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Ex-Mormons Are Running a Magic Mushroom Church

As he set up for Sunday services in a dank basement lined with velvet seating and glow-in-the-dark blue tables, Steve Urquhart, founder of the Divine Assembly, tried hard not to think about the swingers’ party that took place in the space the previous night. 

“They have a lot of fun. I think it’s a rowdy crowd,” Urquhart, 57, a former Republican state senator and ex-Mormon, told VICE News with a mischievous smile, looking a bit like a lumberjack with his white beard and red flannel shirt.

On Saturday nights, the New Yorker Club has “lifestyle” parties. By Sunday morning, a few upside down pineapples (the bat signal for swingers), sticky floors, one suspiciously damp spot on a couch, and tasteful nudes on the walls remained as the Divine Assembly took over the venue. Urquhart and his wife Sara founded the church three years ago, and while the idea of congregating in a club where people likely have sex may sound counterintuitive, this group is used to bucking norms. Their sacrament, which they use to commune directly with the “divine” (which could mean god, the universe, or even family members depending on the person), is psychedelic mushrooms. 

“We have one tenet, which is you, each individual, can commune with the divine and out of that direct communion, you can receive guidance,” Urquhart explained. “You don’t need any kind of intermediary, you don’t need me, you don’t need anyone.”

But no one gets high at church. Instead, congregants participate in a range of workshops and activities that include an ice bath, a meditation room with flashing lights, and a shroom growing course called “shroomiversity.” 

The Divine Assembly is one of a growing number of churches in the U.S. whose followers worship using psychedelics like shrooms, ayahuasca, peyote, and bufo (psychoactive toad venom). VICE News has identified at least 19 psychedelic churches, though more likely exist underground and will continue to pop up as these drugs become more mainstream and legal in some cities and states. The churches operate in different ways; some have formal spaces, while others rent out venues or offer monthly retreats. Some charge membership fees and provide members with drugs—others, like the Divine Assembly, don’t. All the churches believe they’re protected under freedom of religion, although few have legal exemptions to use drugs, leaving church leaders and members responsible for defending themselves, should they ever be arrested. 

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Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic

THE U.S. ARMY Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets, has a serious problem with substance abuse and fatal drug overdoses. The same is true of the Army’s two most important infantry divisions: the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division.

That’s the takeaway of data released by the Pentagon this week to a group of five U.S. senators, led by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey. Markey, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and others grew concerned about rising drug use in the military after reading a report in the September issue of Rolling Stone that at least 14 and as many as 30 American soldiers had died in 2020 and 2021 of overdoses at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fort Bragg is the headquarters of the Special Forces, as well as the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command, the “black ops” component of the military.

The senators wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in late September requesting detailed statistics, going back five years, on accidental overdoses in the ranks. “We share your concern that drug overdose is a serious problem,” the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness wrote in response this week. “We must work to do better.”

A total of 15,293 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines overdosed on illicit drugs from 2017 to 2022, according to a compendium of data and analysis enclosed with the letter. Of those, 332 cases were fatal.

Consistent with Rolling Stone’s recent reporting, the data showed a rising long-term trend, followed by a sharp spike in overdose deaths among active-duty military men in 2020 and 2021. Fentanyl was by far the biggest killer, accounting for more than half of the casualties. “The number of OD deaths involving fentanyl has more than doubled over the past five years,” the Pentagon disclosed.

“With hundreds of fatal overdoses reported on U.S. military bases in recent years,” Markey writes in a statement to Rolling Stone, “the toll is mounting. We can and must curb this tragic trend.”

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Boy who survived 18 days in flooded Thai cave five years ago and died in Britain aged 17 after winning football academy scholarship had been found unconscious on the floor of his UK dormitory

The mystery of Thai cave rescue survivor Duangphet Promthep’s death deepened last night after it emerged he was found unconscious on the floor of his dormitory in the UK.

The 17-year-old nicknamed ‘Dom’, former captain of the Wild Boars football team, rescued in 2018 from the flooded Tham Luang cave system in northern Thailand by British divers, was reported to have suffered a ‘head injury’.

At the time of his death, Dom was studying at Brooke House College in Market Harborough, Leicestershire. 

Kiatisuk Senamuang, former Thai national football team coach and chairman of the Zico Foundation which sponsored the gifted young footballer, described himself as ‘shocked and stunned’ at the news of the young man’s sudden death.

He said Promthep was found laid down unconscious on the ground in his room in the academy’s dormitory and was immediately taken to hospital.

