Entheogens 1

Running Head: ENTHEOGENS: AN INVESTIGATION OF VALIDITY AND USAGE

Entheogens: An Investigation of Validity and Usage

Introduction
Since the 1960s and President Nixons declaration for a war against drugs, all drugs,
even those with spiritual and medicinal benefits, have been black-listed and criminalized. An
entheogen refers to a psychoactive chemical or botanical, typically a hallucinogen, which is used
for religious or spiritual effects and/or practiced in a shamanic context. A few of the entheogens
that will be discussed are: magic mushrooms composed of psilocybin, peyote with its key
ingredient mescaline, ayahuasca containing DMT molecules, salvia divinorum, and Lysergic
Acid Diethylamide (LSD). However, debate still continues over whether these substances are
capable of inducing genuine mystical experiences. This literature will examine how entheogens
produce religious experiences.
Historical Context of Entheogens
Despite entheogen-use being controversial, it has undeniably been continuing for
centuries around the world of the world, with evidence to prove it. A cave painting of a
mushroom-man dating back to 8000 BP in Tassili, Algeria is some of the first evidence of
entheogen usage, along with mushroom idols from the Konya plain in Europe. Similarly, other
European cave depictions from the Paleolithic era illustrate geometric patterns comparable to
phosphenes that are seen while under the influence of psychotropic drugs. Also, the use of sacred
mushrooms was recorded by the Mayans on mushroom stones as early as 1000 BCE,
proclaiming them to be visionary agents (King, 2012). Some scholars suggest that the ritual use
of entheogens in the upper Amazon goes back to 3000 BCE, while artifacts from indigenous
groups in Ecuador for ayahuasca from 2000 BCE have also been discovered (Krippner & Sulla,
2000).

Hinduisms soma in the use of Vedic sacrifices, the Zoroastrian haoma used in rituals, the
kykeon drink of the Ancient Greeks, and the wine of Dionysis the Liberator are just a few
historical and religious entheogen examples discussed by philosophers that convey the
importance and historical relevance of entheogens (Walsh, 2003). However, it was not until 1936
that Philippe de Felice became the first scholar to investigate the sacramental use of psychoactive
substances, claiming that the use of psychotropic substances is deeply embedded in human
culture, andit is intrinsically intertwined in a most basic human instinct- the search for
transcendence (Shanon, 2002). Thus, the use of such psychoactive drugs is more than just
rituals and rediscovered artifacts and is potentially at the roots of all religions.
Cultural and Religious Context:
Many of worlds societies are polyphasic, actively deriving their understanding of reality
from multiple states of consciousness, through various methods such as dreams, drugs,
meditation, yoga, and trance. Conversely, the West is mainly monophasic, deriving their view of
reality from the typical conscious wakened state (Walsh & Grob, 2005). Due to this vast contrast
in mindsets over how one can reach different levels of consciousness, the Western world,
specifically North America, scoffs at the notion of psychoactive substances being used for any
purposes, even religious.
For many religious groups, using entheogens to achieve spiritual insights is considered a
serious and official matter; for instance, the Tukano Indians of the Columbian northwest Amazon
consume an ayahuasca-based mixture known as caapi for specific ceremonies, like funerals,
diagnosis of serious ailments, and shamanic vision quests. Ayahuasca, on the other hand, is used
by tribes in the Amazon and in three Brazilian churches- Santo Daime, Uniao do Vegetal, and
Barquinha (Krippner & Sulla, 2000). The Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic scripture, is a collection of

hymns to Soma, a Hindu ritual drink. In these hymns, worshipers often praise the drink as a
divinity and mark its energizing qualities; Zoroastrian hymns to their homa beverage are
similarly praising (Shanon 2002). More recently in religion, in 1991, Charles Tart performed
multiple studies involving psychedelics, all of which occurred with an extremely low casualty
rate. In one of his studies, he found that a significant percentage of Western Tibetan Buddhism
students believed that psychedelics had done a large part to initiate their practice (Fadiman,
Grob, Bravo, Agar, & Walsh, 2003).
The validity of these religions, however, is debated by theologians, as some refer to those
entheogen-using groups as cults instead of sects; in more recent years, several scholars have
hypothesized that the use of entheogenic agents has been the source of more institutionally
established religions, including Christianity and Judaism (Shanon 2002). Despite the usage of
entheogens in other cultures to achieve spiritual enlightenment, North America continues to be
frightened by the power of the entheogens, thinking the consequent experiences are unnatural
and not equivalent to natural, spontaneous religious experiences.
Neural Functioning
Although the validity of entheogen-use is still disagreed upon for religious and spiritual
purposes, the biological responses that occur when one ingests a psychoactive substance are
mostly known, but not entirely understood. A spiritual experience is defined as the
superimposition upon ordinary sensations of a unique numinousmystical feeling facilitated by a
neurolimbic substrate (Jade, 2013). Research suggests that classic hallucinogens (LSD, DMT,
mescaline, and psilocybin) do their work in the brains cortical regions, where they can activate
5-HT2A receptors, which are widely distributed in the basal ganglia, cortex, and temporolimbic
structures, and are normally activated by serotonin (Jade, 2013). Some neuroscientists believe

