The Mobile Museum of Psychedelic Religion
Wild Goose Festival 2026
A Political Theology of Museums
Museums are political, and they are theological. They use material culture to tell a story of the past, often to inform big existential and political questions in the present. Museums are never neutral fact-tellers. If a museum curator is not purposefully telling a story, culturally dominant creates a story for them. The Mobile Museum of Psychedelic Religion was created to tell a story with four themes:
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Criticism of the War on Drugs
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Criticism of simplistic stories about psychedelics, both positive and negative
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Support for Christian engagement with psychedelics
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Support for the rights of New Religious Movements
The Mobile Museum of Psychedelic Religion was also created with a distinct methodology-from-below that focuses on the experiences of everyday people, especially those disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs.
Indigenous Religion and Psychedelics
Indigenous peoples have used psychedelics for thousands of years and contributed massive amounts of wisdom about their use. They have used DMT-containing Ayahuasca, psilocybin-containing mushrooms, mescaline-containing cacti, and more. Some Indigenous religious groups that use psychedelics, like the Native American Church or Santo Daime, began using psychedelics in the modern era as a response to apocalyptic colonialism.
Why then are there so few artifacts related to Indigenous peoples present in this museum? There are two reasons. First, pre-modern material artifacts definitively related to psychedelics are scant. Most relevant items were made out of material like hide, wood, or other organic matter that decomposes. What remains, such as stone mushroom statues, are difficult to clearly tie to psychedelics. The few that can be identified are priceless cultural artifacts.
Most relevant items were made out of material like hide, wood, or other plant matter that decomposes. What remains, such as stone mushroom statues, are difficult to clearly tie to psychedelics. The few that can be identified are priceless cultural artifacts.
Second, postcolonial Indigenous sacred artifacts do not belong in museums. Many psychedelic-related items, such as peyote fans of the Native American Church, have been repatriated to relevant religious and tribal bodies. Holding these items in a private collection would not be appropriate, just as it would be inappropriate to engage in closed psychedelic practices.
What can be displayed are items from non-Indigenous society that were integrated into new pan-Indigenous religious ceremonies. For example, the Native American Church rituals developed in the 1800s usually used Bull Durham Tobacco alongside the mescaline-containing cactus peyote.
Displayed Here:
1) Bull Durham Tobacco Bag (c. 1930)
The Rise of Neo-Psychedelic Religions
Dr. Albert Hofmann, a liberal Swiss-German Christian, discovered LSD in 1943.
Psilocybin-containing or “magic” mushrooms were widely widely publicized beginning in 1957.
The people who tried these substances were quick to recognize their spiritual potential and form their own religious groups around them.
Some of these religious groups were informal, primarily hippies and beatniks experimenting with drugs. Other groups like the Neo-American Church or the League for Spiritual Discovery sought legal recognition to protect LSD and other psychedelics as sacraments of their church.
Unfortunately, they were not successful. The former was accused of “mocking established institutions” by a US judge in 1968 for its absurdist art and writing style. The latter was also closed in 1968 after LSD was federally criminalized.
Displayed Here:
2) “Make LSD a Sacrament” Union-Made Button (c. 1969)
3) “God Is Alive in a Sugar Cube” Button (c. 1969)
4) Neo-American Church Application (August, 1969)
5) Psychedelic Review Vol. 3, Published by the League for Spiritual Discovery (1966)
1970 Christmas Happening
In December of 1970, Christian hippies like Curtis Reed, Beth Leeds, and a mysterious mystic named Day Star had visions about the Second Coming of Jesus at Laguna Beach in California. With little prep time or planning, they threw together The Christmas Happening, a music festival from the 25th-28th.
They hoped it would bring about this Second Coming by gathering the 144,000 prophesied in Revelation. A large cross was mounted on the stage in preparation.