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Ohio Residents Bear Witness to Environmental Disaster Cover-Up

Residents of the Ohio town of East Palestine say authorities have kept them in the dark about the risks of a chemical spill on a nearby railway line, while they suffer unexplained health problems and witness wildlife dying out.

Two residents of the US state of Ohio have born witness to the government cover-up of an unfolding environmental disaster.

A train hauling tanks of the flammable, cancer-causing chemical Vinyl Chloride derailed near the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, on Friday February 3, causing an explosion that created a huge black mushroom cloud over the area.

Firefighters later conducted a controlled burn of the remaining chemicals, releasing tons of acidic hydrogen chloride and phosgene — an extremely toxic, heavier-than-air gas used as a chemical weapon in the First World War — into the environment.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials evacuated some residents from the area on the Pennsylvania border, between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The agency later told them to return home, claiming there was no long-lasting or dangerous contamination.

But locals say the spill has left hundreds of wild animals dead around the town.

Authorities have been reticent to answer questions about the accident. Journalist Evan Lambert was even wrestled to the ground and handcuffed at a press conference with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

“The governmental regulators are saying everything’s fine, guys just go home,” Misty Winston, a political activist, told Sputnik. “And that’s absurd.”

“The chemicals that were in these railcars are no joke,” she stressed, pointing out that vinyl chloride, used to make PVC, boils at eight degrees Fahrenheit (-13 Celsius) and that hydrogen chloride combines with water — including vapour in the atmosphere — to form hydrochloric acid.

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These Five Lawmakers Received Over $50,000 From Railroad PACs Last Year

Atrain carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3, leading to the evacuation of about 5,000 people.

Rescue workers blew holes in five railway cars carrying vinyl chloride, a potentially dangerous gas, allowing it to be destroyed via controlled burning.

The crash sparked a renewed interest in lobbying and campaign donations from railway-associated political action committees (PACs). It has emerged that the Trump administration rescinded a safety rule in 2017 following pressure from the industry. Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior figure at the Federal Railroad Administration, told investigative news outlet The Lever that this could have increased the “severity” of the accident.

PACs and individuals associated with the rail industry donated $3,190,763 in total to political candidates in 2021-22. This data comes from OpenSecrets, a non-profit organization that tracks the impact of money on American politics. Of this total, $1,764,695 was given to Republican candidates, $1,408,068 to their Democratic rivals.

OpenSecrets identified 16 railway-related PACs that had been donating to candidates, of which three gave at least $500,000 in total. These were the Union Pacific Corp, Norfolk Southern and BNSF Railway.

Newsweek has gone through the OpenSecrets data to list the five members of Congress who received more than $20,000 from railway-related PACs and individuals, during 2021-22. The analysis is based on statistics from the Federal Election Commission, which recorded all campaign donations of $200 or more.

There is no suggestion that any of these lawmakers behaved improperly, either in receiving or recording these campaign donations.

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Democratic Rep Suggests Traditional Families Are ‘Un-American’

Democratic South Dakota state Rep. Erin Healy suggested that idealizing the traditional two-parent married household is “dangerous” and “un-American” in a Monday tweet.

Healy was rebuking Family Heritage Alliance’s claim that a home with a married mother and father was the safest place for a child. Critics came to the group’s defense, with some pointing to data supporting the claim that married biological parents are the safest adults for children to live with.

“Extremist group Family Heritage Alliance said this morning that the safest place for kids are in families that have a married mom and dad. What a dangerous and un-American belief,” Healy wrote. It’s unclear what specific comments Healy was referring to, as her office and Family Heritage Alliance did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Children living with their married biological parents experience the lowest rates of maltreatment, according to a 2010 study by the Department of Health and Human Services. Children whose single parent had a live-in partner saw more than 10 times the rate of abuse and nearly eight times the rate of neglect compared to children living with their married biological parents. 

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Climate change activist goes rogue releasing ‘mini volcanoes’ to cool atmosphere

AMexico-based startup will next week launch sulphur particles into the stratosphere in a “rogue” move to create a “mini-volcano” effect it says could help cool the planet. 

The technique, known as stratospheric aerosol injection, mimics the impact of volcanoes by using a weather balloon to release sulphur, creating a cloud of particles that reflect the sun’s rays and have a cooling impact. 

It is one of several geoengineering techniques being studied as a way to cool the planet to avoid breaching internationally agreed limits on global warming. 

The amount of particles that start-up Make Sunsets plans to release in coming days, up to 2kg, will make a minimal difference to overall warming. 

