self wreck

The spiritual and religious use of drugs has been occurring since the dawn of our species. Drugs that are considered to have spiritual or religious use are called entheogens. Some religions are based completely on the use of certain drugs. Entheogens are mostly hallucinogens, being either psychedelics or deliriants, but some are also stimulants and sedatives.

History of use

Hallucinogenic substances are among the oldest drugs used by human kind, as hallucinogenic substances naturally occur in mushrooms, cacti and a variety of other plants. Numerous cultures worldwide have endorsed the use of hallucinogens in medicine, religion and recreation, to varying extents, while some cultures have regulated or outright prohibited their use. In most developed countries today, the possession of many hallucinogens, even those found commonly in nature, is considered a crime punishable by fines, imprisonment or even death. In some countries, such as the United States and the Netherlands, partial deference may be granted to traditional religious use by members of indigenous ethnic minorities such as the Native American Church and the Santo Daime Church. Recently the União do Vegetal, a Christian-based religious sect whose composition is not primarily ethnicity-based, won a United States Supreme Court decision authorizing its use of ayahua

Traditional religious and shamanic use

Historically, hallucinogens have been most commonly used in religious or shamanic rituals. In this context they are referred to as entheogens, and they are used to facilitate healing, divination, communication with spirits, and coming-of-age ceremonies. Evidence exists for the use of entheogens in prehistoric times, as well as in numerous ancient cultures, including the Ancient Egyptian, Mycenaean, Ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca the and Aztec cultures. The Upper Amazon is home to the strongest extant entheogenic tradition; the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia, for instance, continue to practice an elaborate system of ayahuasca shamanism, coupled with an animistic belief system.
Urarina shaman, 1988

The rise of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) caused a decline of entheogenic use of hallucinogens use in its wake, as the authority of scripture and the priesthood gradually reduced the role granted to direct spiritual experience, especially by the laity. Examples of this development include the destruction of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which are now widely assumed to have involved entheogenic rituals, and the Great Witch Hunt of the Early Modern Age, in which practitioners of entheogenic rites in Western Europe were accused of associating with the devil. The Spanish conquistadores associated local entheogenic traditions of South America with heresy and satanism, and uprooted many of them, but nevertheless, some cultures there and elsewhere have kept their traditions alive to this day.