OPEN Foundation

Religious studies

How Religion, Race, and the Weedy Agency of Plants Shape Amazonian Home Gardens

December 4, 2016 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Papers, Publications, Religious studies / By /

Abstract

Across Brazilian Amazonia, it is common to find rural households that keep plants with magico-medicinal properties in their home gardens. Despite widespread occurrence of such plants, some Amazonians—especially in Evangelical communities—openly criticize their use as incongruent with Christian belief and practice. In this article, I offer ethnographic observations that indicate divergent attitudes toward magico-medicinal plants between Evangelical Christians and Amazonian folk Catholics, the latter of whom borrow heavily from Afro-Brazilian and indigenous religions. I contend that Evangelicals’ attempts to establish distance from such plants is due in part to histories of ethnic and racial marginalization that are indexed in their use. Still, many magico-medicinal plants are weedy species that actively colonize areas occupied by humans, thus openly defying Evangelical attempts to evade them. In this manner, magico-medicinal plants are not just subject to human agencies, but are arguably agents in their own right.

Kawa, N. C. (2016). How Religion, Race, and the Weedy Agency of Plants Shape Amazonian Home Gardens. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 38(2), 84-93. 10.1111/cuag.12073
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Of Roots and Fruits A Comparison of Psychedelic and Nonpsychedelic Mystical Experiences

October 24, 2016 / Mystical experiences, Other substances, Papers, Psychology, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By / , , , , , ,

Abstract

Experiences of profound existential or spiritual significance can be triggered reliably through psychopharmacological means using psychedelic substances. However, little is known about the benefits of religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences (RSMEs) prompted by psychedelic substances, as compared with those that occur through other means. In this study, 739 self-selected participants reported the psychological impact of their RSMEs and indicated whether they were induced by a psychedelic substance. Experiences induced by psychedelic substances were rated as more intensely mystical (d = .75, p < .001), resulted in a reduced fear of death (d = .21, p < .01), increased sense of purpose (d = .18, p < .05), and increased spirituality (d = .28, p < .001) as compared with nonpsychedelically triggered RSMEs. These results remained significant in an expanded model controlling for gender, education, socioeconomic status, and religious affiliation. These findings lend support to the growing consensus that RSMEs induced with psychedelic substances are genuinely mystical and generally positive in outcome.

Yaden, D. B., Le Nguyen, K. D., Kern, M. L., Belser, A. B., Eichstaedt, J. C., Iwry, J., … & Newberg, A. B. (2016). Of Roots and Fruits A Comparison of Psychedelic and Nonpsychedelic Mystical Experiences. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 0022167816674625.
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The Entheogen Reformation

October 1, 2016 / Ayahuasca, Cacti / Mescaline, Consciousness, History, LSD, Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Mystical experiences, Papers, Personal development, Psychiatry, Psychology, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By /

Abstract

In addition to promising leads for treating PTSD, addictions, depression, and death anxiety, 21st Century research at medical schools finds that with careful screening, insightful attention to the variables of set, setting, and dosage, psychedelic drug administration often facilitates significant spiritual experiences, meaningfulness, altruism, well-being, and similar prospiritual effects. This article calls for theologians, professors of religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and psychology to update their courses. It challenges leaders of religious organizations, ‘‘How can your institution incorporate these practices and benefit from them?’’

Roberts, T. B. (2016). THE ENTHEOGEN REFORMATION. Association for Transpersonal Psychology, 26.

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The routes of a plant: ayahuasca and the global networks of Santo Daime

March 31, 2016 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Indigenous use, Papers, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By / ,

Abstract

This paper examines the Santo Daime religion, the Amazonian town of Céu do Mapiá which is one of its primary spiritual centres, and Ayahuasca, a key sacrament of the Santo Daime religion. The small village in the Amazon demonstrates the active outreach by a place which functions as a nexus of international and intercontinental flows of substances, bodies and meanings. The power of place is entwined with the story of religious belief and practice, which in turn depends on a tropical vine, Banisteriopsis caapi. In this networking process, we find a confluence of human agency with more-than-human agency, as well as the modalities of religious experience, crossing and dwelling. It is demonstrated that religious networking can be understood in terms of three forms of crossing (terrestrial, corporeal and cosmic) held together by the power of place (Mapiá and other subsidiary spiritual centres). In addition, three aspects of the ‘ayahuasca network’ are treated in depth: religious diffusion and adaptation, interaction with environmental movements and ideologies and contestation with legal structures and processes surrounding international drug traffic and the use of psychoactive substances.