The event was a beautiful disaster. Around 25,000 hippies showed up. No musical acts were booked, and random bands took the stage, some of them part of the Jesus People movement. Like at Woodstock, local Christian and Unitarian Universalist churches stepped in to supply food and supplies.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a major producer of LSD, used an airplane to airdrop tens of thousands of Nativity and Christmas-themed postcards with tabs of acid attached over the concert.
Riot police eventually broke up the event, and Jesus never showed up in the flesh. Yet, organizers declared the event a spiritual success.
The LA Free Press published a front-page story about the Christmas Happening with a large cartoon of a crucified Christ superimposed on a globe. Writing for the paper, Day Star declared “Christ has returned in the form of thousands of chosen ones. The Second Coming will be felt all over the world, acknowledging the world. He is beyond drugs… He IS!”
Displayed Here:
6) Original, Unpublished Photos of the Christmas Happening (1970)
7) Christmas-Themed LSD Postcard, Possibly Dropped at Laguna Beach (c. 1970)
8) Beth Leed’s Account of the Happening (2012)
9) Newly Released French Vinyl of Original Happening Recordings (2026)
Dr. Timothy Leary
Dr. Timothy Leary was many things to different people. To President Nixon, he was “the most dangerous man in America.” To hippies, a spiritual giant. To himself, he was “the High Priest of LSD.” To me, he was a profoundly flawed, egocentric pioneer for psychedelics.
In August 1960, Leary tried psychedelic mushrooms for the first time. Soon after, he was introduced to LSD.
As a professor of psychology at Harvard, Leary performed or supervised numerous experiments with psychedelics on prisoners, students, and others. Some of these crossed ethical boundaries, eventually leading to his dismissal.
Leary was an advocate for using psychedelics as conversion therapy against LGBTQ+ people.
He was also a supervisor at the 1962 Good Friday Experiment, during which 10 divinity students in the Boston area were given the psychedelic drug psilocybin to test its spiritual potential. He also helped found the League of Spiritual Discovery.
Leary was unjustly sentenced to decades in prison for simple marijuana possession. However, using his knowledge of prison psychology, he escaped with help from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Leftist freedom fighters The Weather Underground, and the Black Panther Party.
After years on the run, Leary spent time in prison next to Charles Manson, collaborated with the FBI, and was released on parole by California Governor Jerry Brown in 1976. He died in 1995.
Displayed Here:
10) Exo-Psychology, Signed First Edition (1977)
11) Eagle Brief on Religious Freedom, Published by Leary After Escape (1970)
12) Handbill Advertising Timothy Leary Appearance (1969)
Church Responses
Originally, Christian churches had a mixed response to psychedelics. It was certainly not uniformly negative. Even fundamentalists seemed to have an open mind. Missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators, for example, were instrumental in research on Psilocybe mushrooms in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Missionaries Eunice V. Pike, Florence Cowan, and George Cowan, all connected Western anthropologists to the mushrooms. They also contributed to translation of Indigenous Mazatec mushroom rituals. One species of magic mushroom, Psilocybe hoogshagenii, is even named after the missionary Searle Hoogshagen.
With help from these missionaries, the Western “discovery” of psilocybin-containing mushrooms had very negative effects on the Indigenous Mazatec people. Hippies, anthropologists, and adventure seekers flooded the previously remote areas, tearing apart their social fabric and land.
María Sabina, the Mazatec practitioner who had shared the mushroom ritual with the Cowans, was blamed for the changes. Her house was burned down, and her son was murdered. Remember this every time you use mushrooms, and consider making a reparative payment to Historias y Memorias Mazatecas. Psilocybin-containing mushrooms may exist internationally, but the Mazatec people uniquely paid a toll for Western psychedelic culture to grow.
Mainline Protestant churches remained open-minded far longer than Evangelicals. They produced a great deal of research, both in academic journals and popular-level books or articles like LSD, The Private Sea, and the Search for God. Eventually most churches came to condemn psychedelics and warn about perceived dangers with tracts, sermons, and other media similar to the pamphlet Spaced Out.