there is already an existing hallucinogen receptor in the brain, designed for such substances
(Fontanilla, Johannessen, Hajipour, Cozzi, Jackson, & Ruoho, 2009). Others, such as
neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran, suggest that entheogens excite the temporal lobe, which
sends excited messages to the amygdala, the basis of where people derive their religious
experiences of emotional exaltation and overwhelming significance from, so-called the
God spot (King, 2012). While mescaline, ayahuasca, and LSD function this way as partial
agonists, salvia divinorum is not one and thus works differently; these two categories of drugs
need to be compared and evaluated to see if because different receptors are used, different
responses are created.
The Value of Entheogenic Experiences
Although entheogens continued to be used world-wide and have been for centuries, the
experiences people have vary greatly in the value. All spiritual and religious experiences share a
progressive increase of unity over diversity, a progressive sense of transcendence or
otherworldliness, progressive incorporation of an observing Self in the experience, and a
progressive increase of certainty in the objective existence of what was experienced in the state
(Krippner & Watts, 2006).
In a religious context, the importance the individual sees in their experience is completely
subjective, varies from person to person, and depends on ones mind set, environmental setting,
and drug dosage. This is the hard problem in consciousness research- that conscious qualia and
attributes of subjective experience are so qualitatively different from the processes of the
objective description that no brain processes can form an adequate explanation (King, 2012).
However, from a medicinal perspective, many entheogens have undeniable importance in
modern medicine. When used carefully and clinically, psychedelics are among the safest drugs in

the medical pharmacopoeia, contrary to the medias distorted perception, an after-effect of the
massive psychedelic increase in the U.S. from the 1960s and 1970s. Entheogens show promise
for diverse medical problems, such as in treating severe psychosomatic disorders, chronic
alcoholism, death anxiety in cancer patients, and post-traumatic stress disorder, including
Concentration Camp Syndrome; on the other hand, perfectly healthy people have shown
psychological and spiritual benefits as well. As shown through many studies, but specifically
those done by Rich Strassman in 1984, the clinical use of psychedelics results in no deaths and
extremely low morbidity. Strassman was able to conclude that in in well screened, prepared,
supervised, and followed-up psychiatric patients taking pure psychedelic drugs, the incidence of
serious adverse reactions is less than 1%. It is even lower in normal volunteers (Fadiman et al.,
2003).
William Richards takes the unique perspective that one must have a strong sense of
personal identity and ego strength before experimenting with other states of consciousness. He
claims that failure to have these two pieces are why many young people who try entheogens
report little significance from their experience or get into psychiatric trouble. According to him,
the mature, stable adults are who would benefit the most from exploring alternative states of
consciousness, since they have had more life experience and are more in-touch with themselves
(Richards, 2003).
In regards to the validity of entheogenic experiences, Stanislav Grof, an experienced
psychedelic researcher and creator of LSD, stated that
At the present after 30 years of discussion, the question of whether LSD and other
psychedelics can induce genuine spiritual experiences is still open. At the present
time, both research data and theory suggest an answer to this decades old
question. That answer is a very qualified yes. Yes, psychedelics can induce
genuine mystical experiences, but only sometimes, in some people, under some
circumstances.

There is a likely possibility that drug-induced mystical experiences are the same as some
spontaneous mystical experiences, adding to the entheogens validity in producing such
experiences (Walsh, 2003). Despite the evidence supporting entheogens as true sacraments and
religious insight tools, there is a strong expectation of what the experience should be like when
one is taking a psychoactive drug and thus placebo effects are likely (Walsh & Grob, 2005).
Despite the hype and expectations surrounding entheogens and psychedelics, many theologians
agree that there is at least some legitimacy to using these substances for religious insight and
self-understanding.
Conclusion
Therefore, it has been determined that classic entheogens function like hallucinogens in
the brain, through serotonin 2A receptors, to produce thoughts and feelings that are interpreted as
religious and mystical insight. However, the Western side of the world is much more hesitant to
accept entheogens that bring different states of consciousness, which prohibits religions from
practicing freely, people reaching self-actualization and the drugs being used for medical
reasons.
References
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Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 35(2), 111-126.
Fontanilla, D., Johannessen, M., Hajipour, A. R., Cozzi, N. V., Jackson, M. B., & Ruoho, A. E.
(2009). The hallucinogen N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is an endogenous sigma-1
receptor regulator. Science, 323(5916), 934-937.
Jade, R. (2013). Current Research on the Human Experience of Spirituality Following the
Ingestion of Magic Psilocybin Mushrooms: An Annotated Bibliography for Social

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