The history of consciousness-expanding substances may bring to mind the counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s. However, their Indigenous use extends far beyond this historical flash in the pan. Entheogen is a neologism that highlights the ancient spiritual role of these pharmacologically-diverse substances. The human use of entheogens for spiritual and religious purposes dates back to prehistoric times. This was a period devoid of dogma and religious institutions that attempt to monopolize the sacred. For thousands of years, entheogens have played a pivotal role in shamanic societies. They have granted direct access to visceral awe and divine reverence, everywhere from the humid jungles of the Amazon to the frigid Arctic Circle.
WHAT IS AN ENTHEOGEN?
“Entheogen” is a term coined in 1979 by R. Gordon Wasson, Jonathan Ott, Carl Ruck, and other of their colleagues to describe psychoactive drugs, usually of plant origin, that produce transcendent experiences and facilitate spiritual development. Etymologically, the word entheogen is derived from two Greek words: entheos (god, “theos,” within), and the root word –gen (the action of becoming). Thus, entheogen means literally “becoming the divine within.”
As Carl Ruck and colleagues describe in their original 1979 article introducing the term,
“In a strict sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens.”
However, over the past century, entheogenic substances have found worldwide use well beyond ritualistic and shamanic settings. Moreover, organic chemistry labs have produced various synthetic substances with entheogenic effects. With this in mind, Ruck expands the definition of entheogen, noting:
“… but in a looser sense, the term could also be applied to other drugs, both natural and artificial, that induce alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional entheogens.”
Sandwich, R. (2020, September 16). Guide to Entheogens: Plants, Therapy, Medicine. Realitysandwich. https://realitysandwich.com/entheogens/
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