Psychedelic Agents and Mysticism

Abstract

• Mushrooms often complement a fine steak dinner but John M. Allegro in his recently published book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross,' has served up mushrooms in a rare combination. It is his contention that Judaism and Christianity developed out of pre-existing fertility cults in which worship of the mushroom Amanita muscaria was practiced. Whether or not his claim that there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth (for He was just a mushroom), is validly supported by the evidence, is not the issue of this paper. Rather what is here being considered is the use of psychedelic agents such as Amanita muscaria, Peyote, LSD, for the purpose of producing an alteration of the state of consciousness which some have termed mystica', or religious experience. Granted that many droppers of and blowers of weed do so for nonreligious reasons, there are some who do seek a transcendental experience from the drug. It should be recalled that the modern psychedelic drug user in search of God has a long line of predecessors. And it has been suggested that man's very notion of a deity may have arisen from his experience with hallucinatory substances.' According to Schulte, the Harvard botanist, there are some sixty known plant species which are used by primitive and advanced peoples as sources of intoxicants. Among the identified chemical substances, the principal psychoactive compounds are listed in Table I along with the botanical family in which they are found. To this list could be added some synthetic hallucinogens such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and 2, 5-dimethoxy-4methylamphetamine (DOM, STP). There is obviously no shortage of available chemical substances that will give a person the experi-