The Temple of Advanced Enlightenment: using marijuana for spiritual enrichment – News
The Temple of Advanced Enlightenment is a group advocating for responsible spiritual use of marijuana. The group was founded by the Rev. Kevin Loring in 2005. The highly organized group, with beliefs and practices that include a written creation story, is striving to be recognized as a religion.

The temple is in the planning stages of petitioning the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency for a religious use exemption for their use of marijuana. They also aim to provide public education programs on spiritual use, religious freedom and civil rights.

Religious use of pot is restricted to temple members who are at least 18 years old and have completed basic religious studies of the Temple. They then may engage in practices such as the Sacred Smoking Circle, Vision Quest, Blessing of Meals, Blessing of Home, Holy Anointing and Honoring the Deceased.

They do not advocate for the outright legalization of marijuana because they believe use requires spiritual guidance.

In the Sacred Smoking Circle, the clergy leads prayers as a peace pipe is passed clockwise to symbolize the passage of time. Usually each member consumes one gram of marijuana at each ritual.

Prior to the Vision Quest, a member fasts for a week. Then he or she is led to a remote location and partakes in sacrament – where water and music are used in order to reach an enlightened state of mind. Loring heard his calling on a Vision Quest in his late teens when he spent more than a week alone in the woods.

Loring, Jillian Dunton and Garrett Wozneak make up the temple’s high council. In order to be ordained, one must be a member for three years, complete 500 hours of community service, be tested by the council, sign an affidavit of spiritual cannabis use and take a vow of poverty, compassion and morality.

“We try to get people to not focus on the sacrament,” Loring said. “It’s like focusing on the little cracker at Catholic Church.”

You know my feelings on the issue – I don’t think I need to have a doctor’s permission nor a preacher’s blessing to partake of the herb.  I don’t need a medical excuse nor a written creation story to enjoy the ganja.

However, I completely support the people who are taking the spiritual path with cannabis and helping others to find their way.  I like that Loring seems to take his religion seriously and is creating ritual and communal boundaries regarding cannabis use.  I especially like that his adherents follow a vow of poverty and commit to community service.

The only critique I had of Loring was his prayer meetings scheduled at his home on Tuesdays at 4:20pm.  Doesn’t the adoption of the secular stoner code for getting blazed undermine a bit of your religious sincerity?

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