Entheogens and the Future of Religion

This is a new edition of a classic book first published in 1997 by the Council on Spiritual Practices. It consists of thirteen chapters exploring the importance of psychedelic plants and drugs in religion and society. Mircea Eliade wrote in 1977 about the need to recover the sacramental dimension of existence if human beings are to remain free and creative, rather than being ‘crushed, asphyxiated, diminished by industrial civilisation.’ He agreed with Aldous Huxley that psychedelics might be a possible avenue, which is indeed proving to be the case as hallucinogens such as psilocybin can facilitate mystical breakthroughs that also play a key role in therapeutic transformation. Interestingly, the word entheogen dates back only to 1979 as a way of denoting the spiritual significance of such substances.

The volume is contextualised by a testimony from the Council and Spiritual Practices, and there are contributions on the need for a new vocabulary, biomedical research with psychedelics, psychedelic experience and spiritual practice, academic and religious freedom in the study of the mind, and legal matters relating to entheogens. There is a profound contribution on spirituality as unconditional belonging by Brother David Steindl-Rast whereby mystical awareness represents a sense of ultimate belonging and God is the very centre of our belonging. Two essays by Albert Hofmann discuss the message of the Eleusinian mysteries for today’s world, and natural science and the mystical worldview. He sees a main consequence of the materialistic worldview as the loss of connection with the spiritual, divine ground of all being: ‘Unprotected, without shelter, and alone with oneself, the human individual confronts in solitude a soulless, chaotic, materialistic and menacing universe.’ (p. 47)

Eleusis-like centres, he believes, ‘could unite and strengthen the many spiritual currents of our time all of which have the same goal: the goal of creating, by transforming consciousness and individual people, the conditions for a better world, a world without war and without environmental damage, a world of happy people.’ (p. 52) He sees natural science and mysticism as complementary, relating to outer and inner domains. An objective view presupposes a conscious splitting into subject and object, but we must remember that the scientific view is one-sided and, as he already observed above, entails the spiritual damage of nihilism. Hofmann develops a sender-receiver model of reality whereby we each carry within us our personally created image of reality. Herein lies our dignity, freedom and responsibility; and we are capable of experiencing true reality in the moment as both receivers and senders.