Many years ago, long before we had kids, Wife and I were at a Christmas party thrown by a good friend of mine from work, and his wife. These two were good people, salt of the earth in every way. Once upon a time they had both been hippies, and then gradually re-joined conventional society as they grew up. My friend from work (M) had also been on a long spiritual quest that had by then taken him to seek out adult baptism in the Catholic Church. His wife (C) was maybe less driven in this direction, but she followed him into the Church lovingly.
Whenever they threw parties, they always organized it so that their old hippy friends would congregate out in the back yard, while their more square friends from church stayed in the house. There was plenty of food and drink, good music, and always good conversation.
Anyway, at one of these parties I was talking to C, and she was explaining earnestly about her experiences with LSD. M had said earlier that he felt LSD had brought him as close to God as he had ever come – he ranked it on a par with really good sex, or with the Mass. (It sounded like he rated all three about equal in that dimension.) C phrased it differently, but she said that LSD had taught her some very important things. I wanted to hear more about this, so I tried to encourage her by saying that I had never tried it myself, but it sounded interesting and maybe it would be a good thing to do some day. She looked at me very seriously and said, “I don’t think you need LSD, Hosea.”
Fast forward thirty years.
I just got off the phone with Son 2. He is working as an intern at a nature preserve about an hour’s drive from here. What with one thing and another I haven’t seen him much this summer. Anyway, he told me that last week several of the people at work were talking about the new research that is being done in the uses of LSD to treat mental illness. Apparently the conversation built for a while, the way conversations do, and then Son 2 ventured a comment on his side. His boss turned to look at him very seriously and said, “I don’t think you need LSD, Son 2.”
He said it was minutes before he could stop laughing. And he asked me, “Is this just part of being a Tanatu?”
Gosh, I have no idea. Is it?
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P.S. added four years later: I just noticed that I already told the first half of this story as a comment on Apollo's blog, here. Note added 2022-07-24.
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