The Psychedelic Temple

Abstract: In the Hebrew Bible and related literature, the Jerusalem temple(s) served as the dwelling place of the deity and a focal point for human-divine relations and ritual life. Ancient Jewish literature documents the temple’s sacred architecture, rituals, and social practices in great detail, providing a foundation for Jewish engagement with temple aesthetics over millennia.  

Today, a diverse and growing number of Jewish individuals and communities explore traditional temple traditions through psychedelic exploration. By applying a spatial gaze, this paper attempts to articulate a Jewish psychedelic aesthetic inspired by the temple tradition. The overall aim is to explore the spatial re-imagining of temple traditions through psychedelic aesthetics—tapping into the experiences of a body and mind on psychedelics. The paper proceeds in three parts: first, it considers how temple spaces function as arenas for social critique, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to contemporary psychedelic re-visions of Jerusalem; second, it explores the internalization of the temple as a catalyst for messianic activism, where temple space is relocated into the body and activated through altered states of consciousness; and third, it discusses the framing of psychedelic experiences as spiritual journeys inspired by historical Jewish ascent narratives. Taken together, these examples demonstrate that the recurring engagement with temple motifs plays a significant role in the development of Jewish psychedelic aesthetics, providing symbolic architectures through which psychedelic experiences are imagined, interpreted, and given meaning.

In the Hebrew Bible and related literature, the Jerusalem temple(s) served as the dwelling place of the deity and a focal point for human-divine relations and ritual life. Ancient Jewish literature documents the temple’s sacred architecture, rituals, and social practices in great detail, providing a foundation for Jewish engagement with temple aesthetics across the ages. Jewish interpreters and mystics have entered temple spaces—real and imagined—through textual exegesis, hermeneutical techniques, ritual enactment, and spiritual practices. Although the physical edifice of the Jerusalem temple is long lost, its symbolic presence endures as a transhistorical corridor into mythic structures. Indeed, as the locus of divine-human encounter, the Jerusalem temple remains central to Jewish imaginaries.¹ Jewish temple imaginaries are shared cultural frameworks through which Jewish communities and individuals envision, interpret, and relate to physical and symbolic temple spaces over millennia.² This article demonstrates a distinct Jewish psychedelic aesthetic inspired by the temple tradition through a discussion of texts by three figures in Jewish psychedelic discourse: Yoseph Needleman, Rabbi Joel David Bakst, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. It connects these works with contemporary psychedelic discussion and research to illuminate broader implications for how cultural imaginaries, religious symbols, and inherited spaces shape what might be termed “psychedelic aesthetics” more generally. 

A recent development in the age-old tradition of Jewish temple imaginaries³ is the engagement with temple spaces through exploration with psychedelics. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jewish psychedelic hermeneutics—the interpretation of Jewish texts and traditions in the context of psychedelic experience—emerged as a novel way of engaging with Jewish practice and traditions.⁴ Today, a diverse and growing number of Jewish individuals and communities engage with Jewish traditions through psychedelic exploration.⁵ This rapidly growing movement encompasses diverse forms of engagement, each seeking to cultivate spiritual meaning and renew religious practice.⁶ In Exile & Ecstasy, the American journalist Madison Margolin explores how young Jews in the U.S. and Israel are renewing their spirituality within existing Jewish traditions through psychedelics. Margolin positions Judaism as inherently psychedelic: “Judaism itself is an expression of and a container for altered states. In other words: Judaism is psychedelic.” ⁷ New organizations, such as Shefa, founded in 2020 by Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, offer spaces for integrating Jewish spiritual traditions with psychedelic exploration.⁸ These examples highlight the current production of Jewish psychedelic spaces through curation of the specific “setting,” i.e, the social and cultural parameters that shape individual responses to psychedelic substances.⁹  

The oversized representation of Jews in today’s religious and spiritual exploration of psychedelics has not passed unnoticed,¹⁰ and there are currently several scholarly projects exploring Jewish psychedelic use.¹¹ The current research on Jewish psychedelic engagement answers a call for further investigations of how individual differences and contextual factors influence the spiritual and religious use of psychedelics.¹²  As I will demonstrate below, some practitioners in the first and second waves of Jewish psychedelic exploration engage with temple imaginaries to frame their psychedelic experiences, thereby producing a Jewish psychedelic aesthetic inspired by the Jewish temple tradition. The Jewish psychedelic aesthetics, as I define it, is a mode of perception and spirituality shaped by psychedelic experience that serves to reinterpret Jewish traditions and produce old-new Jewish spaces. This space-producing hermeneutical practice situates the psychedelic experience within historical, spatial, and ritual dimensions of Jewish sacred spaces, notably the Jerusalem temple. From a spatial perspective, the temple is not merely a static backdrop but an actively produced and meaning-laden environment, shaped by—and in turn shaping—Jewish temple imaginaries throughout the ages. In psychedelic contexts, this dynamic allows the temple to function as both a culturally embedded symbol and an experiential space into which the altered mind can enter, navigate, and reconfigure in ways that resonate with long-standing patterns of Jewish space-making.¹³ Thus, for the psychedelic mind and body¹⁴ (i.e., the human being during or after the influence of psychoactive substances), the temple can serve as an interpretive framework through which one enters and participates in imagined temple space. The temple, indeed, continues to be a container for altered states of mind. 

In Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs, Yoseph Needleman (writing as Yoseph Leib ibn Mardachya) uses the image of the temple space to frame psychedelic experiences.¹⁵ Needleman blends Hasidic, Rabbinic, and Rastafarian thought in a wild stream-of-consciousness memoir that offers a striking instance of Jewish psychedelic aesthetic. He weaves temple imaginaries into a psychedelic re-envisioning of Jerusalem; temple spaces are enacted as containers for expanded states of consciousness. Needleman chronicles a rooftop party in Jerusalem in which the participants “danced like psychedelic chimps” in the early morning hours. The neighbor called the police, but they did not come because of the celebration of Jerusalem Day. Needleman interprets this as the Israeli state being on the side of the partygoers. In Needleman’s interpretation, the [Israeli] state, rather than enforcing order, implicitly endorses an alternative vision of the city's function. He writes: “Jerusalem, as I understand it messianically, should be a sacred party city; that's what a Temple is for.”¹⁶ Needleman challenges the existing social order and constructs an idealized geography in which Jerusalem is seen as a temple, guaranteeing its status as a “sacred party city.” 

Needleman’s work can be understood as a psychedelic reframing of a much older practice. In biblical, extra-biblical, and postbiblical traditions, temple space functions as a discursive arena for reimagining social and religious structures. For example, at a time when the Second Temple was still standing in Jerusalem, the author(s) and redactor(s) of the Temple Scroll proposed an alternative to the existing order and leadership by describing an idealized temple.¹⁷ They erected an imaginary new temple space in the face of rival interpretations and practices. Moreover, certain sectarian documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate an eschatological worldview that polarizes between good and evil in society. In some of this material, we find strong sentiments deeming the Second Temple ritually and morally defiled, and thus structurally inadequate.¹⁸ Similarly, Needleman’s psychedelic reimagining of Jerusalem mobilizes the temple as a symbolic arena for contesting dominant social realities, transforming it into a visionary space where altered states of consciousness open onto radical critiques and utopian possibilities. 

Rabbi Joel David Bakst’s highly esoteric book The Jerusalem Stone of Consciousness: DMT, Kabbalah and the Pineal Gland provides another example of Jewish psychedelic aesthetics related to the Jerusalem temple. Bakst introduces an enigmatic theology linking the pineal gland to the Jerusalem temple.¹⁹ The book is inspired by Rick Strassman, a pioneer in modern psychedelic research, who compares the visions of Hebrew Bible prophets to those of volunteers in his DMT studies.²⁰ Strassman proposes that spontaneous, or divinely facilitated, releases of DMT in the brain of prophets such as Moses and Ezekiel may have played a role in biblical prophecy.²¹ 

Strassman initiated his search for a biological basis of spiritual experiences with the pineal gland, a small organ deep within the brain that has, for millennia, been of interest to various traditions of “esoteric physiology.”²² Guided by Strassman’s ideas about the pineal gland, Bakst conceptualizes “The Jerusalem of the Mind”—the holiest site in the inner world of everyone.²³ He introduces an esoteric technique for connecting the pineal gland to the Foundation Stone that he calls “P2P” or “Pineal to Peniel.”²⁴  As tradition has it, the Foundation Stone is housed in the Dome of the Rock. Rather than physically reclaiming the Temple Mount or building the third Jewish temple, Bakst envisions a collective effort to “implode the Foundation Stone from within,” unleashing a transformative spiritual energy that dissolves divisions and inaugurates a redemptive era. Bakst argues that according to Biblical prophesies, the Foundation Stone delivers “mayim chayim,” a “living liquid”—“an extraordinarily powerful liquid light essence that is able to alter our collective consciousness, transport humanity’s mind into an inner metaphysical dimension and imprint all of us with a radical world-changing Godly experience.”²⁵ As a parallel to mayim chayim, Bakst envisions the pineal gland as generating the substance DMT, which he believes can transport a “person’s mind into an inner metaphysical dimension and imprint one with a radical life-changing spiritual experience.”²⁶  Bakst situates the individual’s pineal gland within “a literal microcosmic Foundation Stone.” When stimulating this “neurological inner-Temple,” it releases endogenous DMT. As this occurs, one should direct one’s thoughts to the geographical Foundation Stone, that, by the force of this collective effort, will start releasing its “spirit molecules” of the “messianic river of divine consciousness,” i.e, the “mayim chayim.” ²⁷ Bakst thus places the access point to the Foundation Stone within each and every one (“Jerusalem from Below”).²⁸ He calls for humanity to activate their pineal glands in order to affect the Divine’s entrance into the “Heavenly Jerusalem,” referring to the idea that God will enter the Jerusalem of the celestial spheres only when the earthly Jerusalem is rebuilt.²⁹ When the vertical connection is established, the physical Foundation Stone will change the geopolitical conditions at the Temple Mount and, as a consequence, the whole world will enter into a messianic era.³⁰  

