Pharmakeia

 

It read like something out of a violent "slasher" horror movie. In April of 2018, Chad O’Melia met Bryn Spejcher and her Siberian Husky at a dog park. They immediately hit it off and began dating. At the time he was 26 and she was 27. Their relationship came to a brutal end a month later on May 27th in their hometown of Thousand Oaks, California. 

Spejcher went to Mr. O’Melia’s apartment where both took several hits from a "bong" (water pipe used to smoke dope) loaded with marijuana. Bryn almost immediately heard voices. Dark, guttural voices. She went to Chad’s kitchen and returned with a knife in each hand. She began to stab him. “Keep going,” the voices commanded. “Don’t stop. You’re almost there.”

She obeyed. She later testified that she felt like something else had taken control—as if she were watching her own body from the outside.

Bryn stabbed Chad over one hundred times, penetrating every major organ. Then she turned and began stabbing her own dog. When police arrived, she was kneeling over Chad’s lifeless body, plunging a serrated bread knife into her own neck. What terrified officers wasn’t just the blood. It was the strength--and the look in her eyes.

They tased her four times. She didn’t react. They struck her nine times with a steel baton, breaking her arm in five places. She kept going. Bryn had no history of mental illness. One of her professors testified that of the thousand graduate students he had taught, “none has ever been better than Bryn Spejcher.” (Spejcher worked as an audiologist). 

In December of 2023, Spejcher was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to an underwhelming two years of probation and no prison time with a mandated 100 hours of community service. Her defense to the crime was "cannabis induced psychosis" and the case was referred to as "Refer Madness."  (Compiled from multiple sources---See e.g., toacorn.com/articles/jurors-find-spejcher-guilty-of-manslaughter; and https://www.vcdistrictattorney.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/23-141-Spejcher-Nafziger-Convicted-SW.pdf). 

So, is this some made-up defense, like the so-called "Twinkie defense" (a reference to the1979 trial of Dan White, who killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. His lawyers argued he had a diminished mental state from severe depression, shown partly by eating junk food); or is there something more to it? 

The Horror Stories Continue

Robert Corry was the attorney who legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado in 2012--the poster child for cannabis advocacy, the legal mind who assured America that marijuana was safe. What supreme irony that he would become the male version of Spejcher. 

In 2019, Corry was arrested for waving a sword at strangers in Denver. Weeks earlier, he had kidnapped a woman at Denver International Airport, hijacked her car, crashed through the airport parking garage gate, and told her he would kill her if she didn’t stay quiet. He claimed he was being chased by “Arabs with a helicopter.” (See denver7.com/news/crime/denver-attorney-rob-corry-arrested-again-after-allegedly-threatening-people-with-sword; See also cbsnews.com/colorado/news/robert-corry-arrested-kidnapping-case-denver-international-airport-arabs).

To be clear, Cory was not some 18-year-old punk with a rap sheet. This was a seasoned, high-powered attorney coming apart like a man possessed. Cannabis-induced psychosis. The top marijuana lawyer in America was undone by the very drug he championed. Today, he admits the errors of his ways and fights against the drug-genie he let out of the bong. 

I warned against legalized marijuana and the abuse of prescription drugs in my home state of New York. Now, in the wake of legalization, that warning is being proven correct. I can't go out without smelling marijuana everywhere. Drug-induced crimes have skyrocketed. Even young children are being caught in the drug web. If Johnny misbehaves, mother increases his Ritalin dose; and to keep herself on an even keel, she takes Prozac. A large percentage of Americans no longer know how to stand up to adversity and thereby develop strength of character. Instead of facing their problems and working through to a solution, they insist upon a wonder drug to assist them with every difficulty.

Got a problem? Take a drug. Want to relax? Take a drug. Can't get a prescription? There's always legal marijuana. While I have read many good articles on the mental and physical harm of drug abuse (in all its forms), hardly any discuss the doorway they open to the demonic. Hence, the purpose of this post.  

(The information in this post comes from myriad sources, both in print and online. I take no credit except for compiling it into a terse post and adding some commentary.---Introibo).

What's Going On?

The doctors don’t know exactly what they’re dealing with, but they see what "safe" drugs do; especially the marijuana now legalized (as of this writing) in 24 states and Washington D.C.  

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 2003, has watched the data pile up for two decades: We are seeing a very significant rise in psychosis associated with the consumption of marijuana. And the higher the content of THC, the higher the likelihood of a psychotic episode. 

(See thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/potent-marijuana-strain-in-us-causing-psychosis-time-bomb-v2zfxd9km).

Dr. Leslie Hulvershorn, chair of psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine, sees it firsthand in her patients: When I see youths with psychotic symptoms, they’re almost always using lots of cannabis. (See nbcnews.com/health/health-news/teens-marijuana-use-mental-disorders-research-rcna153344).  Science has documented the symptoms, but it is beginning to realize it is staring into something it can never comprehend---the demonic.

A Problem Not Just Physical But Spiritual 

Society has been telling us that alcohol and marijuana are "harmless." Yet we are seeing the opposite. While alcohol can be used in moderation, the use of marijuana cannot without loss of reason to one degree or another. 

The Teaching of the Church on Drugs

 According to theologian Jone, "Since morphine, opium, chloroform and similar drugs can also deprive one of the use of his reason temporarily, that which was said of intoxicating drinks holds also for narcotics. To use narcotics in small quantities and only occasionally, is a venial sin if done without a sufficient reason. Any proportionately good reason justifies their use, e.g., to calm the nerves, dispel insomnia, etc. Such use becomes gravely sinful if it creates an habitual craving for 'dope' which is more difficult to overcome than dipsomania and more injurious to health. To use drugs in greater quantities so as to lose the use of one's reason is itself a mortal sin; but for a good reason it is permissible. Such a good reason is had in case of an operation, i.e., that the patient be rendered insensible to intense pain, or that one might remain calm under the knife. In like manner one may administer opiates to one who is suffering greatly in order to alleviate his pain." (See Moral Theology, [1961], pgs. 57-58; Emphasis mine). 

