The church’s teaching
The church describes its calling in these words:
“…restore the "Plain and simple things removed from the gospel of the Lamb" which we accept to be the ceremonial use of the sacred sacraments and substances in accordance with the philosophical aware-nesses' revelations and teachings supporting those principals of liberty, freedom, justice, acceptance, appreciation, gratitude, kindness and love, accepted and shared by all world religions.”
The Psychedelic Gospels
“The Church of the Only Begotten Son recognizes Dr. Jerry B. Brown's book: The Psychedelic Gospel, as scripture and historic evidence of scripture which reveals the historic truths regarding ethnobotanical plants and their ceremonial and sacred use throughout the scriptures that had been hidden in plain sight for more than 500 years in the art that adorned and decorated the interiors of some of the first church buildings ever built.”
In The Psychedelic Gospels (2016), the anthropologist Jerry B. Brown and Julie M. Brown documented frescoes, carvings and manuscript illuminations in medieval churches across Europe and the Near East that they read as images of sacred mushrooms.2 Their best-known example is the Garden of Eden fresco in the chapel of Plaincourault in central France, where the Tree of Knowledge looks like a branching red mushroom.4
Contested Many art historians, following Erwin Panofsky, read such trees as a stylized convention for trees; the Browns answer that argument in a 2019 paper.3 See Amanita muscaria and Sacred mushrooms.
Cana and the Eucharist
The Gospel of John tells how Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, “the beginning of miracles.”5 The church recognizes as scripture a manuscript by Jack Herrera that:
“…explains the miracle of turning water to wine by claiming Christ added Psychedelic Mushroom Powder to the water, allowing the congregation to experience the divine conversation facilitated when one prayerfully ingests the sacred sacrament God has created for this express purpose.”
Church teaching This is the church’s own reading, not a mainstream interpretation of the Gospel. For the church, the Eucharist — the sacred meal of Christian worship — is the place where a sacrament God created becomes a “divine conversation.”
The wider debate
Contested The idea of an entheogenic Christianity is older than the Browns. John M. Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) argued that Christianity began as a mushroom cult; it was rejected by nearly all scholars, including the Browns, who criticize its method.63 Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key (2020) proposed that a psychedelic wine may have passed from the Greek mysteries into early Christian worship; it too remains unproven.7
Science has asked a related question. In the Good Friday Experiment of 1962, divinity students at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel took part in a study of whether psilocybin could occasion experiences that they described as mystical.8
Doctrine and Covenants
The church also observes the scriptures of the Latter Day Saint tradition. It cites Doctrine and Covenants section 59 on sacrament:
“18 Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;19 Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.”
It reads section 98 as God’s sustaining of “that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges” — the root of its teaching on religious freedom.1
A living faith
For the church, the sacrament belongs inside a life of integrity. Its declarations say: “As true followers of Jesus Christ we stand to expose fraud and reveal truth which allows all men to live free and equal wherever it may be supressed.”9 And it keeps no hierarchy of prophets: “We belive there is no one prophet or holy spokesperson, only a Ward Guide to the conversations that are had at all church services.”10
Questions and answers
What is psychedelic Christianity?
A name for the view that sacred plants and fungi played a part in Christian worship and art, and that a sacramental, experiential encounter with God through them belongs to the faith. The Church of the Only Begotten Son teaches a form of this view; most historians of Christianity do not accept the historical claims.
What is The Psychedelic Gospels?
A 2016 book by Jerry B. Brown and Julie M. Brown that documents images in medieval churches and manuscripts that they read as sacred mushrooms. The church recognizes it as scripture and historic evidence of scripture.
Does the church teach that water became wine through mushrooms at Cana?
The church recognizes as scripture a manuscript by Jack Herrera that explains the miracle at Cana that way. This is the church’s own teaching, not a mainstream reading of the Gospel of John.
Sources
- Historical Foundations — The Church of the Only Begotten Son
- Brown & Brown, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity (Park Street Press, 2016)
- Brown & Brown, “Entheogens in Christian art: Wasson, Allegro, and the Psychedelic Gospels”, Journal of Psychedelic Studies 3:2 (2019) 142–163
- Plaincourault Chapel, Mérigny, Indre — history and frescoes
- John 2:1–11, the wedding at Cana (KJV) — Bible Gateway
- John M. Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) — reception
- Muraresku, The Immortality Key (St. Martin’s Press, 2020)
- The Good Friday Experiment (Marsh Chapel, 1962)
- Declarations of Faith — The Church of the Only Begotten Son
- Practice & Community — The Church of the Only Begotten Son
Scholarly claims about sacred plants in history are summarized with their sources, and contested claims are marked as contested. The church’s own beliefs are quoted exactly and linked to the page where they appear.