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• 1 2017-12-04T11:53:36-08:00 Getting High on Torah and Prayer 6 Drugs at the House of Love and Prayer plain 2017-12-04T14:25:28-08:00 Drugs, especially marijuana and psychedelic drugs such as LSD, were integral to the countercultural Hippie experience; perhaps unsurprisingly, they were also present at the House of Love and Prayer. Such drugs were seen as doorways to spiritual journeys. Even community leaders like Rabbi Zalman Schachter (who notably befriended Timothy Leary) famously engaged with such entities.
   
  In fact, in the very early years of the House community, before the House had even opened (yet when people were meeting together in Forest Knolls), LSD was an integral element of the Shabbat experience. For those in this collective, there was no contradiction between observing Shabbat and getting high. For many, psychedelics enhanced the Shabbat experience. Even though the policy of the House was that illegal drugs were prohibited, like many other parts of the House the “no drugs rule” was ambiguous.
  
  
  This all said, for many, if not most, in the House community, Shabbat and Torah study became spiritual practices that enabled people to take the next step beyond the psychedelic spiritual awakening. As one former member put it, people at the House “got high on Torah and Prayer.”