Entheogens And The Future Of Religion. - Review - book review

ENTHEOGENS AND THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Robert Forte, ed. 1997; 183 pp. $15. Council on Spiritual Practices.

The Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP) continues to produce good books in a field that is too often neglected. Entheogens (about "psychoactive sacraments") includes thirteen pieces by such authors as Ann and Alexander Shulgin, Terence McKenna, Albert Hofmann, and this reviewer. Topics cover mysticism, the Eleusinlan Mysteries, current scientific studies, and the legal status of religious freedom regarding entheogenic substances. CSP's important "Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides" is included in an appendix.

In one essay, Thomas B. Roberts notes: when unorthodox ideas appear in books, governments censor books; when unorthodox ideas are transmitted through experience, governments censor the experiences.

Before he took mescaline with Timothy Leary in 1961, eminent religious historian Huston Smith was convinced of the truth of the mystical viewpoint, but says he had never experienced it. CSP's latest book, Cleansing the Doors of Perception, presents Smith's writings on revelatory plants and substances in the forty years after that experience. He says that entheogens are not a shortcut, but an encouragement that can occasion life-changing experiences even in those with no interest in mysticism. He notes that when religious scholars were given randomized descriptions of mystics' experiences and entheogenic drug experiences, they were unable to distinguish between them.

The book includes an interview and eleven essays, slightly revised, with new introductions, including the seminal "Do Drugs have Religious Import?" and "Psychedelic Theophanies and the Religious Life." In the latter, in 1967, Smith suggested that psychedelic theophanies are not likely to have substantial staying power, for three reasons: a flawed social program, "antinomianism" (believing you can lay aside secular laws for higher or deeper truths), and too little regard for the esoteric/exoteric divide (the notion that some revelations should be secret).

Some of the arguments are dated, but the questions are not. Under "a flawed social program," he quoted Leary: "Quit your job. For good.... Quit school. For good." But it is imprecise to equate the religious thrust of sixties LSD use with Leary's "drop out" program, a program that is even less relevant today. Nevertheless, isn't changing one's career and lifestyle what Smith asks for elsewhere--"not religious experience, but the religious life"? The religious life depends on what one drops into, after dropping out, and the new life for many centered on community, social and ecological activism, and spiritual practice. The reverberations are still manifest.

Smith said that if the psychedelic community were apocalyptic, revolutionary, or utopian, it would have presented an alternative, but he believes it was none of these. I disagree, but am content to let another fifty years reveal which of us is right. No religion emerges full-grown. The failure of some "antinomian" religious experiments of the sixties was perhaps due less to flaws in moral theology than to violent and legal suppression while they were still emerging.

Smith recently contrasted uncontrolled psychedelic use in the sixties with today's "responsible" entheogenic use, implying that "uncontrolled use" is irresponsible. Without minimizing unethical incidents (such as giving LSD to unwitting persons, whether by the government or others), I maintain that, for the most part, self-administration of LSD in the sixties was profoundly responsible. Given the times (a suffocating, moralistic, and conformist paternalism, a bloody and useless war, and mostly deaf ears among our nation's elders), the highest responsibility of a young citizen was to seek vision.

Several million Americans who took LSD alone, with their lovers, in small circles or large groups, devoted lives and dreams to spiritual awakening. If there was dereliction, it was in those who saw the vision and chose not to rock the boat. It was unlicensed--even licentious--use of LSD by a significant fraction of an entire generation that gave America a glimmer of hope for a more tolerant, creative, and cooperative society. And the work continues.

Idealistically believing we could usher in an Aquarian Age of Love was perhaps naive, but was not, and is not now, irresponsible. We want an entheogenic peace--for everyone. We want our prisoners released--our friends and benefactors, our dealers and chemists, our children.

As to the "esoteric/exoteric divide," I offer the words of Lew Welch: "Guard the Mysteries. Constantly reveal them."

I argue with Huston Smith every time I talk to him, and every time I write about him. I always enjoy it immensely. He tackles the most cogent questions. Congratulations to CSP for bringing these essays back into print and bringing Huston Smith back into the dialogue.

"If one believed that human nature was basically evil, that altered states weakened one's defenses against evil, that the Kingdom of God was not within, that the world was basically a frightening and dangerous place, then would psychedelic experience magnify these expectations and produce a truly hellish trip? Perhaps entheogens are best left to members of transcendental denominations. On the other hand, would entheogens constitute religious enrichment for the transcendentally deprived? Looking at the chapters in this book, the answer looks like "yes."

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