A new study says that consuming more than  330 milligrams of caffeine a day can lead to hallucinations. Oh, so those wingnut conspiracy theories are just the result of drinking lots of Mountain Dew? I feel so much better now.

 The amount needed experience otherworldly sensations–which may be linked to the release of cortisol caused by high caffeine intake–is 330 milligrams, which you can find in a grande medium cup of Starbucks drip. Or by slamming 4 cans of Red Bull. 

Conducted by researchers at Durham University and published in Personality and Individual Differences, the study:

offers some support for our first hypothesis, namely that when levels of stress are accounted for, caffeine intake is positively related to levels of psychosis-like experiences.

The study’s authors, Dr. Charles Fernyhough and Simon Jones, pointed out it was not clear if the caffeine had caused the hallucinations: It may just be that people under stress and more susceptible to hallucinations are also more likely to consume high levels of caffeine.

The media has run with the hallucinations angle, claiming that  drinking lots of coffee and tea can make you see dead people, though I’m more inclined to think caffeine is at the root of Ann Coulter’s hyper animated inanity.

 But in African Tradition Religions like santeria, espiritu, voodoo and the all-American hoodoo which is sorta the jazz of religions–it incorporates a variety of folk beliefs and magic from various Western African tribes, Catholicism, Native American beliefs and European folk and high magic–coffee is left on altars to honor one’s ancestors. So uh, maybe there’s something to this "dead people" thing after all.