use of these drugs patients may see death in a \u201cnew light.\u201d The experience might \u201cpromote introspection\u201d and provide patients with \u201cgrounding.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that sounds, well, religious to you, you are not alone. Listen, I can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like to be told that you only have months to live \u2014 it\u2019s hard enough to deal with the news of a loved one\u2019s impending death, as I recently have done. So, I will not begrudge a dying person\u2019s grasping for relief from this unimaginable burden.<\/p>\n
What I will do is to note that researchers are using drugs to mimic \u2014 that\u2019s the word that best fits here \u2014 the effects of faith, especially Christian faith. For Christians, our natural fear of death is overcome, not by a drug, but by faith in the risen Christ. Just as death no longer has any hold over Jesus, it no longer has any hold over us.<\/p>\n
This is not a matter of perception \u2014 it\u2019s a matter of fact. As the apostle Paul told the Corinthians, if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, our faith is in vain. It doesn\u2019t get more fact-based than that.<\/p>\n
None of this makes death \u2014 either our own or that of a loved one \u2014 any less painful. Christians believe that death is an enemy. But it\u2019s an enemy God, through Christ, will destroy. That\u2019s the source of our hope \u2014 hope that no pill can ever mimic.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2012 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #2936]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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