September 4, 1967, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Poets Daryll Allen Levy (d. a. levy) and Kent Taylor gave been named as area leaders here of a national "religious" organization that believes in psychedelic warfare and political assassinations to future its movement.

The charges was made by Dr. James L. Goddard, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in testimony in Washington before the House subcommittee probing the federal effort against organized crime.

Goddard testified June 27, but his testimony was not released to the public until yesterday by the House Committee on Government Operations.

GODDARD named the religious organization as the Neo-American Church. Its clergy are called "boo hoos."

Levy was called the boo hoo of Cleveland, primate of Ohio. His official address was listed as the Asphodel Book Shop. Taylor was named the boo hoo of Lakewood.

Goddard, quoting from a church publication, said the group believes in psychedelic assassinations of politicians and putting LSD in city water if the group is suppressed.

NAMED as top man in the group was Arthur Kleps, whose titles included Patriarch of the East and Chief Boo Hoo of the Neo-American Church, Morning Glory Lodge, Cranberry Lake, N.Y.

Levy and Taylor were listed among 23 boo hoos leading congregations from New York to California, and from Ohio to Florida.

According to the rules of the church, a boo hoo must have a congregation and maintain a lodge to which members may come for "sacramental experience," Goddard said.

"The Neo-American Church purports to be a religious organization which utilizes psychedelic substances as sacraments," according to Goddard’s statement. "It maintains that psychedelic substances are sacraments. That is, divine substances, no matter who uses them or for what reason they are used."

TWO OTHER churches using psychedelic substances were named by Goddard. They are the Native American Church (which uses peyote, psychedelic drug, in religious rites) and the Church of the Awakening.

The Neo-American Church considers itself to be to the left of the other two churches. It does not employ set rituals. Rituals, prayer form and religious music are left entirely up to the invention and inspiration of the local boo hoo and his congregation, Goddard stated.

The church group has a "supersecrete, highly trained defensive arm" called SPIN (Society for the Prevention of Injustice to Neo-Americans) whose job it is to do away with police informers, Goddard’s statement added.

GODDARD quoted from the church’s own definition of SPIN as being "made up entirely of young men of fanatical and paranoid dispositions" and serves to insure a supply of the "true host" to members "held by the enemy and to carry out special assignments designed to prevent further persecution of our religion."

The church attempts "to make a special effort to reach young people, poor people and criminals," Goddard added.

Goddard quoted from a document that said that if the group is suppressed, it could fight back with psychedelic weapons such as "clouds of dust sprayed over cities and LSD in the water supply."

"PSYCHEDELIC ‘assassinations,’ perhaps with a spray of DMSO and LSD, could be carried out against those politicians or military figures responsible for overthrowing the Bill of Rights (depriving religious liberty by banning LSD)."

Potential members of the church have to sign an application blank agreeing that:

• "Everyone has the right to expand his consciousness and stimulate visionary experience by whatever means he considers desirable and proper without interference from anyone."
• "The psychedelic substances, such as LSD, are the True Host of the Church, not ‘drugs.’ They are sacramental foods, manifestations of ‘the Grace of God,’ of the infinite imagination of the Self, and therefor belong to everyone."

GODDARD’S testimony on the Neo-American Church came while he was explaining his department’s role in cracking down on drug abuse. He said for boo hoos have been charged with illegally selling hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. Although users of LSD are exempt from prosecution, selling or possessing for sale of such drugs is illegal.

George J. Moscarino, an assistant county prosecutor, said yesterday the Neo-American Church in Cleveland is a dying group.

Moscarino has been attacked in hippie publications here as the prosecutor in a case against Levy.

LEVY WAS indicted by the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury in November on charges of publishing and dispersing obscene literature. In March he was charged on five counts of contribution to the delinquency of two minors at a poetry reading. Both charges are still pending.

Levy’s address given by Goddard as the Asphodel Book Store, 306 Superior Avenue N.W., is operated by James R. Lowell, who faces two charges of selling obscene literature.

Taylor, an Ohio Weleyan graduate, has no police record. His address was listed merely as "Lakewood."

MOSCARINO said there us a third known boo hoo in the area. Police sources said the third man currently faces charges of contributing o the delinquency of a minor.

Moscarino said the group believed to be small and declining, but remains vocal.