The Searchers of the Truth
There weren’t better friends than the five of them: the Catholic, the Jew, the Hindu, the Muslim, and the Atheist. Most of the time, they didn’t let their religions get in the way of their friendship; they had respect for each other’s beliefs, and they were rather fond of their differing religious perspectives.
They had just recently all turned eighteen, which meant that the time had come, the time for their ultimate adventure. Some time ago, they had all sat down and planned an excursion to the Amazon. They didn’t know exactly why they wanted to go to the Amazon. All they knew was that they were all searching for something and that they all had a peculiar feeling that they would find that something in the Amazon.
Without a guide, they were sojourning the Amazon’s vast landscape, hunting its diverse wild life, and swimming in its perilous waters. It had been two weeks since they had first set off into the rainforest, and it was now that they had all found themselves stuck in the stickiest of situations; they had no idea where they were, they had no more food, and they couldn’t help but notice that their tempers were flaring. They were all starving.
The Catholic tripped over a root, accidentally knocking over the Jew in front of him.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted the Jew loudly, “Watch where you are walking, you cannibal!”
“Cannibal?” whispered the Catholic, pulling himself up. “Now, that doesn’t making any sense!”
“Fucking mental case,” added in the Hindu quietly, shaking his head at the Jew. “You know, you really aren’t making any sense,” he said to the Jew.
“Fucking mental case?” spat the Jew. “I think not! See here. All Catholics are cannibals. Church, for Catholics, is nothing more or less than a massive congregation of individuals who get together once a week to perform cannibalistic acts. Transubstantiation is a process whereby the Catholic priest transforms what once was bread and wine into actual human flesh and human blood, or so, Catholics believe; the bread becomes Jesus’ flesh, and the wine becomes Jesus’ blood. This is human flesh and human blood, for after all, even though Jesus was said to be the son of God, he was made incarnate in a human body. When you receive the Eucharist, you are eating a human, and thus, you are a cannibal!”
The Catholic was stumped; he had never thought of this.
“Ha!” laughed the Muslim. “You’re a cannibal!” he said mercilessly, pointing at the Catholic.
“Well,” retorted the Catholic quickly, “at least I don’t look like an idiot, prancing around with an enormous turban on my head. What are you hiding in there anyway?” he said, grinning.
“Probably an evil, dark wizard, one who goes by the name of Lord Voldemort,” the Hindu laughed out, answering the Muslim’s question for him.
A large uproar of laughter greeted the ears of all five of them. Everybody was laughing except for the Atheist and the Muslim, who appeared to be quite angry.
When the laughter died down, the Muslim opened his mouth, revealing that he was about to retaliate.
“Well, at least I do not have a permanent pimple in the middle of my forehead,” laughed the Muslim, pointing at the Hindu’s Tilak.
Everyone except for the Atheist and the Hindu laughed at this. The Hindu’s eyes were glinting malevolently, expressing the hate that was surging inside of him.
“Man, that was a good one,” yelped the Jew, clasping a stitch that had developed in his stomach due to his excessive laughing.
“Oh, go play with your dradle,” said Hindu rapidly.
“Pop your pimple,” said the Jew back.
“Go eat your stupid kosher food!” yelled the Hindu.
“I would if I had any,” said the Jew seriously.
“STOP IT!” screamed the Atheist, “All of you! This is enough. We can’t let our hunger get to us. You have all been taking stabs at each other’s throats. We’ve never done this before. This is not like us.”
“Yeah,” said the Catholic in agreement, shaking his head in disappointment. “Let’s all cut it out, ok?”
Everybody nodded in agreement.
“I think that I finally know what it is that we came here searching for,” said the Hindu, sounding depressed. “I think that we are looking for death.”
Nobody said anything. This statement sent a chill shudder down the spine of all the companions, for reality had hit in. They were all lost in the Amazon, they had no food, they were soon to run out of water, and they were bickering madly with each other.
“Well,” spoke the Atheist, attempting to raise everyone’s morale, “we need to set up camp pretty soon,” he said, looking at the sky, which was getting quite dark.
“Damn,” piped in the Jew, whose stomach rumbled. “It looks like we’re going to have to go today without any food.”
