L.S.D. [GR 260]

[Doug Millison]

Terrance,  The view that LSD and like drugs mimic psychosis -- and thus
were called "pschotomimetic" before they were caled "psychedelic" -- was
discarded by researchers long ago.  The current term of choice among many
people who use these substances for therapeutic and spiritual purposes is
"entheogen."

-Doug "Lick the Stamp" Millison

http://www.csp.org/practices/entheogens/entheogens.html
en·theo·gen [god within; god- or spirit-facilitating] a psychoactive
sacramental; a plant or chemical substance taken to occasion primary
religious experience. Example: peyote cactus as used in the Native American
Church.

http://www.csp.org/cdp/excerpts.html
Know ten things, tell nine, the Taoists say - one wonders whether it is
wise even to mention the entheogens in connection with God and the
Infinite. For though a connection exists, as is the case with sex in
Tantra, it is next to impossible to speak of it in the West today without
being misunderstood. Such potential misunderstanding may be the reason that
the identity of the Eleusinian sacrament is one of history's best-kept
secrets, and why Brahmins came eventually to conceal (and then deliberately
forget) the identity of Soma. [p. 80]

Some theophanies seem to occur spontaneously, while others are facilitated
by ways that seekers have discovered - one thinks of the place of fasting
in the vision quest, the nightlong dancing of the Kalahari bushmen,
prolonged intoning of sacred mantras, and the way peyote figures in the
vigils of the Native American Church. [pp. 114-5]

The conclusion to which the evidence seems currently to point is that it is
indeed possible for chemicals to enhance the religious life, but only when
they are set within the context of faith (conviction that what they
disclose is true) and discipline (exercise of the will toward fulfilling
what the disclosures ask of us). [p. 31]

If the only thing to say about the entheogens were that they seem on
occasion to disclose higher planes of consciousness and perhaps the
Infinite itself, I would hold my peace. For though such experiences may be
veridical in ways, the goal (it cannot be stressed too often) is not
religious experiences, but the religious life. And with respect to the
latter, chemically occasioned "theophanies" can abort a quest as readily as
they can further it. [p. 80]

The [Good Friday Experiment] was powerful for me, and it left a permanent
mark on my experienced worldviewŠ. For as long as I can remember I have
believed in God, and I have experienced his presence both within the world
and when the world was transcendentally eclipsed. But until the Good Friday
Experiment, I had had no direct personal encounter with God of the sort
that bhakti yogis, Pentecostals, and born-again Christians describe. [pp.
100-101]

Why, when I count several of my entheogen experiences as being among the
most important in my life, have I no desire to repeat them? On occasion I
have gone so far as to rank them with family and world travel in what they
have contributed to my understanding of things, yet - with the exception of
peyote, which I took in the line of duty while working with the Native
Americans as described in chapter 8 - it has been decades since I have
taken an entheogen, and if someone were to offer me today a substance that
(with no risk of producing a bummer) was guaranteed to carry me into the
Clear Light of the Void and within fifteen minutes return me to normal with
no adverse side effects, I would decline. Why? Half my answer lies in the
healthy respect I have for the awe entheogens engender; in Gordon Wasson's
blunt assertion in the frontispiece to this book, "awe is not fun." I
understand Meister Eckhart completely when he says that "in joy and terror
the Son is born" (emphasis mine)Š. I will take them again if need be, as I
did with peyote, but the reasons would have to be compelling. The second
half of my answer is that I have other things to do. This may sound like a
limp excuse for foregoing ecstasy, so I will invoke the Buddhist doctrine
of the Six Realms of Existence to explain the force it has for me. [p. 130]

The Sufis speak of three ways to know fire: through hearsay, by seeing its
flames, and by being burned by those flames. Had I not been burned by the
totally Real, I would still be seeking it as knights sought the Grail and
moths seek flame. As it is, it seems prudent to "work for the night is
coming," as a familiar hymn advises. Alan Watts put the point more
directly: "When you get the message, hang up the phone." The downside of
swearing off is, of course, the danger that the Reality that trumps
everything while it is in full view will fade into a memory and become like
Northern Lights - beautiful, but cold and far awayŠ. The question comes
down to which experiences we should try to keep in place as beacon lights
to guide us and which we should let lapse. [p. 131]

In the effort to see what the entheogens have to teach us about what we
human beings are (human nature), about the inclusive context in which we
live our lives (the world), and about the connection between the two
(religion), the essays in this book approach those interlocking issues from
various angles. This chapter [nine] touches on two instances where they
produced full-fledged religions. [p. 113]

Can humanity survive godlessness, which is to say, the lack of ennobling
vision - a convincing, inspiring view of the nature of things and life's
place in it? Second, have modern secularism, scientism, materialism, and
consumerism conspired to form a carapace that Transcendence now has
difficulty piercing? If the answer to that second question is affirmative,
a third one follows hard on its heels. Is there need, perhaps an urgent
need, to devise something like the Eleusinian Mysteries to get us out of
Plato's cave and into the light of day? Finally, can a way be found to
legitimize, as the Greeks did, the constructive, life-giving use of
entheogenic heaven-and-hell drugs without aggravating our serious drug
problem? The Road to Eleusis does not answer (or even directly address)
these important, possibly fateful questions. What it does do is to raise
them by clear implication, elegantly and responsibly. [p. 115]


Copyright © 2000 Huston Smith.

Excerpts from
Cleansing the Doors of Perception
The Religious Significance of
Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals

by Huston Smith

Huston Smith, internationally recognized philosopher, scholar of religion,
and author of The World's Religions, now offers Cleansing the Doors of
Perception, a course-correcting assessment of the connections between
entheogens, religious experience, and the divinely inspired life.