Robert Forte - Entheogens and the Future of Religion

To all our relations

Let it be known
there is a fountain
that was not made
by the hands of man.

HUNTER/GARCIA

ENTHEOGENS and the FUTURE of RELIGION

This book provides a balanced, thoroughly researched, and clear account about a topic that has fascinated people for centurieseven millenniaand will be with us, one way or another, for a long time to come.

HARVEY COX, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND AUTHOR OF THE FUTURE OF FAITH

This book of essays plows new ground in the relationship between entheogens and religion. It is well worth reading. Any path that can bring the human family closer together should be investigated.

REV. DR. KENNETH B. SMITH, PRESIDENT OF THE CHICAGO THEOLOGY SEMINARY

An important book for anyone who cares about the future of the human race. The sensible use of entheogens is one of most promising paths to deep spiritual insight for many people, and this book shows how that could be doneif we care enough.

CHARLES T. TART, PH.D., PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

We have long needed this well-articulated, thoughtful, and rational basis for understanding the power of psychedelic biomechanicals to stimulate visionary experience. These essays make a strong case for the use of these substances in future religious practice.

FRANK BARRON, PH.D., SC.D., AUTHOR OF NO ROOTLESS FLOWER: AN ECOLOGY OF CREATIVITY

If you want more than emotional and subjective outpourings about entheogens, and if you think like I do that unless we expand our awareness we will not have a happy future, then this is a book to read.

RABBI ZALMAN M. SCHACHTER-SHALOMI, AUTHOR OF FROM AGE-ING TO SAGE-ING

Offers a thoughtful, sane examination of a topic of great social, psychological, and religious significance.

ROGER WALSH, M.D., PH.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Essential reading for everyone concerned with spiritual, psychological, and social well-being. A fascinating and significant collection.

FRANCES VAUGHAN, PH.D., AUTHOR OF SHADOWS OF THE SACRED AND THE INWARD ARC

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS COLLECTION GREW out of a symposium in Big Sur, California, that was inspired and supported by many folks, especially Stuart Abelson, Mircea Eliade, Stan and Christina Grof, and Dick Price. Many dear friends, guides, and inspiring (and patient) teachers appeared along the way to the books final form. Frank Barron and Claudio Naranjo watched the entire process unfold and I hope are pleased with the result. Jan Krinsley, Kelly Simmons, and Peter Stafford helped in the early preparation of the manuscript. Bob Wallace and Bob Jesse played key roles in bringing it all together and to you. Thanks for loving and critical support to Michael Abbott, Greg Bogart, Brooks Cole, Clark Heinrich, Minh-Hang Nguyen, and Dale Pendell. Thank you Nina Graboi, beloved psychedelic godmother. Thank you Jaime. And thank you Timothy, wherever you are. A by-no-means-final debt of gratitude is owed to the worldwide entheogen communitythose who keep the flame burning, sometimes at great peril and personal sacrifice.

FIAT LUX

ROBERT FORTE,
EDITOR

For this is the very problem that is obsessing me: although I see man crushed, asphyxiated, diminished by industrial civilization, I cant believe that he will degenerate, decline morally, and finally perish, completely sterile. I have a limitless confidence in the creative power of the human mind. It seems to me that man will succeedif he wishesin remaining free and creative, in any circumstance, cosmic or historical.

But how can the miracle be brought about? How can the sacramental dimension of existence be rediscovered? At this point, so much can be said: all the things that have existed we have not definitively lost; we find them again in our dreams and our longings. And the poets have kept them. This is to say nothing of the religious life, because the authenticity and depth of the religious life among my contemporaries seems to me a most mysterious problem. There must be a way out. Aldous Huxley proposes mescaline.... There would be a great deal to say on that score.

MIRCEA ELIADE, NO SOUVENIRS, 1977

I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the future preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic Theologians call a gratuitous grace, not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Largethis is an experience of inestimable value to anyone....

ALDOUS HUXLEY, THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, 1954

FOREWORD TO THE NEW EDITION

Robert Jesse

THE WORD RELIGION invites us to consider phenomena that arise and unfold over generations and centuries. Against this enduring backdrop, only a short space of time has elapsed since Entheogens and the Future of Religion first appeared in 1997. Subsequent to its initial publication, travelers along entheogenic paths have passed several milestones. I will summarize some of them here, focusing on the classical hallucinogens, such as psilocybin mushrooms or the peyote cactus, used to facilitate experiences of non-dual or unity consciousness.

SCIENCE

At the Johns Hopkins University, a team of investigators (of whom I am one) have conducted controlled experiments with psilocybin and healthy volunteers (instead of patients seeking medical or psychiatric treatment). The findings, published in 2006, 2008, and 2011, People who had such experiences in the research setting more often than not attributed great significance to them, ranking them among the top experiences of their lives. Additionally, most of these individuals reported positive changes in mood, outlook, and behavior, which friends and family members tended to corroborate.

Concurrently, research in positive psychology and behavioral economics has enhanced our understanding of traits and behavior patterns such as happiness and cooperation. These threads of inquiry are intertwining in another psilocybin study now underway at Johns Hopkins, which is looking at the outcomes of psilocybin sessions in combination with other spiritual practices.

Several institutions are following yet another line of research: examining the potential value of entheogen-induced transformative experiences in helping to relieve psychological distress in patients with life-threatening illnesses. The investigators are reporting that some of these patients have found the experiences to be enormously helpful.

LAW

Over the course of a century, U.S. law has come to accommodate one racial group practicing one religion using one forbidden substance, namely, the Native American use of peyote. Until recently no such accommodation has been made for other religious groups using any other entheogen on the federal list of controlled substances. That changed with a civil suit brought in federal court by the U.S. branch of a Brazilian religion, the Unio do Vegetal (UdV), under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. The churchs caseinvolving the use of ayahuasca, a plant mixture originating in Amazonia and containing DMT and other active chemicalsrose to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2006 issued an 80 ruling mostly favorable to the church. Further laborious negotiations with the government have settled the conditions under which the UdV is now allowed to import and use its sacrament.