Religion: it's all in your head

Paul of Tarsus was hung over and had been smoking opium when he was overcome with it. Jesus of Nazareth was tempted by it in the desert after fasting. The Prophet Muhammad is believed to have enjoyed hashish. Joseph Smith was 18, drunkenly praying that God would forgive him for sins of debauchery when he got it. Wovoka witnessed a solar eclipse on peyote that compelled a generation of Ghost Dancers. As a result of ingesting psychoactive fungi Heȟáka Sápa or Nicholas Black Elk rejected catholicism and returned to Lakota ways after he realized the Roman Church was committing crimes against his people.

Metanoia, visions, angels, the Holy Spirit--God's work on Earth, right?

Maybe it's all in your head.

Ten years ago former NPR religion correspondent, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, went looking for the "God Spot," that place in the human brain that receives the Holy Spirit then compiled her results in a book she called The Fingerprints of God where she describes Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with a scientist's fascination in exquisite detail.

Israeli archaeologists say they’ve found cannabis residue on artefacts from an ancient temple in southern Israel providing the first evidence of the use of hallucinogenics in the ancient Jewish religion. Eran Arie, curator of Iron Age archaeology at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and lead author of the study, said the discovery was revolutionary, as it was the earliest evidence of cannabis use in the ancient region and the first time we have seen psychoactive substances in Judahite religion. [The Guardian]