fully formed, serious, and culturally revolutionary in intent. Kleps testified that the absurdist elements of the Church were intended to show that all religions are invented and silly. 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; the Neo-American Church hoped to gain the same right, by analogy. 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 as he could find no evidence of "a religious discipline, a ritual, or tenets to guide one's daily existence" 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" 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." 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. (Regardless of the merits of the religion, the judge in any case found substantial state interest in denying the exemption.) Later years 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 substances 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 (solipsistic nihilism)". Notes References Further reading External links Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church website Text of United States of America v. Judith H. Kuch Complete text of Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism by Arthur Kleps New religious movements Religious parodies and satires 1965 establishments in the United States Religious organizations established in 1965 Psychedelics and religion Religious belief systems founded in