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Ayahuasca
Published in Mahendra Rai, Shandesh Bhattarai, Chistiane M. Feitosa, Wild Plants, 2020
Raquel Consul, Flávia Lucas, Maria Graça Campos
The “entheogen” concept was proposed by ethnologists Gordon Wasson, Karl Ruck, and Schultes in 1978 to characterize and encompass the complexity of the psychophysiological effects which invoking plants of divine entities can provide. It is not a theological or pharmacological term, but a cultural one, which means “internalizing God”. This would be impossible to express through the term “hallucinogenic”, as much by its negative connotation as by its limiting character, dispensable in the ethnopharmacobotanical understanding of a shamanic ritual (Camargo 2014).
Introduction: Why Herbs?
Published in Ethan Russo, Handbook of Psychotropic Herbs, 2015
The narrative will pertain generally to commercially available herbs employed in the treatment of psychiatric conditions. Thus, agents whose usage is primarily recreational or visionary, or those termed hallucinogenic, psychedelic, or entheogenic (becoming divine within), will not be covered, with the exception of cannabis. The interested reader is referred to several excellent reviews (Ott, 1996; Schultes, 1988; Schultes and Hofmann, 1980, 1992; Schuhes and Raffauf, 1990; Schultes et al., 1992; Schultes and Smith, 1976).
Plant-Derived Compounds as New Therapeutics for Substance Use Disorders
Published in Namrita Lall, Medicinal Plants for Cosmetics, Health and Diseases, 2022
Kevin S. Murnane, Mary Frances Vest
The term psychedelic has come to be associated with a broad class of drugs with diverse chemical, pharmacological and psychoactive effects. These compounds have also been described as hallucinogens, entheogens, psychotomimetics and other appellations to denote specific concepts related to these drugs. Hallucinations are an obvious and profound drug effect that can be produced by these drugs; however, these effects are not reliably produced at typical doses, thus causing the term hallucinogen to fall out of favor among scientists (Nichols, 2016). Psychedelics have been used by humans in traditional indigenous rituals for thousands of years (Meyer and Quenzer, 2005). Prototypical psychedelics are representatives of a specific subclass which includes psilocybin, a tryptamine found in several genera of mushrooms; lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ergotamine originally derived from ergot fungi; and mescaline, a phenethylamine found in peyote and other cacti (Hofmann, 1970; Shulgin and Shulgin, 1991; Stamets, 1996). Mescaline derived from the peyote cactus was incorporated into the indigenous religious ceremonies of the native people of North America. Likewise, a brew of the Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce ex Griseb.) C.V.Morton vine and the Psychotria viridis Ruiz & Pav. shrub called ayahuasca was incorporated into the indigenous religious ceremonies of the native people of South America (Carhart-Harris and Goodwin, 2017). Various analogs of these compounds have been synthesized and tested for bioactivity; however, for the focus of this chapter, the discussion will be largely limited to plant-derived psychedelics (Nichols et al., 2015; Shulgin and Shulgin, 1991, 1997; Shulgin et al., 2011).
Finding the divine within: exploring the role of the sacred in psychedelic integration therapy for sexual trauma and dysfunction
Published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2022
Sex therapists and other practitioners who work with clients with sexual trauma or dysfunction may find that clients struggle to think about spirituality as a facet of sexual healing. In my clinical experience, this difficulty is enhanced for clients who grew up in repressive, patriarchal, or sex-negative religious communities. Additionally, Ogden (2013) describes the destructive impact on sex therapy clients of “religions that effectively excommunicate all personal connection with spirit.” Healing practices with entheogenic plants present a direct contrast to this corporate view of spirituality. The term entheogen, after all, means “creating the divine within.” A hallmark of experiential healing with psychedelic plant medicines is that of mystical experiences and union with the divine, inseparable from the self. Psychedelic integration work that addresses sexual trauma and subsequent dysfunction must create space for survivors to challenge negative self-referencing beliefs about their purity, wholeness, loveability, and value by supporting and nurturing this felt sense of connection to the divine.
Spiritual Benefit from Cannabis
Published in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2022
Frederick J. Heide, Tai Chang, Natalie Porter, Eric Edelson, Joseph C. Walloch
Mind-altering plants and spirituality are deeply intertwined in human experience. For thousands of years, peoples worldwide have ceremonially employed hundreds of sacred plants to heal, commune with the Divine, and reaffirm cultural understandings (Rätsch 2005; Schultes, Hofmann, and Rätsch 2001; Smith 2003). Such plants are used in virtually all aboriginal cultures, which consider them to be gifts of the gods or gods themselves (Schultes, Hofmann, and Rätsch 2001). Indeed, the association between spirituality and psychedelics (whether in plants or derived synthetically) is so strong that many experts have adopted the term entheogen (“that which causes God to be within an individual”) as an alternative to psychedelic (“mind-manifesting”) as a label for these substances (Roberts 2014).
A Gratuitous Grace: The Influence of Religious Set and Intent on the Psychedelic Experience
Published in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2018
Logan Neitzke-Spruill, Carol Glasser
Entheogen, a term for psychedelics when they are used for spiritual purposes, means “that which causes god to be within an individual” (Miller 2015, 4). It is hypothesized that some of today’s major religions, such as Christianity and Hinduism, originate from the use of psychedelic drugs. Some of the earliest evidence of this stems from the ancient Hindu texts known as Vedas (Miller 2015). Within these texts, there are references to mystical experiences prompted by a substance called Soma, which some have concluded to be the famous mushroom, amanita muscaria. Similarly, based on his translations of ancient Sumerian texts, John Marco Allegro (1973) attributed the origins of Christianity to the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Likewise, Benny Shanon (2008) hypothesized that certain biblical events were the result of encounters with entheogenic plants native to the Holy Land and the Sinai Peninsula (i.e., the acacia tree), which contain psychoactive compounds similar to those found in ayahuasca.