John Luther “Casey” Jones was an engineer on the Illinois Central railroad. On the 30^{th of April, 1900, he died as his speeding train crashed into another. The very next day, his friend Wallace Saunders wrote a song about him as a memorial. Others heard it and adapted it, and by 1909, the ballad of Casey Jones was popular from coast to coast.}

It is extremely unlikely that the real Casey Jones was “high” on a drug of any kind, but Robert Hunter turned Jones’ tragic tale into a Grateful Dead song warning against the perils of drug abuse.

This old engine

makes it on time

Leaves Central Station

at a quarter to nine

Hits River Junction

at seventeen to

at a quarter to ten

you know it's trav'lin again

Drivin' that train

High on cocaine

Casey Jones you better

watch your speed

Trouble ahead

Trouble behind

and you know that notion

just crossed my mind

Trouble ahead

The Lady in Red

Take my advice

you’d be better off dead

Switchman sleepin

Train hundred and two

is on the wrong track and

headed for you

Drivin' that train

High on cocaine

Casey Jones you better

watch your speed

Trouble ahead

Trouble behind

and you know that notion

just crossed my mind

Trouble with you is

The trouble with me

Got two good eyes

but we still don't see

Come round the bend

You know it's the end

The fireman screams and

The engine just gleams

Drivin' that train

High on cocaine

Casey Jones you better

watch your speed

Trouble ahead

Trouble behind

and you know that notion

just crossed my mind

 

Olena Kalytiak Davis is the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant. She grew up in Detroit and attended Wayne State University, and now lives and writes in Anchorage, Alaska. The theology in this poem is a little disturbing, and the imagery perhaps more so, but somehow, when I read it, I feel powerful and hopeful about our human condition.

“Six Apologies, Lord"


I Have Loved My Horrible Self, Lord.
I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord, And I,
Dropt. Your Requirements, Lord. 'Spite Your Requirements, Lord,
I Have Loved The Low Voltage Of The Moon, Lord,
Until There Was No Moon Intensity Left, Lord, No Moon Intensity Left
For You, Lord. I Have Loved The Frivolous, The Fleeting, The Frightful
Clouds. Lord, I Have Loved Clouds! Do Not Forgive Me, Do Not
Forgive Me LordandLover, HarborandMaster, GuardianandBread, Do Not.
Hold Me, Lord, O, Hold Me

Accountable, Lord. I Am
Accountable. Lord.

Lord It Over Me,
Lord It Over Me, Lord. Feed Me

Hope, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord, Or Break My Teeth.

How many of you agree with biochemist Anthony Trewavas, that at least some plants and trees exhibit a form of intelligence? How many of you know about Princeton University’s “Global Consciousness Project,” in which a number of computers around the world apparently measure fluctuations in the human collective unconscious, reacting to—or maybe even predicting—global events like the 9/11 attacks or the tsunami last December? How many believe that there is something going on in the universe, outside of the realm of our usual awareness?

I definitely believe that there is something larger happening in our universe. I do not believe that it is supernatural; I think it is part of the natural evolution of our kosmic reality. I feel that that evolution involves things that we do not or cannot yet understand. I have had too many experiences that are outside traditional, rational explanation to accept that that is all there is. The most recent occurred right here, in the Jarecki Center of Aquinas College. The first time I preached here, last April, I went up to the second floor to prepare for the service. I went to the washroom, and I called my wife back in Chicago, and I spent a moment in prayer. All of a sudden, I was filled—utterly consumed!—with overpowering love. I felt that the universe was made of love in motion, and that it was pouring through me all the time. I knew that I was loved, and that each and every person on this planet is loved. I knew that we were all imperfect, and I understood that it didn’t matter—the love that is the universe accepted and adored and loved us anyway. I knew, in that moment, that the thing we all need most in this life is to experience that unceasing, uncompromising love; and I knew that it was my job, as preacher and pastor, to help us all access that experience. The feeling eventually faded, at least to the point where I could lead worship, but it didn’t fade completely for days. Even weeks later, I could deliberately recall that moment in my mind, and again feel filled with confidence, and hope, and compassion for all beings.

