Taking a trip
Are psychedelics escapist drugs or healing medicines? Pseudo-religious cults or embedded religious groups? Yes.
Psychedelic drugs are having a bit of a moment. Michael Pollan has written best-selling books and produced popular documentaries. Researchers are conducting studies on how psychedelics can be used to treat PTSD. And states like Oregon and Colorado have both legalized the use of some psychedelic drugs in vaguely defined “therapeutic” settings.
But all of this psychedelic momentum has not been without its critics. Some are concerned about psychedelics’ potential to permanently destabilize people. Others claim psychedelics are yet another individualist intervention to help us cope with broken systems. And still others question the disembedding of psychedelic use from their deeply relational, historical Indigenous contexts.
We don’t know how to answer any of these questions. So this week, we’re taking a trip to explore a range of reads — some critical, some less so — on the intersection of psychedelics, religion, and community:
On Psychedelics’ Religious Qualities: Are psychedelics a “sacred” technology possessing religious qualities, or are they just another drug to help us cope (or escape)?
On Psychedelic “Churches”: Are so-called psychedelic “churches” religious groups, healing retreats, or drug-dealing businesses?
On Indigenous Traditions: How can Western psychedelic research and practice fully represent Indigenous healing traditions?
On Santo Daime: What does it look like to integrate psychedelic use into the very fabric of religious practices?
If you’re comfortable sharing and have experience with psychedelics, we’re curious to hear about your experience. Can it be a pathway to deeper spiritual and human connection, as its proponents say? Another drug to help people cope with or escape reality? Something else entirely?
We recognize that this week’s newsletter is a bit more out there than usual! So, as always, we appreciate your feedback on what’s working and what we can do better.
- Sam + Eric
The Reads
COMPACT Magazine - “The Pseudo-Religion of Psychedelics” by Travis Kitchens (Dec. 2023)
“An experience of transcendence instantly occasioned by a drug but leading to no systemic change isn’t revolutionary. It is instead a powerful tool for the captains of industry who need a never-ending supply of laborers just happy enough to show up and clock in.”
Religious participation may have declined in the U.S., but Americans’ quest for spiritual transcendence certainly has not. In this piece, Kitchens describes how psychedelic drugs have become viewed as a “sacred technology,” not only possessing pseudo-religious qualities in the present, but also secretly embedded within religious practices throughout Judeo-Christian history. Kitchens is unconvinced of psychedelics’ potential as a community-embedded religious replacement and a panacea for social ills. Instead, he sees psychedelics as yet another individualist intervention designed to help us cope with (or temporarily escape from) our existing technological and economic systems.
New York Times - “Drugs, Sacraments, or Medicine? Psychedelic Churches Blur the Line” by Ernesto Londono (May 2024)
“‘We are using these medicines to connect with the divine,’ said Ms. Lasseter, the founder of All Tribes Medicine Assembly ... ‘It’s your right to practice your religion however you are guided.’”
While Kitchens is skeptical of psychedelics’ religious qualities, psychedelic-based churches like All Tribes Medicine Assembly are claiming to be actual religious organizations. This piece explores the tensions within — and the potential of — these upstart, psychedelic-rooted organizations, as they attempt to convey themselves as viable religious groups. Oftentimes, these organizations have religious elements, including shared experiences of rituals and sacraments, prayer, and worship services. But they are also businesses, charging $4,444 per person for monthly retreats. The retreats produce powerful experiences, with one participant describing it as “the most beautiful experience I’ve had in my life.” But they also run the risk of destabilizing people more than healing them. In the end, the reader is left to discern what’s true. Are psychedelic churches religions, cults, or business opportunities? Healing experiences or destabilizing ones? The answer may very well be “yes.”
The Research
The Lancet - “Ethical principles of traditional Indigenous medicine to guide western psychedelic research and practice” by Celidwen et al. (Feb. 2023)
Today’s Western psychedelic research and practices are often rooted in Indigenous medicine, but Indigenous worldviews’ are rarely represented in these efforts. This disconnects these current Western practices from the Indigenous healing traditions oriented toward relationality — the understanding that: ”human lives are interdependent with and contingent on living in ethical relations with other people, with our ancestors, with plants and animals, and with the natural world overall.” The result is an individualistic approach to psychedelic use that is removed from its cultural, historical, communal, and ecological context.
In response, Indigenous leaders propose a set of ethical principles — along with solutions tied to each principle — that can be applied to Western psychedelic research and practice. The adoption of such principles would not only represent a fundamental shift in the Western approach to psychedelics, but also a shift in western-Indigenous relations.
The Work
Santo Daime - Amazon Forest of Brazil
“The Santo Daime Doctrine … was born within the forest, it blossomed from the people ... Its message … preaches love for nature and consecrates the vegetal world and all the planet as the sacred scenario of our earth-mother.”
We’ll venture a ways from the beaten path for this week’s “Work” section, highlighting the Santo Daime, a religious group that has integrated psychedelics into the very fabric of its religion for nearly a century. Its ceremonies, which are called “trabalhos” (Portuguese for “work”) routinely involve ayahuasca (“Daime”), a plant-based psychedelic with indigenous roots. Interestingly, community is “the reference point for the spiritual work of all members” in the Santo Daime tradition; as the group states itself, “all wonderful acquisitions we get from our spiritual leanings must go back to the community.” Though the faith was confined to the Amazon Rainforest until the 1990s, it has since spawned a movement with chapters worldwide while eliciting the interest of academics and psychedelic enthusiasts alike (some of whom would probably do well to read The Lancet piece above).
→ Explore Santo Daime further here, or on Wikipedia.