An early example of using techniques to establish an earthly connection to a celestial Jerusalem and her temple is found in the liturgical cycle Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, part of the Dead Sea corpus composed during the second century BCE or earlier. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice invokes and describes the praise of angelic priests in the heavenly temple, providing what Carol Newsom refers to as “the means by which those who read and heard it could receive not merely communion with angels but a virtual experience of presence in the heavenly temple among the angelic priests.”³¹ As noted by Michael Jost, this communion between the earthly worshipers and the angels goes beyond cosmological communion; they not only pray at the same time separated in heaven and earth, but also build one community in the same place.³² The same dynamic is true for Bakst’s vision; the connection between earth and heaven depends on a communal effort, taking place in time and space.   

Bakst blurs the boundaries between traditional sacred space and the body, redefining Jerusalem as a collective state of consciousness rather than contested land. The Temple Mount becomes a gateway to the messianic age, triggered by mass spiritual engagement through stimulation of the “neurological inner-Temple”—the pineal gland.³³

Another framing for psychedelic experiences, in conversation with Jewish temple imaginaries, is through the metaphor of ascent. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924–2014)³⁴ was a key figure in the first wave of Jewish psychedelic exploration. Schachter-Shalomi, a former Lubavitch rabbi, founded the Jewish Renewal Movement, which blended Hasidic³⁵ traditions with countercultural influences. In 1966, Schachter-Shalomi described how LSD led him to see Judaism “in a new and amazing light,”³⁶ inspiring a reformulation of Jewish beliefs and practices.³⁷ His work, alongside other pioneers of the Jewish counterculture, laid the foundation for contemporary Jewish psychedelic engagement. In the early 1960s, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi took LSD with Timothy Leary, interpreting the experience through the lens of aliyat ha-neshamah (ascent of the soul), a concept with deep roots in Jewish mystical tradition: 

“Our mystics reported aliyat han’shamah, or conscious ascents of the soul. [...] Many Apocalyptics claimed high visions, and the Quran[sic!]³⁸ sectaries sought them. The Book of Revelation is one big trip, and in that climate of gnostic questing, Rabbi Akiba and three companions entered into the Paradise. Akiba had a good trip; he entered in peace and left in peace because he trusted God, himself, and the process. It is like flying in a cockpit through a cloud. You can’t see anything in front of you, only the milky white, and you don’t know if you are moving or will ever get out of the cloud of unknowing. This is the way in which Abot dR’ Nathan describes it: Moses entered into the cloud and was sanctified there.³⁹ Contemporaries of the author of the Abot dR’Nathan wrote the Heykhalot books, a kind of heavenly geography.”⁴⁰ 

By relating his psychedelic experiences to the existing mystical framework of ascents, Schachter-Shalomi employed a familiar religious motif to render them intelligible. His interpretation positions the psychedelic mind and body in a “cockpit” capable of traversing spaces in ways that are relatable to experiences recorded in Jewish sources (as well as one example from the New Testament). Schachter-Shalomi thus framed psychedelic experiences in relation to a corpus of mystical geographies already present in Jewish tradition.⁴¹ 

Jewish ascent narratives are greatly indebted to Ezekiel’s vision of a throne chariot illuminated by the divine presence and the subsequent guided tours through a visionary temple, especially the vision of God’s return to the temple. Against the backdrop of Judah’s exile in sixth-century Babylonia, Ezekiel’s temple provided displaced Judeans with an alternative temple space filled with divine presence in a temple-less era. Scholars have interpreted Ezekiel’s temple as a transcendental portal facilitating encounters with divine presence. For example, Steven Tuell sees Ezekiel’s temple vision as a “verbal icon” by which the exiles “who had thought themselves separated from God could experience and celebrate the divine presence.”⁴² Further engagement with the Ezekelian temple tradition is transmitted through the Hekhalot literature, a genre of Jewish esoteric texts focusing on the ascent of the mystic through the seven heavens and heavenly palaces. Spanning late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, this literature, by its very name, alludes to the entrance hall to the Holy of Holies in the earthly temple, thus reflecting an enduring belief in the temple as a portal to divine realms. ⁴³ Martha Himmelfarb argues that the guided tour Ezekiel receives prefigures the structured ascents, providing a model for the process of ascent itself.⁴⁴  