It was a life-changing experience. As is often the case with such a powerful occurrence, I have shared the story with others. Most people have shared my joy, and celebrated that message of universal love. A few have been skeptical, and at least one has asked me, “what drugs did you take at breakfast?”

For the record, none. Also for the record, I am not sure that it would matter. Over the course of my life, I have had a lot of mystical experiences. Some of them happened while my consciousness was altered—by drugs, or by exercise, or by meditation, or food or love or grief—and many of them occurred while I was unaltered. As a small boy, I felt “myself”—whatever that is—leave my body, and float up to the ceiling, where I could look down and see myself lying there. More than once in my life, I have drunk a little too much alcohol, and felt a deep love for those around me. This isn’t the same as the experience here in April, but it is a legitimate shadow, a distant cousin, of that feeling. And, yes, I have ingested hallucinogenic substances and felt connected to the great unity of all things, at one with the mystery of our existence. Each of those experiences has changed me.

My mother-in-law emailed me a joke this week, about a Southern Baptist minister who preached a sermon on temperance. With great emphasis, he said, "If I had all the beer in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river." With even greater emphasis, he said, "And if I had all the wine in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river." And then finally, shaking his fist in the air, he said, "And if I had all the whiskey in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river." Having finished his sermon, he then sat down. The song leader stood very cautiously and announced with a smile, "For our closing song, let us sing Hymn No. 365.......Shall We Gather at the River."

The humor in that joke comes from our understanding that virtually all of us want to take a break and alter our consciousness at least occasionally. Every human culture that I have studied has had some form of socially acceptable form of escape.

Even many animal species seek out intoxicants. I’ve seen video footage of elephants and birds getting drunk in the wild, on fermented fruits and berries. There are chimpanzees in western Uganda who regularly raid the local brewing facilities then drink the beer until they are visibly drunk.

Now, it is not the case that *every* human being wants or needs to get drunk. There are many people who have never been intoxicated. But, I maintain that virtually everyone has altered her or his consciousness somehow, with exercise or chocolate or prayer or something. Just about everyone needs a temporary release from the stress of everyday life. Some methods of escape are more safe—and/or more legal—than others, but essentially all of us seek release once in a while.

Moreover, many of these experiences provide us a glimpse of something larger than ourselves. Whether it is a full-blown identification with the universal One, or it is a heightened awareness of others around us, our altered state can provide a different perspective from which to view our circumstance. It can show us that there is something more to this life than the consumerist cycle of production and purchase. This is the quintessential religious task: to provide a wider framework within which to better understand the joys and sorrows of our lives. The Hebrew scriptures say “without vision, the people perish.”

And the Grateful Dead lament,

Trouble with you is the trouble with me

In our second reading, the poet uses a different metaphor for the same human need, as she demands, “Feed me hope, Lord!”

There are many different ways of achieving that wider, religious perspective. There are many different substances that we humans feed ourselves in order to alter our consciousness, in order to invite visions.

Alcohol is perhaps the oldest intoxicant, although the soma plant is mentioned in the Hindu scripture, Rg Veda, dating to the 13th century before the common era. Amazon shamans use ayahuasca, a combination of a particular bark and a vine, as their “plant medicine;” North

American peoples smoke tobacco, or consume various cacti. Others have eaten certain mushrooms, or harvested marijuana plants or poppies. Beginning in the 20th century, we creative humans began to synthesize new chemical compounds. Perhaps the most famous of these, and the one most associated with the Grateful Dead, is lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25.