However, even when psychedelics were criminalized, some churches used psychedelic language and imagery to advertise. This LSD-themed tract from Moody Bible Institute never outright condemns psychedelics. Other churches merely adopted the trippy aesthetics of the era, unconnected to psychedelics themselves.
Displayed Here:
14) An Utmost Part by Eunice Victoria Pike, Signed First Edition (1971)
15) LSD, the Private Sea, and the Search for God (1967)
16) Psychedelic-Themed Moody Bible Institute Gospel Tracts (c. 1971)
17) Stock Postcard for Church Advertisement (c. 1970)
The War on Drugs
Psychedelic criminalization earnestly began in 1966, when Nevada and California banned LSD. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 federally criminalized psychedelics. The total ban on psychedelics was largely the result of moral panic not rooted in science. Psychedelics are non-addictive and extremely difficult to lethally overdose. They do not cause brain damage, and users do not develop higher levels of psychosis.
Negative press stories, such as a notorious front-page expose in the March 1966 Life Magazine, blamed psychedelics for a rebellious spirit among students and other young adults. Popular media like comic books, TV, and movies also demonized psychedelics.
There was always a racist, imperialist, and classist component to American drug prohibition. Laws and enforcement disproportionately affected Leftist anti-war protestors, working-class youth, and especially Black and Hispanic Americans.
The government and media described drugs as a way that BIPOC teenagers preyed on white children, even though rates of use were equal regardless of race. The Life piece includes an opinion article connecting drugs to the Vietcong. In a 1971 The Amazing Spiderman comic commissioned by the US government, a young Black man was drawn to represent young people “stoned out of [their] mind.”
This pattern has continued since the 1970s as more drugs like MDMA were banned by the federal government. Despite similar rates of use to white Americans, BIPOC Americans are far more likely to be surveilled, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and receive harsh sentences related to drugs.
Displayed Here:
17) Life Magazine Anti-LSD Publication (March, 1966)
18) The Amazing Spiderman Anti-Psychedelics Comic (May, 1971)
19) National Institute of Drug Abuse Anti-MDMA Postcard (c. 2000)
MDMA and 80s Rave Culture
Once upon a time in the early 1980s, MDMA was legal. Also known as Molly and Ecstasy, this substance is known for unlocking the power of love and electronic dance music. There were two clubs at the center of its rise in the USA: Starck Club in Dallas and The Limelight in NYC. Both of them were also hubs for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC culture in the United States.
In 1981, a former Catholic seminarian named Michael Clegg tried MDMA. This “Moses on the Mountain” experience convinced him it was his job to bring MDMA to the world in the 1980s. His “Texas Group” cooked up hundreds of thousands of doses of Ecstasy a month for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
At The Starck Club, MDMA’s Texas rave headquarters, you could walk up to the bar and order a drink or a dose of Molly, Southern Methodist University in Dallas was also a hotspot for use because alcohol was banned, making Ecstasy the only alternative for a Christian college party!
In 1983, The Limelight NYC opened in the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion. Maintaining the church architecture and stained glass windows, Limelight leaned into their Christian symbolism in advertisements and entertainment. It was also a hotspot for purchasing psychedelics, and former attendees remember MDMA being placed on the tongue like communion at the front of the church during raves.
Unfortunately, MDMA was declared a Schedule I drug by the DEA in summer of 1985, and the fun came to an end. Both Starck and Limelight struggled to stay afloat. Especially because of their disproportionately LGBTQ+ and BIPOC clientele, Starck was targeted by police in 1986, and Limelight was raided by police in 1995. Both these events marked their decline.
Displayed here:
20) The Starck Club Matchbook
21) Limelight Handbills, Invitations, and Matchbook
22) MDMA-Themed Texas License Plate (1986)
1990s Research Resurgence
Although psychedelics were largely criminalized in 1970, there were some loopholes and blindspots in the legal system that kept psychedelic research running underground and in academia. Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin was a Drug Enforcement Agency-approved chemist who created over 200 psychedelics and related compounds.