Similarly, contemporary Jewish psychedelic explorers engage with Ezekiel as a model for framing transcendental experiences. In a class titled “Ezekiel in the Mirror—a guide to Jewish Psychedelic Exploration,” Rabbi Kamenetz expounds on “the first Jewish psychonaut, Ezekiel, and the later magical and mystical traditions inspired by his visions as helpful guides for our own journeys within the psyche.”⁴⁵ Beginning in Ezekiel 1, Rabbi Kamenetz highlights what he calls “Jewish journeys through consciousness,” anchoring the testimony of his first ketamine journey in a continuity of Jewish mystical experiences framed in the metaphor of “journeys.” The framing of Ezekiel as “the first Jewish psychonaut” reflects a contemporary retrieval of ancient mystical motifs through the lens of psychedelic-informed Jewish spirituality. Ezekiel’s visions thus become a model for contemporary spiritual journeys. The interpretation of psychedelic experiences in relation to ancient Jewish tradition should not be confused with attempts to construct a historical narrative of Jewish psychedelic use. Rather, it metaphysically engages with inherited Jewish imaginaries of the temple domains as preserved in cultural memory, using them as aesthetic containers. As Margolin writes: “Indeed, there’s the innermost chamber of the Temple, and then there’s the innermost chamber of ourselves—the metaphysical home of our own internal divinity, which psychedelics can help us access. According to the mystics, Gan Eden can refer both to a physical location, but also a higher spiritual realm offering light, joy, and pleasure.”⁴⁶

These examples suggest that temple motifs are integral to the formation of Jewish psychedelic aesthetics, anchoring contemporary experiences of altered states within a recognizable religious framework. Whether functioning as a site of social critique, a catalyst for messianic activism, or a spiritual journey, the temple persists as a dynamic space through which altered states of consciousness are imagined, interpreted, and given meaning. These psychedelic temple imaginaries dissolve boundaries between historical narrative and embodied experience, showing the Jewish temple as a dynamic, diachronic concept. In this way, the re-imagining of temple traditions continues to provide psychedelic minds and bodies with experiential containers for spiritual journeys, indicating the influence of temple-centered space-making on the emergence of Jewish psychedelic aesthetics.

¹The concept “imaginaries” broadly encapsulates how humans envision their existence and interpret their role in the world. Unlike imagination, often seen as an individual capability, imaginaries represent shared yet often unrecognized systems of meaning – consisting of beliefs, images, stories, and symbols – that enable communities, peoples, and nations to organize events and experiences into a coherent and meaningful framework. In this paper, the rendering of “imaginaries” is inspired by the approach of Lund University’s multidisciplinary program, At the End of the World: A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Apocalyptic Imaginary in the Past and Present, see “At the End of the World: About the Program,” Lund University, accessed August 21, 2025,   https://www.endoftheworld.lu.se/about-the-program/. [Return to Section]

² To reflect this diachronic engagement with Jewish temple spaces, the paper approaches the Jerusalem temple in an expanded sense, referring to any temple within Jewish temple traditions. [Return to Section]

³ The scope of this paper is limited to Jewish literature from antiquity and does not engage with kabbalistic, or Hasidic temple traditions.  [Return to Section]

⁴ See Morgan Shipley, “Psychedelic Judaism in a Countercultural America: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the Radical Religiosity of LSD Consciousness,” in Jewish Radicalisms – Historical Perspectives on a Phenomenon of Global Modernity, ed. Frank Jacob and Sebastian Kunze (Walter de Gruyter, 2020). [Return to Section]

⁵ At the time of writing and to the best of my knowledge,  no scholarly study has yet been published that systematically maps the current increasing and diverse Jewish engagement with psychedelics. Christopher Schilling important contribution addresses some of the recent developments, but as it was published in 2021, it just missed the explosion of new initiatives and establishment of organizations and networks that occurred around the very time of publication, see Christopher L. Schilling, Zen Judaism: The Case Against a Contemporary American Phenomenon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 67-111. Four years later, in early 2025, Schilling’s claim that there is a gap in the scholarly literature concerning the current use of psychedelics among Jews still holds true, see Schilling, Zen Judaism, 71. [Return to Section]

⁶ In 2021, the journalist Madison Margolin coined the term “Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance” to describe the current second wave of Jewish psychedelic engagement, see “Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance,” Tablet Magazine, July 27, 2021. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/psychedelic-summit-madison-margolin.  [Return to Section]

⁷ Margolin, Exile & Ecstasy: Growing Up with Ram Dass and Coming of Age in the Jewish Psychedelic Renaissance  (Hay House UK Ltd, 2023), ix.  [Return to Section]

⁸ See “About Shefa”, accessed August 6, 2025, https://www.shefaflow.org/media. For a background to the founding of Shefa, see the religion reporter Don Lattin’s interview with Rabbi Zac Kamenetz in Don Lattin, God on Psychedelics: Tripping Across the Rubble of Old-Time Religion (Apocryphile Press, 2023), 48-50. [Return to Section]

⁹ The ”setting” is usually discussed together with the psychological factors, often referred to as the “set”. See, for example Ido Hartogsohn, “Constructing drug effects: A history of set and setting,” Drug Science, Policy and Law 3 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1177/2050324516683325. [Return to Section]

