Editing Neo-American Church

{{Short description|Religion based in drug use}}
{{distinguish|Native American Church}}
{{About|the psychedelic religion|the sex cult|George Feigley}}
[[File:Neo-American_Church_Seal.png|thumb|right|Seal of the Church. The Three-Eyed Toad shows the absurdist/humorous/satirical bent of the church (the Church's house organ was titled "Divine Toad Sweat"). The motto ("Victory Over Horseshit!") was taken seriously: [[Timothy Leary]] himself was excommunicated in 1973 for "excessive horse shit".<ref name=Green/>]]
The '''Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church''' ('''OKNeoAC'''), mostly shorted '''Neo-American Church''', is a religious organization based on the use of [[psychedelic drugs]] (the "True Host") as a sacrament.
{{Pull quote |text=The psychedelic churches exist to promote and defend the psychedelic religion, a religion which sees in the transcendental experience produced by the sacred substances the key to understanding life and improving the condition of man on earth. |author=Arthur Kleps|source=Testimony before the [United States] Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, May 25, 1966<ref name=Versluis/>}}

==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/>
{{clear}}

==''United States vs. Kuch''==
The [[Native American Church]] (no relation) was around this time fighting successfully in several state courts to uphold its legal permission to use [[peyote]] (normally a banned substance) in religious ceremonies;<ref name=PeyoteReligion/> the Neo-American Church hoped to gain the same right, by analogy.<ref name=Green/> One of the Church's ministers, Judith H. Kuch, was arrested and put on federal trial on narcotics charges in 1968. Kuch claimed that her use of LSD was a religious requirement.

The judge ruled that the Church's rituals did not merit protection under the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] as he could find no evidence of "a religious discipline, a ritual, or tenets to guide one's daily existence"<ref name=Slate/> and that "...the [Neo-American Church] membership is mocking established institutions [and] playing with words... There is a conscious effort to assert in passing the attributes of religion but obviously only for tactical purposes"<ref name=USAvsKuch/> and that "[i]t is clear that the desire to use drugs and to enjoy drugs for their own sake, regardless of religious experience, is the coagulant of this organization and the reason for its existence."<ref name=Dorf/> This was an instance, rare in [[American Constitutional jurisprudence]], of a judge finding as an issue of fact that someone does not actually hold the religious views she professes.<ref name=Dorf/> (Regardless of the merits of the religion, the judge in any case found substantial state interest in denying the exemption.<ref name=LeoneZaretsky/>)

==Later years==
{{Pull quote |All members of the Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church subscribe to the following three principles: 1) The psychedelic substances, such as cannabis and LSD, are religious sacraments...  2) The use of the psychedelic sacraments is a basic human right. 3) We do not encourage the ingestion of the greater sacraments such as LSD and mescaline by those who are unprepared and we define preparedness as familiarity with the lesser sacraments such as cannabis and nitrous oxide and with solipsist-nihilist epistemological reasoning... |Three Principles of the Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church |4=Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church website<ref name=membership/>}}
The Church reached its greatest notoriety around the time of this 1968 ''United States of America vs. Kuch'' case but continues into the 21st century as a small, loose organization. Membership in the Church is loosely defined but is based on assent to three principles: holding the [[psychedelic substance]]s as sacraments, claiming their use as a basic [[human right]], and defining enlightenment as "the recognition that life is a dream and the externality of relations an illusion ([[Solipsism|solipsistic]] [[nihilism]])".<ref name=membership/>

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name=Green>{{cite web |url=http://www.telospress.com/psychedelic-citizenship-and-re-enchantment-affective-aesthetics-as-political-instantiation/ |title=Psychedelic Citizenship and Re-enchantment: Affective Aesthetics as Political Instantiation |author=Roger K. Green |date=April 11, 2013 |work=TELOScope |publisher=Telos Press |access-date=June 16, 2016}}</ref>

<ref name=Versluis>{{cite book |last=Versluis |first=Arthur |title=American Gurus: From Transcendentalism to New Age Religion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G2yVAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 |access-date=June 14, 2016 |year=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199368136 |page=117}}</ref>