It was Dr. Shulgin who first recognized the importance of MDMA and popularized it, making the Limelight and Starck raves possible. Many of these new compounds, such as 2C-B and ALEPH-1, had never been created before and were tested with a small circle of colleagues until the Shulgins’ home was raided by the DEA in 1993.
Dr. Shulgin’s work and instructions for creating psychedelic drugs were published in two books published with his wife Ann: PiHKAL and TiHKAL. These books also laid out the Shulgins’ spiritual/existential perspective on psychedelics, which deeply impacted the current religious landscape.
From 1990 to 1995, Dr. Rick Strassman from the University of New Mexico carried out groundbreaking research on DMT. Through his research, Strassman came to believe that the psychedelic realm is a real “place” where your mind or soul can go through the use of DMT and at the time of death.
He wrote about his experiments, the testimony of subjects, and their spiritual implications in his books DMT: The Spirit Molecule and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. Strassman has more recently suggested very eccentric views that early stories from the Bible, like Adam and Eve or the Tower of Babel, took place in another dimension.
Despite his lack of academic credentials, psychonaut Terence McKenna had the greatest impact on the 90s. However, his impact predates the 90s greatly. In 1976, he and his brother Dennis published Psilocybin Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide, pioneering and distributing easy methods for producing massive quantities of psychedelics. Throughout the 1990s, he released popular recorded lectures and books like Food of the Gods and True Hallucinations that popularized DMT and psilocybin.
McKenna believed that psilocybin-containing mushrooms were a higher alien intelligence, an idea he propagated since publishing the Grower’s Guide. Over time, this idea expanded. McKenna believed the apocalypse was near and popularized the New Age belief that the world would end in 2012. To McKenna, this apocalypse was “Timewave Zero,” an outpouring of novelty or “weirdness” in the future causing human beings to become interstellar travellers. McKenna died in 2000, unable to witness the “weirder and weirder” world he predicted.
Displayed Here:
23) Psilocybin Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide, First Edition (1976)
24) Food of the Gods, Signed First Edition (1992)
25) DMT and the Soul of Prophecy, Signed First Edition (2014)
26) PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, Signed First Edition (1991)
Contemporary Psychedelic Use
Psychedelics are at a crossroads. A majority of states now fund research into psychedelics as medicine, and even the federal government has taken interest.
Some states and municipalities, like Washington DC and Colorado, have opened access to them. Yet, although medical research continues to support their use, psychedelics remain Schedule I illegal substances. They are primarily used in underground and recreational spaces.
While psychedelics have a very good safety profile, harm reduction remains key for maximizing benefit in underground or decriminalized settings. If you choose to use psychedelics, there are many ways to keep safe.
Measure your dose. Keep a safe set and setting. If the substance is a powder, pill, liquid, or blotter, test it for identity, purity, and strength. At the very least, always test for fentanyl. Have Narcan on hand in public settings where others may also be using substances.
Being aware of political/religious abuse is also important, even in legalized settings. Far-right figures like Elon Musk and Rick Perry embrace psychedelics. Unregulated retreats can create high-control or “cult-like” conditions. One far-right Christian psychedelics facilitator named Wendi Rees even recently suggested using psychedelics in conversion therapy.
Psychedelic researchers and lobbyists have even suggested giving MDMA and similar substances to the US military’s new recruits, after every deployment, or even after difficult missions. This raises the risk of psychedelics being abused by authoritarian and militant government agencies.
Keep an eye out. Keep informed. Speak out. Protect psychedelics for the next generation.
Displayed here:
27) Empty DMT Vape Box from The Trippy Wizard Store in Washington D.C. (c. 2022)
28) Empty Magic Mushroom Bag from Washington D.C. (c. 2022)
29) Fentanyl Test Strip (2026)
30) Narcan from NC County Vending Machine (2026)
31) DanceSafe Harm Reduction Cards (2025)