¹⁰ Don Lattin has pointed out that Jews, in many ways, are leading the “psychedelic renaissance”. See, “Blog by Don Lattin,” Reboot, archived April 19, 2023, at https://rebooting.com/article/god-on-psychedelics/. See also Lattin, God on Psychedelics, 33-52. Furthermore, in 2023, Charles Stang, director of Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions, chaired a panel discussion titled “Are Psychedelics Theologically Significant for Judaism?”, virtual panel discussion with Melila Hellner-Eshed, Jay Michaelson and Sam Shonkoff, April 27, 2023, posted June 8, 2023, by Harvard Divinity School. YouTube, 1:31:32, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPTb5u9F-U. See also, Lisa Ling, host, CBS Mornings – The State of Spirituality, “Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance: Exploring Possible Psychedelic Use in Torah & To Connect with God,” CBS Mornings, video, posted January 17, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYp37LfPvE. [Return to Section]

¹¹ See “Jewish Journeys – A National Study of Jewish Attitudes, Practices & Needs Towards Psychedelics,” Jewish Journeys, accessed August 8, 2025, https://www.jewish-journeys.com/. [Return to Section]

¹² Sharday Mosurinjohn et al., “Psychedelic-induced mystical experiences: An interdisciplinary discussion and critique,” Frontiers in Psychiatry 14 (2023): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1077311; Michiel van Elk and David Yaden, “De-Siloing the Psychology of Religion and Psychedelic Science: Introduction to the Special Issue on Psychedelics and Mystical-Type Experiences,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 33, no. 4 (2023): 255–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2023.2236884. [Return to Section]

¹³ This approach is inspired by Sam Shonkoff’s rendering of circular hermeneutics, illuminating how engagement with Jewish tradition and psychedelic experience co-construct meaning. Shonkoff’s work traces how figures within the neo-Hasidic movement in 1960s North America engaged in a reciprocal interpretive process – refracting Hasidism through the prism of psychedelic experience, and conversely, refracting psychedelics through the spiritual and theological frameworks of Hasidic tradition. See, Sam Shonkoff, discussion in “Are Psychedelics Theologically Significant for Judaism?,” moderated by Charles Stang, 9:57–13:02, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPTb5u9F-U. [Return to Section]

¹⁴ For the purpose of this paper, the definition of ”mind” is broad and deliberately vague to capture the difficulty of characterization: the location of the mind is within the human being and it is enacted through the dynamic interplay between brain, body, and environment, as well as the human orientation toward meaning, including spiritual experience. [Return to Section]

¹⁵ Yoseph Leib ibn Mardachya (Yoseph Needleman), Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs (Autonomedia, 2012).. The self-published, printed book is difficult to get hold of, and as there is no digital edition available, I doubt that the text is widely circulated. However, it is referred to in central texts dealing with psychedelic Judaism, which makes it important for understanding the currents of this discourse (see for example Margolin, Exile & Ecstasy, xviii). As it was difficult to get hold of the printed book, the author shared a version from 2009 with me as a pdf. The page number may thus differ from the 2012 edition. [Return to Section]

¹⁶ Ibid. 269.  [Return to Section]

¹⁷ Natalie Bloch, “The Hypertemple in Mind: God’s voice Rebooted in the Temple Scroll,” in Jerusalem in Memory and Eschatology: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Visions of the Past and Future of Jerusalem, ed. Emma O’Donnell Polyakov (Bloomsbury, 2025).  [Return to Section]

¹⁸ Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2006), 145-210. [Return to Section]

¹⁹ Joel David Bakst, The Jerusalem Stone of Consciousness: DMT, Kabbalah, and the Pineal Gland, (CreatesSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013). Although this self-published book is not mainstream in Jewish psychedelic discourse, it is occasionally referred to. For example, Madison Margolin quotes it in the influential article that put Judaism’s psychedelic renaissance on the map, see Margolin,“Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance.” [Return to Section]

²⁰ DMT, or N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is a  psychedelic substance that occurs naturally in many plants, animals and humans. See Rick Strassman, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: a New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible (Park Street Press, 2014), 1-3; and DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Park Street Press, 2001), 344. [Return to Section]

²¹ Rick Strassman, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. For summary and critique of Strassman’s theory, see Schilling, Zen Judaism, 90-91. [Return to Section]

²² See Strassman, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy, 31. For Strassman’s in depth discussion about the role of the pineal gland in consciousness, see Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 121-247. Strassman has since shifted his focus – rather than attempting to pinpoint the pineal gland as the exclusive source of endogenous DMT, he now aims to locate its production within the brain more broadly. See, ”The Mechanisms of Prophecy: A Conversation on DMT & the Jewish Tradition with Rick Strassman,” interview by Madison Margolin, Ayin Press, July 27, 2022, https://ayinpress.org/the-mechanism-of-prophecy/.  [Return to Section]

²³  “[...] the Jerusalem of the Mind is a secret passageway – a cosmic wormhole – that leads directly to the global Jerusalem, and then, like the infinity sign, loops back again to every individual’s Jerusalem of the Mind.” See Bakst, The Jerusalem Stone of Consciousness, vii. [Return to Section]

