Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: What is the meaning of the verse, “And this is the Torah which Moses placed [“sam”] before the children of Israel”? If one merits, it is a drug of life [“sam chayim”]. If one does not merit, it is a drug of death [“sam mavet”].

—Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 72b

While much of Jewish wisdom is transmitted through textual traditions and study, our sacred texts themselves derive from people’s direct experience of reality, refracted and translated through the prism of their innermost being. From the collective prophetic moment at Mount Sinai in which the entire nation experienced divine revelation, to our ancestors’ direct divine encounters, to the teachings of sages and mystics throughout the generations who engaged in deep spiritual practice and contemplation - Jewish wisdom and teachings emerge from states of expanded consciousness. The teachings and practices that our ancestors have passed on to us are not only jewels brought back from these prophetic states – they are also doorways leading back to the realms from which they emerged. When we approach our ancestral traditions with this awareness, they can be catalysts for psychedelic (“mind” or “soul manifesting”) and entheogenic (“allowing the divine to come into being”) experiences.

Our psychedelic Beit Midrash (house of learning and seeking) is a place where seasoned teachers and spiritual practitioners share experiential and mystical traditions in a contemporary language that is approachable, relevant and familiar to anyone who has explored the inner expanses of consciousness. We seek a Torah that opens us up to experiencing layers of our own soul – and by extension, the living soul of the universe.

We invite you to join our learning community and discover ways in which the guidance of Torah and psychedelic states can mutually enrich, inform and deepen one another.