They walked on for a few minutes. Suddenly, the Muslim shouted excitedly. At this time, the moon had already come out, and the sun was almost completely down.
“Aha!” said the Muslim energetically. “Look! Ahead of us, there is a clearing.”
The Muslim was not hallucinating; indeed, there was a fairly large clearing, and interestingly enough, there were little bumps here and there that were black and brown. When the crew got closer, they made out these bumps as being expired cow feces.
“Look!” cried the Jew in joy, pointing at a fairly large mushroom that was growing out of a pile of cow feces. “Food!”
Before anybody could say or do anything, the Jew picked the mushroom and ate it.
“Hey!” he said happily, “It tastes pretty good!”
“No! Stop!” said the Catholic quickly. “What derailed madness drove you to do that?”
“Umm… Hunger,” replied the Jew simply.
“No! No! No!” said the Catholic, shaking his head in dismay. “My good Jew, that could very well be a poisonous mushroom!”
The Jew’s face immediately turned pale white.
“Dear God!” he yelped, slapping his forehead. “I didn’t even think of that!”
The Jew dropped himself to the ground. He cried aloud to the heavens.
“What have I done?” he yelled, raising his arms to the skies.
“Don’t worry,” said the Catholic quickly, attempting to comfort the Jew. “Everything will turn out alright.”
“Quick!” said the Hindu urgently to the Muslim. “Let us find more of these mushrooms. I may be able to identify whether they are poisonous or edible.”
The two of them only had to take five steps, for the field was loaded with mushrooms. The mushrooms all looked the same.
“Well,” said the Hindu, “these mushrooms are all the same strain.”
He picked one of the mushrooms up and looked at it closely. The mushroom had a robust stipe that was white and around four inches in height. The cap was fairly large, having a radius of one and a half inches. The cap was golden, and the top of the cap formed a nipple. The Hindu rubbed his thumb underneath the cap, caressing the gills of the mushroom. He then looked at his thumb, which had a purple marking on it; the mushroom had purple spores. Eventually, the Hindu grabbed the mushroom by the cap, releasing his grip on the stipe. Interestingly enough, the stipe of the mushroom was stained violently blue directly where the Hindu’s grasp had been. The Hindu smiled.
“You aren’t going to die!” said the Hindu quickly to the Jew. “Before our adventure, I studied specifically mushrooms that are poisonous, and this mushroom doesn’t fit any of the descriptions of poisonous strains that I read about. I can’t identify this specific strain, but I can tell you that it will not hurt us. Therefore, it must be edible.”
The Jew, who was literally on the verge of crapping his pants, looked immensely relieved, for a great weight lifted from his heart.
“Well,” said the Muslim joyfully, “let us feast!”
Running around for mushrooms, they all split up; however, they still remained in the field, having not dared to voyage in the forest at night alone. They all found a fair share of mushrooms. Everyone ate the mushrooms until they felt comfortably full.
Now, little did they all know at the time that these mushrooms were hallucinogenic; indeed, these were psychedelic mushrooms that they were feasting upon. The genus was that of Psilocybe, and the specific strain was that of Cubensis.
Eventually, after everyone had eaten a voluptuous amount of mushrooms, they returned to the center of the field. They all sat down in a circle.
“Man,” said the Atheist, licking his lips, “I don’t know if I could’ve gone any longer without food.”
His other four companions nodded their heads in agreement.
It was a fairly bright night; the stars were out and about, and the clouds had apparently gone on vacation. The five companions decided to sleep underneath the stars, and therefore, they kept their tents rolled up. For the next twenty minutes, they all spoke to each other in a friendly manner. Suddenly, the Catholic addressed the group.
“Did you all feel that?” asked the Catholic oddly.
“Feel what?” asked the Jew urgently.
“A peculiar tingling sensation flowing from the bottom of your feet all the way up to your head,” said the Muslim, eyeing the Catholic questioningly.
“Whew!” said the Catholic, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Well, at least I’m not the only one going mad.”
“Hey!” said the Hindu quickly, “I feel it, too!”
Everybody paused for a second, wondering what was going on. Finally, the Atheist spoke.
“My friends,” he said somberly, “I think that we all ate hallucinogenic mushrooms.”
All five friends stared at each other seriously.
“How can you be so sure?” asked the Catholic significantly.