²⁴ Ibid. Bakst here creates a wordplay with the similar sounds of the pineal gland and Peniel, which means “God’s face” in Hebrew – the same name Bakst uses for the so-called Foundational Stone, even ha-shetiyah. Bakst engagement with the Foundation Stone is situated in a long history of Jewish temple imaginaries, See Yaron Z. Eliav God's Mountain: the Temple Mount in time, place, and memory (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 224-226.  [Return to Section]

²⁵ Ibid. 33.[ Return to Section]

²⁶ Ibid. 32. [Return to Section]

²⁷ Bakst argues that this river will “transform the consciousness of even the most rabid anti-Semites and enemies of the God of Israel”, if only by melting away “the spiritual virus” that have possessed them. Ibid. 41.  [Return to Section]

²⁸ This method is a way to make people (Jews and non-Jews alike) an active “soldier” in the army of the God of Israel, defending against the “Moslem enemies.” Ibid. 55. [Return to Section]

²⁹ Midrash Tehillim 122. [Return to Section]

³⁰ Ibid. 59.  [Return to Section]

³¹ Carol Newsom, “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford University Press, 2000), accessed August 12, 2025, https://www-oxfordreference-com.ludwig.lub.lu.se/view/10.1093/acref/9780195084504.001.0001/acref-9780195084504-e-511.  [Return to Section]

³² Michael R. Jost, “The Liturgical Communion of the Yaḥad with the Angels: The Origin of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice Reconsidered” in Dead Sea Discoveries 29, no. 1 (2022): 52–75, doi:10.1163/15685179-bja10020.  [Return to Section]

³³ It is not entirely clear to me how Bakst imagined the messianic age, but it seems to be a redemptive time when a global consciousness is in sync and begins to flow in a unified stream (p. 22), fulfilling the deed and the activism of “praying for the peace of Jerusalem.” (P. 62). [Return to Section]

³⁴ For summaries about Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s life and work in the Jewish Renewal Movement see Rodger Kamenetz, Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters (Harper Collins, 1997); Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond (Syracuse University Press, 1999); Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi with Edward Hoffman, My Life in Jewish Renewal (Rowman & Littlefields, 2012); Stephanie Yuhas, "The Schachter-Shalomi Collection Anchors Post-Holocaust American Judaism Archive at University of Colorado," Judaica Librarianship 19 (2016): 3-23, doi:10.14263/2330-2976.1144.  [Return to Section]

³⁵ The teachings of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the Jewish Renewal Movement can be seen as expressions of Neo-Hasidism. [Return to Section]

³⁶ Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi,,“Response,” in The Condition of Jewish Belief: A Symposium by the Editors of Commentary Magazine (Macmillan, 1966), 213-214. [Return to Section]

³⁷ Schachter-Shalomi’s experience with psychedelics inspired him to transform the frames of post-war Judaism and to experiment with a reformulation of Jewish (including Kabbalistic and Hasidic) beliefs and practices, see Shipley, “Psychedelic Judaism in a Countercultural America,” 216. [Return to Section]

³⁸ It appears to me that ”Quran sectaries” is a typographical error. Given Schachter-Shalomi’s well-documented interest in the Qumran sectarians (see for example, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Edward Hoffman, My Life in Jewish Renewal, Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, 121–132), it is most likely they to whom he is referring. While one could imagine an intended allusion to texts from all three Abrahamic traditions, the expression ”sectaries” seems ill-suited to the Quran, whereas it would be entirely appropriate in reference to Qumran. Sam Shonkoff shares my assessment, noting that the first published version of the trip report contains the same error (see The Ecstatic Adventure, ed. Ralph Metzner, Macmillan, 1968). He further observes that no mention of Qumran appears in Schachter-Shalomi’s original, unpublished oral account, suggesting the reference was introduced in the edited version (Sam Shonkoff, e-mail to author, August 26, 2025).  [Return to Section]

³⁹ Schachter-Shalomi refers to the Pardes legend, which describes four rabbis entering the esoteric orchard ('pardes') of Torah, from which only one returned unharmed. The story is found in several sources, with minor variations: the Tosefta, the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. He also refers to Avot DeRabbi Natan, a minor Talmudic tractate. [Return to Section]

⁴⁰ Schachter-Shalomi’s original trip report was re-edited in published versions with fewer words in Hebrew and Yiddish. For the purpose of readability for readers not versed in rabbinic terminology and tradition, I have quoted Schachter-Shalomi’s edited report from Schachter-Shalomi with Hoffman, My Life in Jewish Renewal, 143. [Return to Section]

⁴¹Michaelson reflects on the longstanding Jewish tradition of mystical ascents as a framework for psychedelic experiences, suggesting a continuity of spiritual practice across generations, see “Psychedelics and Judaism: New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” Substack, December 12, 2024, https://jaymichaelson.substack.com/p/psychedelics-and-judaism-new-skin. [Return to Section]