Lowell, J. T., & Adams, P. C. (2016). The routes of a plant: ayahuasca and the global networks of Santo Daime. Social & Cultural Geography, 1-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1161818
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Psilocybin-induced spiritual experiences and insightfulness are associated with synchronization of neuronal oscillations

August 1, 2015 / Consciousness, Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Mystical experiences, Neuroscience, Other disciplines, Papers, Personal development, Psychology, Psychopharmacology, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By / , , ,

Abstract

Rationale

During the last years, considerable progress has been made toward understanding the neuronal basis of consciousness by using sophisticated behavioral tasks, brain-imaging techniques, and various psychoactive drugs. Nevertheless, the neuronal mechanisms underlying some of the most intriguing states of consciousness, including spiritual experiences, remain unknown.

Objectives

To elucidate state of consciousness-related neuronal mechanisms, human subjects were given psilocybin, a naturally occurring serotonergic agonist and hallucinogen that has been used for centuries to induce spiritual experiences in religious and medical rituals.

Methods

In this double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 50 healthy human volunteers received a moderate dose of psilocybin, while high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were taken during eyes-open and eyes-closed resting states. The current source density and the lagged phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations across distributed brain regions were computed and correlated with psilocybin-induced altered states of consciousness.

Results

Psilocybin decreased the current source density of neuronal oscillations at 1.5–20 Hz within a neural network comprising the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices and the parahippocampal regions. Most intriguingly, the intensity levels of psilocybin-induced spiritual experience and insightfulness correlated with the lagged phase synchronization of delta oscillations (1.5–4 Hz) between the retrosplenial cortex, the parahippocampus, and the lateral orbitofrontal area.

Conclusions

These results provide systematic evidence for the direct association of a specific spatiotemporal neuronal mechanism with spiritual experiences and enhanced insight into life and existence. The identified mechanism may constitute a pathway for modulating mental health, as spiritual experiences can promote sustained well-being and psychological resilience.

Kometer, M., Pokorny, T., Seifritz, E., & Vollenweider, F. X. (2015). Psilocybin-induced spiritual experiences and insightfulness are associated with synchronization of neuronal oscillations. Psychopharmacology, 1-14. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-015-4026-7

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Forbidden therapies: Santo Daime, ayahuasca, and the prohibition of entheogens in Western society

February 1, 2015 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Papers, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By /

Abstract

Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion organized around a potent psychoactive beverage called ayahuasca, is now being practiced across Europe and North America. Deeming ayahuasca a dangerous “hallucinogen,” most Western governments prosecute people who participate in Santo Daime. On the contrary, members of Santo Daime (called “daimistas”) consider ayahuasca a medicinal sacrament (or “entheogen”). Empirical studies corroborate daimistas’ claim that entheogens are benign and can be beneficial when employed in controlled contexts. Following from anthropology’s goal of rendering different cultural logics as mutually explicable, this article intercedes in a misunderstanding between policies of prohibition and an emergent subculture of entheogenic therapy.

Blainey, M. G. (2015). Forbidden therapies: Santo Daime, ayahuasca, and the prohibition of entheogens in western society. Journal of religion and health, 54(1), 287-302. 10.1007/s10943-014-9826-2
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A Different Medicine, Postcolonial Healing in the Native American Church

December 24, 2021 / Articles, Book reviews, History, Religious studies / By

A Different Medicine, Postcolonial Healing in the Native American Church, Joseph D. Calabrese, Oxford University Press, 2013

This study is the result of two years of fieldwork with the Navajo in New Mexico. The author has both an anthropological and a clinical background, and combined one year of fieldwork with work in a clinic aimed at supporting young Native Americans with a drug and/or alcohol problem. This unique combination of anthropology and clinical psychology results in a ‘clinical ethnography’, in which the author analyses the use of peyote within the Native American Church. He examines, on the one hand, the place that peyote holds within the culture and the symbolism of the ritual, and on the other hand its use within a clinical treatment that supports young people in defeating their addiction with the help of rituals.