But experts in geoengineering say the launches set a dangerous precedent for private companies or governments to interfere with the planet’s atmosphere. 

The company is backed by two venture capital funds, and is selling “cooling credits” to the public for $15 (£12), which it says pays for 1g of sulphur, expected to produce enough cooling to offset a ton of carbon emissions for a year. 

It released a first balloon in December in Mexico, but will next week launch from California, after the Mexican government released a statement criticising the first effort. 

Co-founder Luke Isemans said the potential risks of what he is doing are outweighed by the known threat of climate change. 

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Covid Emergency, Climate Emergency: Same Thing

In February 2022, 1,140 organizations sent President Biden a letter urging him to declare a “climate emergency.” A group of US Senators did the same, in October 2022, and a House bill, introduced in 2021, also called on the president to “declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act.”

Biden has considered declaring such an emergency, but so far he has declined, to the disappointment of many progressives.

The United Nations (UN) has urged all countries to declare a climate emergency. The state of Hawaii and 170 local US jurisdictions have declared some version of one. So have 38 countries, including European Union members and the UK, and local jurisdictions around the world, together encompassing about 13 percent of the world’s population.

Hillary Clinton was reportedly prepared to declare a “climate emergency” if she had won the 2016 election.

A “climate emergency” is in the zeitgeist. Those words were surely uttered by the billionaires, technocrats and corporate CEOs attending the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos.

But what does it actually mean for the president of the US to officially declare a “climate emergency?”

Most people don’t realize that under US law, a national emergency declaration triggers a set of emergency powers that allows a president to act without the need for further legislation.

The Brennan Center for Justice compiled a list of the 123 statutory powers that may become available to the president upon declaration of a national emergency (plus 13 that become available when Congress declares a national emergency).

The scope of these powers is difficult to summarize, except to say that if exercised to their maximum extent, they potentially encompass vast areas of American life.

For civil libertarians across the political spectrum, from left to right, a “climate emergency” should be a focus of concern.

Even environmentalists who may instinctively and understandably support the idea should be worried about the potential for the authoritarian model of “emergency” governance that arose during COVID-19 to overtake climate policy.

One can believe in protecting and preserving the planet, as I do, while insisting on environmental policies that are consistent with democracy, civil liberties, and human rights.

Elements of the left and right should be coming together to reject demands that we sacrifice democratic norms, rights, and freedoms for flimsy promises of safety from political and economic elites who seek to exploit a crisis — a cynical ploy that COVID-19 thoroughly exposed.

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Pilots Say Lake Huron ‘Octagonal’ Object is ‘Not Balloon’ in Just-Released Cockpit Audio

Cockpit audio of pilots trying to figure out what the unidentified object over Lake Huron has been released.

The audio was authenticated by the US Airforce.

The US military decommissioned another “object” over Lake Huron on Sunday.

The Pentagon said the ‘octagon-shaped’ object shot down on Sunday likely fell into Canadian waters on Lake Huron.

No debris has been recovered.

“I wouldn’t really call it a balloon… I don’t know what… I can see it outside with my eyes,” one pilot said. “It’s so slow and so small you can’t see it.”

“It’s just some kind of dark object. You can see some strings or something hanging down below it. I can’t tell if it’s holding anything,” the pilot said.

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The more covid injection doses the higher the risk of hospitalisation and death

Data from New South Wales, Australia, shows a clear correlation between the number of doses a person is injected with, and a higher incidence of hospitalisation and death.  You can explore the data for New South Wales for yourself HERE.

As Dr. Paul Alexander noted, “wherever there have been elevated covid vaccine rates, there are elevated excess infections and deaths. Period! The data is stable.”  He went on:

Globally, especially in US and Canada and the UK and Australia and New Zealand etc., our governments have engaged in the most widespread and devastating cover-up, one that has left us vulnerable and where many of us will die from these shots. They harmed us by censoring us and we were unable to get the message out to more people. We went and mandated our precious police and military and border agents and key people in society, our judges and nurses etc. And I confess, I admit that many will die in time. I am so saddened by this and we are trying to at the least inform the public to not touch this deadly injection. No more!Devastating Australian NSW data showing the quadrupled COVID mRNA vaccinated (4 shots) have massive spikes in hospitalization & death! Dr. Paul Alexander, 12 February 2023

Independently, Joel Smalley has noted the same in the UK. In a short study, Smalley aggregated excess death in each of the 300+ lower-tier local authorities – LTLA administrative areas of England.  Smalley found there are four distinct periods or waves of excess death in England.

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