⁴² Steven S. Tuell, “Ezekiel as a Verbal Icon,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58, no 4 (1996): 664, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43722786. Tuell compares function of  the Jerusalem temple to the icon in Eastern Orthodoxy – a window into heaven. Ibid., 661. Susan Niditch compares Ezekiel’s vision to a Tibetan Buddhist mandala, a symbolic representation of the sacred realm or cosmos, that transports a successful visionary to see and participate in the sacred realm by means of specific ritual activity, see Susan Nidith, “Ezekiel 40-48 in a Visionary Context,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 48, no 2 (1986), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43717169. Mary Douglas proposes an internalization of temple space, arguing that Leviticus was designed to reflect the structure of the Tabernacle, which in turn reflects the division of space during the revelation at Mount Sinai, see Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford University Press, 2000), ProQuest Ebook Central. Sarah Hart suggests that the tabernacle functions as a “word image”, engaging the senses to create an immersive, sacred experience, inviting the recipient to enter a virtual world that becomes a reality within the recipient, see Sarah L. Hart, From Temple to Tent: From Real to Virtual World (Exodus 24:15-Numbers 10:28), (ATF Theology, 2019).  [Return to Section]

⁴³ Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism, 243-330. [Return to Section]

⁴⁴ Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford University Press, 1993), 13. See also: Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Brill, [1980] 2014), 3, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezp.sub.su.se/lib/sub/detail.action?docID=1786599. Also, Ithamar Gruenwald notes that Ezekiel provided the Jewish mystical tradition with some of its central notions and visual concepts and his influence prevailed for a long time, during which various practices were introduced in order to bring forth the realization of mystical experiences of the like Ezekiel had. See Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Brill, [1980] 2014), 3, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezp.sub.su.se/lib/sub/detail.action?docID=1786599, 3-4. [Return to Section]

⁴⁵ Zac Kamenetz, “Ezekiel in the Mirror: A Guide to Jewish Psychedelic Exploration”, class given at Lehrhaus, March 5, 2025, https://www.lehr.haus/classes/ezekiel-in-the-mirror-a-guide-to-jewish-psychedelic-exploration. I am grateful to Zac Kamenetz for sharing the unpublished manuscript in personal correspondence (Zac Kamenetz, Whatsapp direct message to author, June 5, 2025). [Return to Section]

⁴⁶ Margolin,“Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance.”  [Return to Section]

Bakst, Joel David. The Jerusalem Stone of Consciousness: DMT, Kabbalah, and the Pineal Gland. CreatesSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. 

Bloch, Natalie. “The Hypertemple in Mind: God’s voice Rebooted in the Temple Scroll.” In Jerusalem in Memory and Eschatology: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Visions of the Past and Future of Jerusalem, edited by Emma O’Donnell Polyakov. Bloomsbury, 2025.  

Douglas, Mary. Leviticus as Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central. 

Eliav, Yaron Z. God's mountain: the Temple Mount in time, place, and memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.  

Elk, Michiel van, and David Yaden. “De-Siloing the Psychology of Religion and Psychedelic Science: Introduction to the Special Issue on Psychedelics and Mystical-Type Experiences.” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 33, no. 4 (2023): 255–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2023.2236884. 

Gruenwald, Ithamar. Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism. Brill, [1980] 2014. DOI:  https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezp.sub.su.se/lib/sub/detail.action?docID=1786599, 

Hart, Sarah L. From Temple to Tent: From Real to Virtual World (Exodus 4:15-Numbers 10:28). ATF Theology, 2019. 

Hartogsohn, Ido. “Constructing drug effects: A history of set and setting.” Drug Science, Policy and Law 3 (2017).  https://doi.org/10.1177/2050324516683325.

Himmelfarb, Martha. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. Oxford University Press, 1993.  

HopeWays – Alternative National Design Forum. “Realizing The Ideal Israel – The Twelve Tribes System by Yitzhak Hayut-Man.” Accessed February 5, 2025. https://www.hopeways.org/e_index.htm?page=e_hayu02. 

Jewish Journeys. “Jewish Journeys – A National Study of Jewish Attitudes, Practices & Needs Towards Psychedelics.” Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.jewish-journeys.com/. 

Jewish Psychedelic Summit. “Jewish Psychedelic Summit – Home.” Accessed December 30, 2024. https://jewishpsychedelicsummit.org/. 

Jost, Michael R. “The Liturgical Communion of the Yaḥad with the Angels: The Origin of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice Reconsidered”. In Dead Sea Discoveries 29, no. 1 (2022): 52–75, doi:10.1163/15685179-bja10020. 

Kamenetz, Zac. “Psychedelics & the Future of Judaism”. Virtual lecture, posted January 11, 2023, by CSP - Community Scholar Program. YouTube, 1:22:46. https://youtu.be/DwykigAPmP4?si=gkKJL5MDiyvC3n36. 

Kamenetz, Rodger. Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters. Harper Collins, 1997. 

Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism. Oxford University Press, 2006. 

