An existential query many individuals spend their lifetime in search of a solution to is “Where can God be discovered?” Some within the Jewish religion consider they already know the reply to that query and say psychedelics have helped them get there.
“Yes, God’s within the timber and God’s within the bush and God’s within the plant and in addition God’s inside us … and the breath leads us straight again to God inside us,” defined Meir Kay, the co-founder and lead facilitator at AhDaMa, a corporation that claims it cultivates secure and sacred containers for Jewish males to “uncover their true selves and join in brotherhood, wholesome masculinity, and divine connection.”
The males who attend Kay’s gatherings go on journeys of self-discovery and reference to themselves and God. They do that with a device all folks have: Their breath.
Remembrance in lieu of retreat
Kay doesn’t name the gathering a retreat, even when it seems to be one.
“Because we do not wanna retreat,” Kay defined. “We wanna keep in mind. We get to recollect our energy, our love, our connection right here … I create this actually secure area the place males who grew up in numerous backgrounds, in Jewish religion, who may really feel secure, really feel related by way of the Jewish lineage and on the identical time have entry to those very kosher, secure modalities of therapeutic.”
At one remembrance, the modality was Holotropic breathwork. This kind of breathwork is commonly described as a psychedelic expertise with out the psychedelics. Participants quickly breathe, lowering oxygen, it is believed this manner of respiratory might launch pure Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) within the mind. DMT alters the thoughts the identical method substances like psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca do.
“What occurs by way of the breathwork is that … the thoughts begins to get quiet and we’re capable of drop into the physique, drop into the center area, into the soul and hear,” Kay stated.
History of faith and psychedelics
For a whole lot of years, folks have reported having non secular experiences whereas connecting with their breath and/or whereas ingesting psychedelics. A 2023 peer-reviewed study in psychopharmacology discovered that the share of individuals who recognized as believing in God or a better energy elevated from 29% to 59% after psychedelic use.
Of the main world religions, Jewish folks seem like embracing psychedelics, together with breathwork, greater than most.
Rabbi Harry Rozenberg advocates for using psychedelics for therapeutic and connection.
“I discovered psychedelics to be the elephant within the room that this entire story really has a psychedelic narrative on the core of it,” Rozenberg stated.
Rozenberg believes the Torah, Judaism’s most sacred textual content, might describe psychedelic experiences. He believes divinity lives in all of us, and for some, psychedelics assist us entry it.
“So, if there’s a spot in your mind the place you are experiencing one thing that you’d solely describe as divinity, I’d say there is not any smoke with no hearth,” he defined. “That’s our dialog with God … when you’re within your thoughts on this place and you’ll talk.”
The Torah
Rozenberg factors to and interprets many particular tales within the Torah as proof of psychedelic use all through Jewish historical past. One instance he provides, is the story of the excessive priest atoning for sin. It’s the crux of the story of the Jewish vacation Yom Kippur.
In the story, the excessive priest enters a smoke-filled chamber. Rozenberg defined the excessive priest, “places the coals from acacia tree, this psychoactive tree, which comprises DMT, probably the most psychedelic drug on the planet is discovered on this tree, he takes two scoops of this incense.”
The excessive priest then has to face within the chamber for about ten minutes or till the entire room is stuffed with smoke.
“So as soon as I noticed that inhalation of smoke from very particular vegetation that comprise very particular chemical substances that concentrate on very particular elements of the mind is the core of the Jewish folks’s faith, I stated, ‘timeout,'” Rozenberg stated.
He additionally factors to the story of Moses and the burning bush, the place Moses reviews speaking with God by way of it. Some theorize the bush may very well have been a burning acacia tree in Egypt.
“We do know the timber of that area are the acacia tree, which comprises excessive quantities of DMT, excessive traces of DMT,” Rozenberg defined. “I personally would guess Moses understood very nicely learn how to open up his third eye and learn how to talk with God by way of that, which might clarify how he was capable of find yourself chatting with God and having these experiences.”
Building connection by way of breathwork
For Kay, and the work he does with Jewish males, it looks like he’s experiencing one thing that these in historic occasions might have additionally skilled.
“I do consider this breathwork is just not a brand new know-how,” Kay stated. “The know-how of breath is among the oldest tales in Judaism.”
Kay feels it is sensible that breath, together with different modalities which were principally misplaced to historical past, are coming again to the forefront of contemporary consciousness to attach with ourselves, different women and men and with God.
Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Connecticut, Kay graduated from Yeshiva, which is Jewish faculty, as a rabbi.
“I used to be dressed as an Orthodox Jew, however inside my practices weren’t absolutely aligned with what the neighborhood requirements have been,” Kay defined, pointing to the rigidity of Orthodoxy.
For Kay, his deep spirituality and reference to himself and God got here later, after he left Orthodoxy behind. He stated breathwork helped him come again to his Jewish religion.
“When we join with our breath, we join with our soul,” he defined. “And so, when I discovered myself connecting with my breath, connecting with my soul and getting the readability that I wanted, connecting with God with no middlemen simply by being, it was all OK.”
At a remembrance in South Florida placed on by Kay and his group AhDaMa, he helped information Jewish males towards reference to themselves and God. Through breathwork guided by Kay, the boys have been capable of go deep of their minds. Kay’s retreats deal with males, however he plans to broaden to {couples}.
Participant Yossi Kagan reported having a transformative expertise. He stated breathwork and psychedelics have helped him get nearer to God.
“It gave me that figuring out,” Kagan stated.
Responsible use reminder
Rozenberg needs others to expertise that figuring out that Kagan skilled, however reiterates, this ought to be accomplished in a accountable and secure method.
“If there’s sure vegetation as we speak that governments are saying are unlawful and you’ll go to jail for them, but in addition occur to be the basic vegetation of world religions, we’ve got to ask ourselves a query, ought to we’ve got entry to those vegetation? Should we research them?” he stated. “So, I’m informing different people what your inheritance is, that is your textual content. This is your Torah. This is what it says, these are the vegetation. This is the storyline, find out about it, as a result of it is yours.”
There are dangers with taking any drug, together with psychedelics, and use ought to all the time be monitored and administered by a skilled skilled.
Rozenberg is advocating, by way of his group Trippy.vc, for the authorized and secure use and research of psychedelics.