A Swiss scientist, Albert Hoffman, invented LSD in 1938, but he didn’t discover its hallucinogenic effects until April 16th, 1943, when he accidentally absorbed some of it through his fingertips. After watching the pretty colors behind his eyelids, he decided to investigate further, and deliberately ingested what he thought would be a small amount. He got on his bicycle and rode home, and arrived in a panic. He thought he was going insane, and could only think to ask his neighbors for milk, to counteract the poisoning. He later wrote, “Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms…The lady next door, whom I scarcely recognized, brought me milk…

She [appeared as] a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask.”

Eventually, he was able to calm down, and he concluded that the chemical might be useful to modern psychology. LSD was used throughout the 1950’s to treat depression, and it showed great promise in the treatment of alcoholism and schizophrenia.

Soon, the Central Intelligence Agency got wind of these experiments, and began its own tests, using LSD as a form of “truth serum” at first, in a project known as MK-ULTRA.

The CIA experiments were unethical and often harmful. At least one participant died. But some of the participants were impressed by their experiences, and began their own research.

Two of these, both Harvard professors—Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert—began extensive self-experimentation and suggested that others do the same. Leary was fired, but continued experimenting with mind-expanding drugs until his death in 1996. Alpert went to India, where he changed his name to Baba Ram Dass. He has written several books and lectured extensively about our task as religious humans.

Another participant in the MK-ULTRA tests was a college student, Ken Kesey. Kesey went on to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he and a number of friends began hosting LSD parties, which they called “Acid Tests,”in San Francisco. The band for these acid tests was the Grateful Dead.

Kesey and his friends, the Merry Pranksters, painted an old schoolbus with psychedelic designs. It was the inspiration for the bus in the television show, The Partridge Family. Neal Cassidy, the beat poet, was usually the driver of the bus. He is remembered in the Grateful Dead song, The Other One:

The bus came by and I got on

LSD was still legal during most of this time, but the MK-ULTRA experiments, and public opinion against the likes of the Merry Pranksters, soon convinced lawmakers to make it illegal. It is still illegal, although it is also still available on the black market. It is impossible to legislate away the human need for vision and hope. Again for the record, I do *not* advocate the use of illegal drugs. After a decade or two when LSD was considered taboo, there is some research resuming about how it might help to treat various psychological conditions.

Even as it was made illegal, the Grateful Dead continued to use it. Partly because of their experience on the drug, they believed that each person must be responsible for himself or herself, and that others should not attempt to control them. They sang:

What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?

By which, they meant that a friend cannot say, “stop what you are doing and get help.”

There are two main objections to the use of hallucinogens or other drugs: that they are dangerous, and that as hallucinations, they are false or illusory.

The fact is, drugs are dangerous. Many people have been harmed, or even killed, while using them. However, LSD is not as dangerous as it has been depicted. It does not cause chromosome damage, nor cause people to stare at the sun until they are blind. I do not know of any documented cases of people trying to fly, and plunging to their deaths. Nor are there many verified cases of “flashbacks” where a person is suddenly affected by a drug taken years earlier. Perhaps its worst effect is known as a “bad trip.” Just as the chemical can reveal our connection with a universe full of love, it can reveal our fears, of an impersonal universe filled with hate, or perhaps worse, disinterest. Bad trips can be very frightening, and they can lead to decisions which have real-world consequences, but they are rarely fatal in themselves.

The real danger with drug abuse is addiction. The Southern Baptist minister in the joke told earlier probably wants to pour all the alcohol in the river because he has seen all the harm it can do to those who are addicted, and to their families, and friends, and to society. Addictive drugs lead to poor decision-making—and often crime or violence—in the desperate search for the next fix; and the long-term ingestion of such drugs contributes to the addict’s ill health.

We now understand that addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. The Unitarian minister, Joseph Tuckerman, was one of the first to suggest treatment, instead of punishment, for alcoholism. Almost 200 years later, the group “Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform” continues to advocate that drug use be treated as a health issue, not a crime.