The first part of the book, about one third of the whole, is devoted to methodology and the theoretical underpinning that is necessary to observe the healing practices of cultures different from one’s own. For non-anthropologists this is quite enlightening, because it clearly shows the problems a researcher is confronted with when the cultural practices differ strongly from those he or she is used to. The most important subjects that are discussed in this part are the dangers of ethnocentrism and the necessity of self-reflection, but this discussion also provides some exciting ideas that stretch our understanding of therapy itself. The emphasis on how therapy is embedded in the culture and mythology of a group of people simultaneously raises the question whether and how this happens within our own culture.

Calabrese states that within Navajo culture (and many other traditional cultures that use psychoactive substances within their rituals) the concepts psychopharmacology and psychology do not exist and that the Navajo do not think in terms of these two different fields of science. The symbolism of the rituals is also connected to the broader cultural mythology, through which the healing process is embedded within a wider cultural narrative applicable to all members of this culture. In the West this so-called therapeutic ‘emplotment’ is often aimed at a scientific model of the psyche, or at a personal story that gives direction in the healing process.

By becoming aware of our cultural prejudices through a dialectic with other cultures, we can learn to better understand others and ourselves. Calabrese supports this idea by writing texts that engender empathy and thereby induce a better understanding of the other and therefore of ourselves. By focusing his research on the use of psychoactive substances within a healing ritual that is at the same time spiritual, Calabrese intends to demonstrate that current views on the use of such substances are in need of revision. Instead of focusing on who takes which substance, he pleads in favor of examining the way in which such substances are used within a broader cultural context, and asking the question whether or not this is useful or healing.

In the second part Calabrese further analyzes the symbolism in the rituals of the Native American Church. First he discusses the history of this church and the way in which it has been misunderstood time and again (as a heathen ritual or as an excuse for drug use). He goes on to successively elaborate the view on peyote held by members of the church, the nature of the ceremony and the role the church plays in socialization and the creation of community ties. Lastly, he describes the way in which ceremonies are embedded within Native American mental healthcare.

The members of the church see peyote both as a medicine and as a spirit. Some emphasize the medicinal aspect, others the spiritual aspects, so that no uniform understanding can be identified. Calabrese also notes the personal relation people have with peyote and thereby confirms that personal interpretations remain possible. These interpretations partly fit within the broader (not exclusively Native American Church affiliated) Navajo culture, and partly they are unique to this church.

The ceremony itself is aimed at healing, and the ritual supports this process by means of the various symbols that are central to it. By reflecting on these symbols, communicating with the medicine or the spirit of peyote, and through the transformative power of the experience, the members of the church see their own life in the light of the mythology of death and rebirth within which their healing becomes meaningful. The therapeutic process focuses less on the relation between therapist and patient and more on the personal relationship a person engages in with the medicine within the ritual context.

The members of the church also see the ceremonies as a form of socialization, where family ties and friendships are strengthened. Children are introduced at an early age if they show interest. There is a lot of resistance against this within Western/Christian culture, but Calabrese shows that after several decades of these practices it still hasn’t been proven that such use of peyote by young people within the context of the church has any negative consequences. Peyote is seen as a force that helps strengthen relations and stimulates one to live an ethical life. It also plays a role in the upbringing and development of young Navajo’s. For example, there are special ceremonies to support them in the challenges they face in their regular education, where the group prays for help and guidance.

The Native American Church ceremony has even earned a place in the officially approved treatment methods for young people that have a problematic drug use. This is in sharp contrast with the fact that peyote is officially scheduled as a substance without any medical application. Calabrese has observed in his work at the clinic how the ritual helped support young adults with such problems in their healing process, and simultaneously notes that, because of the official approval of the use of peyote, bureaucracy has shaped the ritual itself. For example, it is required to be aimed at the treatment of addiction in one or more young adults instead of a more general ritual as in the regular church services.

With this book, Calabrese argues for a cultural pluralism within mental healthcare. By connecting patients to rituals and practices from their own cultural backgrounds, a valuable aspect of their healing process is addressed. By participating in peyote ceremonies, young people with substance abuse problems are shown a valuable example of how to use substances in a way that is not destructive, and in many cases even healing. At the same time it reconnects them to their parents and family and restores the ties that have been broken. By acknowledging that there are different ways that can help within a healing process, Calabrese exposes the hegemonic cultural ethnocentrism and the ideological prejudices that often prevent us from thinking clearly about the traditional use of psychoactive substances in different cultures.

