Mar 27 2002
Psychoactive Sacramentals
review by Brian Charles Clark
Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion
Edited by Thomas B. Roberts
Publisher: Council on Spiritual Practices, 2001
An “entheogen” is a psychoactive substance, such as LSD or psilocybin, which induces in the user “an experience of transcendent reality,” writes Brother David Steindl-Rast, in his foreword to Psychoactive Sacramentals. More simply, entheogens induce a sensation of the holy in the user, a numinous experience. This is the sensation the Romantic poets called “the sublime,” or that religious scholars call (Steindl-Rast again) the “mysterium tremendum”: the awe-inspiring mystery of the universe. In an age when psychoactive substances, such as Ecstasy, have been reduced to use for partying, dancing, and sex, this collection of essays is a reminder that it wasn’t always like this. T’was a time when acid, peyote and magic mushrooms were keys to opening, as Aldous Huxley put it, “the doors of perception.” Continue Reading »