<ref name=LeeShlain>{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Martina A. |last2=Shlain |first2=Bruce |title=Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond |edition=Revised |url=https://archive.org/details/aciddreamscomple00leem |year=1994 |publisher=Grove Press |isbn=978-0802130624 }}</ref>

<ref name=Millbrook_Book>{{cite book |last=Kleps |first=Art |date=2005 |orig-year=1975, 1977 |title=Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism |url=http://www.okneoac.org/millbrook |publisher=OKNeoAC |isbn=978-0960038800}}</ref>

<ref name=about>{{cite web |url=http://www.okneoac.org/about/ |title=About the OKNeoAC |work=Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church website}}</ref>

<ref name=BooHooBible_Book>{{cite book |last=Kleps |first=Art |date=1971 |orig-year=1967 |title=The Boo Hoo Bible: The Neo-American Church Catechism and Handbook |url=https://archive.org/details/boohoobibleneoam00klep |publisher=Toad Books |isbn=978-0960038817 }}</ref>

<ref name=PeyoteReligion>{{cite book |title=Peyote Religion |first=Omer C. |last=Stewart |page=326 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1993 |isbn=0-8061-2457-1}}</ref>

<ref name=Slate>{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2210912/ |title=Blessed Be the Newsmakers. A new business model for the press: Declare itself a religion. |first=Stephen |last=Bates |date=February 11, 2009|publisher=Slate}}</ref>

<ref name=USAvsKuch>{{Cite web |url=http://csp.org/chrestomathy/boo_hoo.html |title=Brief excerpts from the Boo-Hoo Bible and ''United States of America v. Judith H. Kuch'' |access-date=2010-07-29 |archive-date=2010-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612232841/http://csp.org/chrestomathy/boo_hoo.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name=Dorf>{{cite web |url=http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2010/12/boo-hoo-for-rest-of-us.html |title=Boo Hoo for the rest of us |author=Mike Dorf |date=December 24, 2010 |work=Dorf on Law |access-date=June 14, 2016}}</ref>

<ref name=LeoneZaretsky>{{cite book |last1=Leone Zaretsky |first1=Irving |last2=Leone Zaretsky |first2=Mark P. |title=Religious Movements in Contemporary America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BHB9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |access-date=June 14, 2016 |year=1974 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn= 9781400868841|pages=39–40}}</ref>

<ref name=Laycock>{{cite web |url=http://religiondispatches.org/satanist-monument-shines-light-on-christian-privilege/ |title=Satanist Monument Shines Light on Christian Privilege |author=Joseph Laycock |date=December 12, 2013 |work=Religion Dispatches |access-date=June 16, 2016}}</ref>

<ref name=membership>{{cite web |url=http://www.okneoac.org/membership/ |title=Membership |work=Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church website}}</ref>

<ref name=BibleCover>{{cite web |url=https://okneoac.org/bhb |title=Neo-American Church Catechism and Handbook |author=Art Kleps |date=1971 |work=Neo-American Church |accessdate=October 28, 2022}}</ref>
}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last1=Newman |first1=Joel S. |date=December 2015 |title=What is a Church? A Look at Tax Exemptions for the Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church and the First Church of Cannabis |journal=Lexis Federal Tax Journal Quarterly |publisher=LexisNexis |ssrn=2714965 }}

==External links==
*[http://okneoac.org Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church website]
*[http://extempore88.googlepages.com/UnitedStatesv.Kuch288F.Supp.4391968.htm Text of United States of America v. Judith H. Kuch]
*[http://okneoac.com/m/millbrook_complete.txt Complete text of ''Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism'' by Arthur Kleps]

[[Category:Religious parodies and satire]]
[[Category:1965 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:Religious organizations established in 1965]]
[[Category:Psychedelics and religion]]
[[Category:Religious belief systems founded in the United States]]
[[Category:New religious movements established in the 1960s]]