Since narcotics are under the same general rule as alcohol, here's what moral theologian O'Connell has to say about the loss of reason: "It is not requisite...[to] be rendered utterly stupid and helpless...[rather] that one would do things inordinate which otherwise he would not do...The malice of drunkenness consists in the fact that, without a sufficient reason, a person in a violent way deprives himself of the use of the noblest of his faculties." (See Outlines of Moral Theology, [1958], pg. 168; Emphasis mine).

As you keep in mind these principles of Church teaching, also consider that we know so much more about the effects of drugs today than when theologians O'Connell and Jone were writing in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Then came the Great Apostasy and the drug culture of the late 1960s. I can only imagine how Church teaching would have further developed on this issue in light of all we now understand.

The Devil is in the Details

What modern doctors are only now discovering, ancient physicians saw two thousand years ago.

Alex Berenson, a former New York Times investigative reporter, and author of the extensively researched book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, unearthed a chilling historical warning. The Pen-ts’ao Ching, the first comprehensive pharmacopeia ever created, warned Chinese physicians around 100 AD that excessive cannabis use caused users to see “devils” (See Berenson [2019], p. xxiii) They also had “stimulated uncontrollable violence and criminal inclinations.” (Ibid) They believed the drug acted as a spiritual catalyst, a doorway to evil.  Seeing devils. Uncontrollable violence. Two thousand years ago!

Berenson didn’t stop with ancient warnings. Working with a Columbia University professor of clinical biostatistics, he analyzed modern data and they documented a sharp and undeniable rise in emergency room visits, violent crime, and schizophrenia tied directly to cannabis use.

Ancient doctors said it caused “seeing devils.” Modern doctors say “psychosis” and “schizophrenia.” The language has changed, but the pattern hasn’t. The “devils” seen by the ancients are now filling our modern psychiatric wards.

In the 1960s, Timothy Leary, "the Pied Piper of Harvard," led mesmerized youth into spiritual experiences that materialistic scientism had told them did not exist. Leary’s LSD (and other psychedelics) turned out to be the launching pad for mind trips "beyond the physical universe of time, space, and matter" to a strange dimension where anything was possible. For millions it was a “mind-blowing” experience that forever changed their lives.

The drugs of abusers put people into an altered state of consciousness; hence, the attraction. Those of you who read my series of posts called "Singing For Satan" (published August 2017-August 2019), know that almost all of the musicians were drug users, and most claimed contact/inspiration from "spirits"--Eminem, The Eagles, etc. They used drugs and entered into an altered state of consciousness which makes one susceptible (like hypnosis) to demonic forces. So-called "shamans" (pagan "witch-doctors") take drugs for this very reason; it enables them to make "contact with the spirits." Leary called the Beatles “the four evangelists.” Listening to the Beatles’ album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Leary said, “The Beatles have taken my place. That latest album—a complete celebration of LSD.” (See Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, [1987], pg. 345). 

In the Apocalypse 22:15, we read, "Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying." According to theologian Haydock, "the dogs" refer to unbelievers (See The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with a Comprehensive Catholic Commentary, reprint from 1859, pg. 1656), and "sorcerers" comes from the Greek word pharmakeia from which we get the word "pharmacy." The word does not only mean the sorcery that comes from idolatry but can also refer to the use or administration of drugs. We see that pagans often used drugs to call on their "gods" (demons), so it's not surprising that Holy Scripture seems to link the two. 

Aldous Huxley (d. 1963), the famous author of Brave New World, and philosopher, was known to experiment with LSD and mescaline. He was deeply involved in the occult. On his deathbed, he asked his wife to shoot him up with LSD so he could "trip" into the afterlife. She complied, and I cannot imagine what horrors he found that never end, unless he somehow repented by a miracle of grace. In a speech he delivered to a California medical school, two years before his death, he made the following chilling prediction:

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.  (See academyofideas.com/2018/06/aldous-huxley-brave-new-world-dark-side-of-pleasure; Emphasis mine). 

Conclusion

A woman commits an unspeakably violent act resulting in the death of a man and she gets a slap on the wrist because of "cannabis induced psychosis." Where is the outrage to make marijuana illegal again? Both Bryn Spejcher and Robert Corry were educated, law abiding adults with no history of mental illness. Both smoked dope on a regular basis with no sign of any problem. Then it hits out of the blue. It can happen only once or more often---they felt possessed and committed crimes. 

It's not fully understood by medical science, yet the Church has always taught the sinfulness of drug abuse or pharmakeia --a form of sorcery used by pagans and occultists to call on demons. When people sin and alter their mind, the door to evil is opened. Ask demons into your life, and they will take you up on your offer. As the push for legalization of marijuana in all 50 states continues, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) aggressively push to end the "War on Drugs". They advocate for repealing all laws criminalizing the possession, use, and delivery of controlled substances. (See nacdl.org/Landing/DrugLaw). 

Dr. Carl Hart, a neuroscientist at Columbia University, has been a highly visible proponent of legalizing all drugs for "responsible adult use," arguing that prohibition creates more harm (!) than the substances themselves. We will be seeing much more violence and madness. Enjoying their drugs, the masses do nothing. The supremely evil Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opium (drug) of the people." He got it backwards. Truly, "Opium is the religion of the people" today.