A recent article in The New Yorker reports on scientific studies of psychedelic drugs.  In “The Trip Treatment,” Michael Pollan interviews both psychologists and subjects to learn how hallucinogenics could be used to treat terminal cancer patients by easing their anxiety with drug-induced dreams of life beyond death.  The sense of well-being they experience while “tripping” on LSD expands their perspective on life and death to bring them a remarkable sense of peace.  These scientists are also interested in studying the human brain to learn precisely how such spiritual awareness functions neurologically so that it may be medicinally replicated.

Yes, such studies are fascinating.  There is so much more to learn about the human brain and how it works.  Yet religion produces these same results with millennia of expertise and tradition.  Mystical experiences can not be medically induced just as a sexual relationship can not happen without a partner.  Even if the same brain cells light up under wire and even if the subject experiences the same physical and mental symptoms of serenity, there is a key part missing.  Mystical experiences occur in the context of a relationship with the divine.  Such ecstasy can not be controlled nor scheduled.  By God’s grace, love and light fill the body, heart and soul.  And one’s faithful response is gratitude, not a rush to understand, control and replicate it.

If terminal cancer patients find serenity as subjects of scientific experiments on hallucinogenics, that is a blessing indeed.  However, those of us who choose to practice daily prayer, devotional study of scripture, and meditation are in a lifelong process of preparing for death and the everlasting life to follow.  A lifetime of daily prayer may take more time and more discipline than taking a quick pill in a drug study.  But no medication can replicate the complexity and beauty of resting in the arms of the divine.  In the heart of prayer you are fully known, loved unconditionally, shining with light from within and buoyed on a sea of grace.  In the heart of prayer you are  overcome with gratitude and joy in response to God’s healing.  In the heart of prayer you meet the One who is author of your story, composer of your song, artist of your painting.  In the heart of prayer you are home, you are beloved, you are healed.