Hi all! Thank you for your keen curiosity and warmth in response to my relatively impromptu sermon last Sunday (May 18, 2025)! Many of you told me how much it touched you. For those who weren’t there or didn’t watch online: since it was the UCC’s Mental Health Sunday and Hannah was healing from her seizure, I preached about my ongoing training in the field of mental health, spiritual renewal and psychedelic-assisted therapy, and my plans to start working one day a week with a new (legal!) ketamine-assisted psychotherapy practice in Walnut Creek beginning in early August. At the end of the sermon, I included a powerful experience I recently had regarding the changing nature of my intimate relationship with God.
Here are some resources I mentioned, if you’re curious to explore further!
First, the sermon: here’s the video of the sermon on our FB page (start at 22:00), and if you’re more of a reader than a watcher, you can read my sermon notes here, which includes, at the end, the manuscript from the sermon I preached in July 2018 soon after reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and first hearing my call to explore this world.
Second, the Michael Pollan article: the forthcoming New Yorker article I mentioned about the Johns Hopkins Clergy + Psychedelics study by Michael Pollan in fact came out yesterday! Serendipitous, one might say. It’s really good, and you can read it here. I am lucky to count Hunt Priest and Jaime Clark-Soles, both article interviewees, as dear friends.
Third, UCC gets in on the action nationally: I talked about the resolution I have been working on with a group in the UCC (including our emeritus General Minister & President John Dorhauer!) to decriminalize/legalize psychedelics. You can read the (short!) resolution here.
We were planning to bring the resolution to UCC General Synod this summer and (hopefully) become the first Christian denomination to take a public stand in support of psychedelics for healing. (another first!)
Alas, a procedural glitch derailed us from presenting it nationally this cycle, but we will soon begin working on passing it in our local conferences in anticipation of bringing it to the next Synod. Let me know if you are interested in working on this effort with me! Whether or not you are personally interested in psychedelic use, decrim/legalizing will allow many, many suffering people greater access to lifesaving/life-changing medicine. It is a justice issue, a harm reduction issue, an issue of religious freedom, and an anti-racist initiative, since we know well how the war on drugs (which has erroneously designated psychedelics as vastly dangerous and with no medical use) has unfairly and disproportionately penalized BIPOC people.
Fourth, join a not-so-secret society!: Whether or not you are interested in trying psychedelics for your own healing/growth, you are welcome to check out Ligare.org, a Christian psychedelic society started by the aforementioned Hunt. And a couple of my friends and I are now launching a Bay Area chapter of Ligare! We will meet every 6 weeks (half in person, half over Zoom) for fellowship and theological & spiritual conversation at the nexus of Christianity and NOSC (non-ordinary states of consciousness), mysticism, mental health. As I joked in my sermon: this community does not promote or engage in any illegal activities; the only “drugs” we do together are sugar and chardonnay (and those quite moderately). If you’d like to be invited, please email my friend John to get on the list at: [email protected]. Our next (Zoom) meeting is Mon., June 23 at 7 pm.
Finally! A sweet summer book group! There’s a short but zesty new primer out by my friend Ron Cole-Turner (whom some of you may know!), called Psychedelics and Christian Faith: Exploring an Unexpected Pathway to Healing and Spirituality. I’d love to read and discuss it as a summer book group read in July. Let me know if you’re interested! I’ll also be interviewing Ron on the national Ligare platform on Wed., June 25 at 4 pm PT.
Blessings + awe,
Molly