The Atheist was about to speak.
“Whoa,” interjected the Jew, “I am definitely in an altered state of consciousness.”
The Atheist, looking at the Catholic, nodded at the Jew.
“But what do we do?” cried out the Catholic in desperation.
The five companions looked at one another’s blank faces. The Atheist was the only one who kept himself composed.
“Everything will be alright,” the Atheist said reassuringly. “You four need to do what I say, and everything will turn out fine. What you four need to do is pray.”
Visuals rapidly greeted all five of them.
“Don’t speak a single word,” said the Atheist commandingly. “Just pray.”
Everyone’s pupils were the size of dimes.
“But what about you?” asked the Hindu caringly.
“Don’t worry about me,” said the Atheist tranquilly. “You four pray. Now, silence! Don’t utter any words out loud. Watch the back of your eyelids! Pray to your Gods!”
Without any questioning, the four companions obeyed the orders of the Atheist, for they all had great respect for him. And, thus, the night progressed.
Sneakily and as sly as a fox, a Shaman walked right up to the edge of the field. He had watched the five companions eat the mushrooms. He silently climbed a tree and sat on one of the top branches. He was overlooking the five companions, watching them, observing them, making sure that they would find what they had set out searching for. Throughout the entire night, the Shaman only heard a few words mumbled by each of the companions, who had all remained stationary, lying on the ground with their faces directed towards the sky and their eyes towards the back of their eyelids.
“God…. Jesus…. The Holy Spirit,” said the Catholic.
The Shaman smiled.
“Adonai…. Oh, Adonai,” said the Jew.
The Shaman smiled.
“Shiva…. Vishnu…. Brahma,” said the Hindu.
The Shaman smiled.
“Allah…. Oh, Allah,” said the Muslim.
The Shaman smiled.
“God…. Jesus…. The Holy Spirit…. Adonai….Shiva…. Vishnu…. Brahma…. Allah,” said the Atheist.
The Shaman smiled, climbed down the tree he was in, and left; his work here was finished.
When it was high noon the following day, all five of the companions got up at the same time. They opened their eyes and began to cry. The Muslim took off all his clothe, ran around the field, and cried all the while, “Allah! I have met you!” The Catholic knelt on the ground and raised his arms to the heavens. The Hindu got up and pranced around wildly repeating the three words energetically, “Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma.” The Jew just sat there in ecstatic joy saying to himself, “We did it. We found it. Our journey is complete.”
For a while, they all stopped and looked at the Atheist.
“That was, by far, the most spiritual experience I have ever had,” he cried aloud to them all.
The listener’s eyes grew as large as quarters. They all sat down, forming a circle around the Atheist.
“My friends,” he said energetically, “what did you all see?”
“I saw God,” the four of them all said at the same time.
“What did you see?” they all asked the Atheist.
“I saw all of your Gods,” he said joyfully. “I saw the truth! Oh, can’t you all see it, now? It is clear as daylight to me.”
The four looked confused.
“Could you explain?” they asked.
“There is a reason why I saw all of the Gods you believe in, and there is a reason why you all only saw the Gods that you believe in,” began the Atheist. “You all four have beliefs. You had been conditioned by your religion to believe in your God. As of last night, I have found out that there is a divine stimulus. Let us say that this divine stimulus is God. You all four had, before last night, already interpreted this stimulus, and I had not. Last night, I know what we ate; we ate The Food of the Gods. We ate the divine stimulus, and therefore, God was brought forth before our very eyes. You all saw your own God because you had already interpreted that divine stimulus in your past; in other words, you all had the way mapped out for yourselves. I saw all of your Gods because I had never interpreted that divine stimulus; instead, you all interpreted that stimulus for me. Don’t you all see what this means? All Gods are the same thing! We all worship the same God, and we all worship the same religion! Religion is nothing more than a massive stimulus that harbors numerous interpretational potential. Some people interpret it this way, and some people interpret it that way.”
“But,” asked the Catholic quietly, “how do we know that what we saw last night was God? How do we know that it all wasn’t just a hallucination? After all, we did eat psychedelic mushrooms.”
The Atheist thought for some time.
Finally, he said, “You know, my friends, I think that I am finally beginning to understand that little thing that you all call Faith.”
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