Lattin, Don. God on Psychedelics – Tripping Across the Rubble of Old-Time Religion. Apocryphile Press, 2023. 

Ling, Lisa, host. CBS Mornings – The State of Spirituality. “Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance: Exploring Possible Psychedelic Use in Torah & To Connect with God.” CBS Mornings. Video, posted January 17, 2025, by CBS Mornings. YouTube, 8:06. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYp37LfPvE. 

Lund University. “At the End of the World: About the Program.” Accessed August 21, 2025.   https://www.endoftheworld.lu.se/about-the-program/. 

Needleman, Yoseph (writing as Mardachya, Yoseph Leib ibn). Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs. Atzmos Press, 2009. 

Margolin, Madison. “Judaism’s Psychedelic Renaissance.” Tablet Magazine,  July 27, 2021. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/psychedelic-summit-madison-margolin. 

Margolin, Madison.  Exile & Ecstasy. Hay House UK Ltd, 2023. 

Michaelson, Jay. “Psychedelics and Judaism: New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” Substack, December 12, 2024. https://jaymichaelson.substack.com/p/psychedelics-and-judaism-new-skin. 

Miller, Timothy. The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond. Syracuse University Press, 1999. 

Mosurinjohn, Sharday, Leor Roseman, and Manesh Girn. “Psychedelic-induced mystical experiences: An interdisciplinary discussion and critique.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 14 (2023): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1077311. 

Niditch, Susan. “Ezekiel 40-48 in a Visionary Context.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 48, no 2 (1986): 208–24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43717169. 

Newsom, Carol. ”Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice”. In Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (eds.) Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford University Press, 2000). https://www-oxfordreference-com.ludwig.lub.lu.se/view/10.1093/acref/9780195084504.001.0001/acref-9780195084504-e-511. 

Persico, Tomer, “Neo-Hasidic Revival: Expressivist Uses of Traditional Lore.” Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience 34, no. 3 (2014):  287–308. https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/kju016. 

Rebooting Jewish Life. “God on Psychedelics – Blog by Don Lattin.” Archived April 19, 2023, at https://rebooting.com/article/god-on-psychedelics/. 

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman M. “Response.” In The Condition of Jewish Belief: A Symposium by the Editors of Commentary Magazine. Macmillan, 1966. 

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman M. “The Conscious Ascent of the Soul”. In The Ecstatic Adventure, edited by Ralph Metzner. Macmillan, 1968. 

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman M., with Edward Hoffman. My Life in Jewish Renewal. Rowman & Littlefields Publishers, Inc., 2012. 

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman and Stanley Krippner. “Personal Experiences with Psychoactive Agents: Our First Time”. In Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances: Chl Paths to Spirituality and to God, edited by Harold J. Ellens. Praeger, 2014. 

Schilling, Christopher L. Zen Judaism: The Case Against a Contemporary American Phenomenon. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 

Schäfer, Peter. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton University Press, 2011. 

Shefa – Jewish Psychedelic Support. “About Shefa.” Accessed December 28, 2024. https://www.shefaflow.org/about-shefa. 

Shefa – Jewish Psychedelic Support. “Shefa.” Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.shefaflow.org/. 

Shipley, Morgan. “Psychedelic Judaism in a Countercultural America. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the Radical Religiosity of LSD Consciousness”. In Jewish Radicalisms – Historical Perspectives on a Phenomenon of Global Modernity, edited by Frank Jacob and Sebastian Kunze. Walter de Gruyter, 2020.  

Stang, Charles, host. “Are Psychedelics Theologically Significant for Judaism?” Virtual panel discussion with Melila Hellner-Eshed, Jay Michaelson, and Sam Shonkoff, April 27, 2023. Posted June 8, 2023, by Harvard Divinity School. YouTube, 1:31:32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPTb5u9F-U. 

Strassman, Rick. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences. Park Street Press, 2001.  

Strassman, Rick. DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. Park Street Press, 2014.  

Strassman, Rick. ”The Mechanisms of Prophecy: A Conversation on DMT & the Jewish Tradition with Rick Strassman.” Interview by Madison Margolin. Ayin Press, July 27, 2022. https://ayinpress.org/the-mechanism-of-prophecy/. 

Tuell, Steven S. “Ezekiel as a Verbal Icon.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58, no 4 (1996): 649-64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43722786. 

Yuhas, Stephanie. "The Schachter-Shalomi Collection Anchors Post-Holocaust American Judaism Archive at University of Colorado." Judaica Librarianship 19 (2016): 3-23. doi:10.14263/2330-2976.1144.  

Werczberger, Rachel. “Searching for Jewish Spirituality: The Narrative Identity of New Age Jews in Israel.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 23, no. 1 (2022): 47–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2022.2142772 

Bloch, Natalie. “The Psychedelic Temple – Re-imagining ancient Jewish temple space through Psychedelic Aesthetics.” In Psychedelic Intersections: 2025 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026. © License: CC BY-NC.  https://doi.org/10.70423/0004.02