You can find examples from the trans-Siberian ritual use of Amanita muscaria psychoactive mushrooms to the Native American and Mexican peyote cactus traditions, to Mesoamerican psychedelic mushrooms, and Amazonian ayahuasca ceremonies. In line with this definition, Carl Ruck and psychedelic intellectual Mark Hoffman later described entheogens as “any substance that, when ingested, catalyzes or generates an altered state of consciousness deemed to have spiritual significance” in the book Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness.įrom South America to North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, indigenous peoples have ingested entheogens to connect with sacred beings, promote healing, and strengthen their communities for millennia. The Greek etymology of entheogen, entheos, refers to “the god within”, and gen/genesis refers to the “action of becoming”. But why did these scholars choose the name “entheogens”? In contrast to hallucinogens, which implies distorted perceptions, or psychedelics, which holds ties to the 1960s drug subculture, the word entheogens respects the history of shamanism and religious use that honor plants as spiritual and intelligent. In 1979, these thought leaders published a report called “Entheogens” with the intent to overcome the inability of language to describe “transcendent and beatific states of communion with deity”.

Gordon Wasson, among others, felt a neologism and rebranding was in order. The implication that hallucinogenic and psychedelic “drugs” are pointless and mind-warping is precisely why various scholars decided the terms would not suffice.

Soma wasson