PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

P A R T I I I
A N T H R O P O L O G I C A L
C O N S I D E R A T I O N S
As one looks at the uses to which psychedelics are put among
the peoples of the world, the extent to which their use is associated
with religious practices is very striking. Although alcohol,
a depressant, is also used sacramentally, it is probably
not used for religious purposes in as many diverse cultures.
The high frequency with which red wine is the chosen alcoholic
sacrament raises the question of the extent to which
"the blood of the grape" is memorial of human or animal
sacrifice, rather than being used for its direct effects on consciousness.
Where psychedelics are involved in religious experience,
they are more frequently used as the direct carrier of the ex-
perience. The California Supreme Court specifically recog-
nized this characteristic of peyote when it struck down an
attempt by the state of California to prevent members of the
Native American Church from using peyote (Chayet, 1967).
Wasson and Wasson (1957) have argued that the idea of God
may have arisen from the accidental ingestion of mushrooms
with psychedelic properties. This hypothesis is strongly sup-
ported by the recent discovery that the fly agaric mushroom
may have been the legendary soma of the founders of Hin-
duism (Wasson, 1969). The role of psychedelics and other
hallucinatory plant material in gaining religious experience
and the psychic abilities necessary to carry out the functions
of a medicine man is beautifully set forth by Castaneda
(1968) as his experiences with a Yaqui diablero.
The first paper in this section, Osmond's "Peyote Night,"
is a reprint of an account of a peyote ceremony of the Native
American Church. His participation in the sacrament and
ritual changes him from an outside observer to an inside ob-
server, and his observations develop an impassioned clarity.