Editing Neo-American Church (section)

==Founding==
The Church was founded in 1965<ref name=about/> or 1966<ref name=LeeShlain/><ref name=Laycock/> at [[Cranberry Lake]], New York, by [[Arthur Kleps]],<ref name=Millbrook_Book/> a participant in [[Timothy Leary]]'s circle based at the [[Hitchcock Estate]] in Millbrook, New York. The organization was founded partly as an [[Absurdism|absurdist]] religion, partly as a religious expression of the [[psychedelic movement]], and partly as a device to gain religious exemption from [[War on Drugs|American drug laws]] such as those outlawing [[LSD]].

Church clergy, known as Boo Hoos,{{#tag:ref|"Boo-hoo" or "big boo-hoo" (now archaic) was an obscure and mildly derisory 20th-century American slang term for "important person", similar to "muckety-muck" or "big shot"; it was used ironically by the Church. |group=note}} claimed LSD as a [[sacrament]]. The original primary [[religious text]] of the church was ''The Boo Hoo Bible: The Neo-American Church Catechism and Handbook'' (1967),<ref name=BooHooBible_Book/> written by Kleps, a mixed-media work integrating comics, news clippings, senate testimonies, and political-religious diatribes.<ref name=Green/> The ''Boo Hoo Bible'' has been described as "requiring its reader to transcend the personal in an act that simultaneously simulates and dissimulates, establishing and overcoming the ironic.... present[ing] a cosmology of simultaneity, which Kleps considers essential to psychedelic experience. A radical solipsism emerges that sees all conscious and unconscious life as part of one dream where [[meaning-making]] becomes completely associative";<ref name=Green/> it also includes the declaration that the ultimate goal of mankind is (or should be) the bombardment and destruction of the planet Saturn (which hoped-for event was depicted on the book's cover).<ref name=BooHooBible_Book/><ref name=BibleCover/>

''The Boo Hoo Bible'' was supplemented or superseded by Kleps' later book ''Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism'' (1975, with new editions in 1977 and 2005) which provides an account of Kleps' founding of the organization along with a narrative of his experiences at the Hitchcock estate in [[Millbrook, New York]], between 1963 and 1970, and describes the church's principles and doctrine as of the date of publication.<ref name=Millbrook_Book/> ''Millbrook'' also includes philosophical interpretations of [[psychedelic experience]] and [[synchronicity]] and social and political commentary on aspects of the [[psychedelic movement]].

{{Rquote |1=right |2=We think it is very important not to take ourselves too seriously in terms of social structure, in terms of organizational life. We tend to view organizational life as sort of a game that people play. |3=Arthur Kleps |4=Testimony before the [United States] Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, 1966<ref name=Green/>}}
While it incorporated whimsical or even absurdist motifs – for instance, Church hymns included "[[Puff the Magic Dragon]]"<ref name=Laycock/> and "[[Row, Row, Row Your Boat]]" (with its solipsistic refrain of "Life is but a dream"), which fact did not help them in establishing their [[wikt:bona fides|bona fides]] as a serious religion to the judge in ''United States vs. Kuch'' (see below)<ref name=Green/> – this mainly extended to matters of form and organization. The actual theology was fully formed, serious, and culturally revolutionary in intent.<ref name=Green/> Kleps testified that the absurdist elements of the Church were intended to show that all religions are invented and silly.<ref name=Laycock/>
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