LSD is not an addictive drug. However, the Grateful Dead were equally accepting of other drug use—alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and heroin were all considered personal choices. Perhaps because they were so accepting of drug use, they got to see firsthand its many negative effects,

and began to sing songs of warning. Casey Jones, which they began playing in 1969, was one of the first rock-n-roll songs about the dangers of drug use. You can hear the gnawing of addiction in its refrain, “and you know that notion, just crossed my mind…”

In 1973, one of the original members of the band, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, died from complications arising from his prodigious consumption of alcohol. He had already quit drinking, but too late.

Another member, Jerry Garcia, became addicted to heroin in the 1980’s. The band could finally speak up when his addiction affected his playing. Garcia did get into rehab, and they all saw that the personal and the social was not so easily separated. The Grateful Dead sang a song called Victim or the Crime, which begins:

The song ends with:

Well, if there is anybody here, who needs to know, please talk with me after the service. If you think you have a problem with an addiction, don’t wait. Ask me, or ask someone, and we’ll help you get help.

I had an argument once about how I knew that God was present in all things. I said I had experienced that prexence but my friend objected, saying that I had been on drugs and so it was not real.

Similarly, there are devices on the market and in some scientists’ labs that can reproduce the transcendent experiences that sages and mystics have been writing about for millennia. Brain scans of people using these devices are identical to those of monks meditating or nuns in deep prayer.

Is this real? Can we take a shortcut to nirvana? Ken Wilber answers that obviously, we can do so, but asks if it is a momentary effect, or if it really changes our lives, like the monks and nuns? Ken Kesey refers to LSD as a signpost. If you want to go to Lansing, a sign is useful to show you the right direction, but you don’t climb the sign. You set off traveling in the direction the sign points.

Ram Dass gave his guru a whole sheet of LSD. The holy man ate the entire sheet, and was not affected. A little LSD was enough to lead Richard Alpert onto a new path as Ram Dass; but a large amount did not change the man who lived his life in the ever-present moment. A sign may be useful, to provide direction and reassurance along the road, but it is not a substitute for ongoing spiritual work.

Well, there is actually a third objection to drug use. Hallucinogenic drugs may demonstrate that the status quo is arbitrary and unjust. And that is dangerous to the government, which supports, and is supported by, the continuation of the status quo.

It is also dangerous to most of us. Because most of us have a sense of self that depends upon the continuation of things as we understand them. Our identity is built out of the same stuff that everyone else builds with.

But when we take some of these drugs, or have some mystical experience without drugs, if we feel and know that we are one with all things, then we can no longer support “business as usual.”

When I felt that overpowering love, here, last April, I was challenged to engage all beings with the same love that the universe does. I could no longer say, “It’s easier to be with this person,” or “that person does not deserve it.” That kind of love is difficult, and scary. It is easier to live in denial, to have “two good eyes but still not see.”

Living that difficult love is why we come together as a congregation: to walk together toward a common vision, and to support each other when that journey gets tough.

I said earlier that prayer and meditation are ways of altering our consciousness. They can bring us into closer contact with “all that which is holy.” Well, that kind of contact is risky. When we invoke the sacred Spirit of Life, when we call God into our midst—well, when we call our attention to the Godhead that always already exists in our midst—we should be a little westruck. When we open our awareness to the great Mystery, to “that from which we are born, and to which we return, and which changes us in ways that we cannot change ourselves,” then we are vulnerable to being changed!

And we are vulnerable to getting sent into the world to do some changing out there.

You may have heard H. L. Mencken’s comment about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable? Well, we are all of us a little of both. We want some comfort for our afflictions, but we aren’t always ready to accept being afflicted in our comforts. That’s what we do, as a church. We comfort—and afflict—our fellow humans in what we hope is the proper balance.

Nathan Hale said, “give me liberty, or give me death!” Olena Davis said, “feed me hope, Lord, or break my teeth.” I say, “give us vision, a commanding vision of unity and purpose, and give us the strength, and courage and patience to spend ourselves in its service.”

So may we be.