In summary this book is an excellent addition to the existing literature on the Native American Church, especially because it tries to acknowledge and circumvent existing cultural prejudices, in order to engender an analysis rooted in mutual respect. This is not only important for the use of a powerful psychedelic substance, but also to bring to light the negative impact of colonialism and to envision a world in which the pain that is still alive among Native Americans can be healed and overcome.

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The potential religious relevance of entheogens

December 6, 2021 / Articles, Publications, Religious studies, Research, Spirituality / By

At least since William James, scholars of religion have wondered if mystical experiences induced by means of chemical substances are similar or identical to, and have the same value as, naturally occurring ones. Lengthy debates ensued throughout the 20th century, fuelled in part by scientific research such as the classic Good Friday experiment conducted in 1962 by Walter Pahnke. As the discussion on these experiences induced by external means, and their implications, goes on today, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (vol. 49, no. 3) has devoted a section of its September 2014 issue to the potential religious relevance of entheogens [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][1].

In the first of four articles, Ron Cole-Turner focuses on the recent psilocybin research at the neuropsychopharmacology group at Imperial College London by Carhart-Harris et al. (2014), whose findings depart from the view that psychedelics increase neural activity in the brain. On the contrary, the researchers found that psilocybin decreases neural activity in the default mode network [2], which they suggest is the “seat of the ego”. This result is “highly suggestive in terms of how psilocybin might function in the brain to “occasion” mystical experience,” Cole-Turner writes. The author however takes issue with the “pejorative” label of “magical thinking” the London researchers associate with the subjects’ supernatural interpretations of their experiences. Here, he draws a line between the London research team and the team at Johns Hopkins [3] that also studies psilocybin. For the former, mystical quality seems to be an unwanted side-effect, writes the author, while for the latter it is the very focus of research, and a desirable feature. “More than science is at play here, and more than religion is at stake”, Cole-Turner concludes, wondering what we will make of what we are about to discover.

In the second article, William Richards, who worked with Walter Pahnke in the 1960s and has himself worked on recent psilocybin research, starts by stating that psychedelics “provide two new factors critical for religious scholarship […], namely potency and reliability”. This means that meaningful experiences can be safely induced in most subjects, and the author notes that over 200 persons have now safely received psilocybin within the framework of the Johns Hopkins psilocybin research. He goes on to define mystical experiences and distinguishes them along three binary dimensions: complete and incomplete, unitive and personal, and internal and external mystical experience. His research [4] has shown that both aspects of these dimensions are not mutually exclusive, as some scholars of religion have argued, and can be experienced by the same person. Richards lays out two avenues of potential interdisciplinary research for scholars of religion: the study of religious groups that use entheogens in a sacramental way, and collaborations with colleagues from other fields in the design of interdisciplinary studies with entheogens.

The Santo Daime religious movement, which uses the Amazonian brew ayahuasca as its main sacrament, is the focus of the third article, written by G. William Barnard. In the first, introductory part, the author distinguishes between the productive and transmissive theories of the brain. In the latter, consciousness pre-exists the brain, which serves as a transmitter to the human body and mind. The productive theory, on the other hand, posits that consciousness is altogether produced by the brain. If we were to take the transmissive perspective, then mystical or religious experiences are not just “the hallucinatory byproducts of cerebral malfunctions caused by the chemical activity of these substances”, the author writes. In the second part of the article, Barnard goes on to sketch the history and main theological tenets of Santo Daime. He suggests that “[Huston] Smith’s [5] desire to see the birth of a modern day mystery school that revolves around the sacramental use of entheogens has, in fact, been fulfilled”, citing the Native American Church, and the Brazilian União do Vegetal religious group as other examples. In Barnard’s view, one of the primary reasons for Santo Daime church members to uphold their strict discipline is the extent of spiritual transformation and physical healing their practice provides.

In the last article, Leonard Hummel underscores the importance of lasting effects from mystical experiences, and notes that the Johns Hopkins study [6] did look for and found desirable long-term effects in the lives of participants. Hummel contends that the validity of drug-induced mystical experience is hardly ever questioned anymore, despite criticism that research focuses on the individual religious experience (“a momentary sense of wow”) rather than on its repercussions in the community. In his view, these criticisms are not in line with the reality of either ongoing (clinical) trials (which include questionnaires about the effects on the community practices of participants), or of existing religious communities such as Santo Daime or peyote churches. He also hypothesizes that the Council on Spiritual Practices intends to give rise to recognized entheogen-based religious communities in the US. Hummel does not envision, however, the use of entheogens in Christian communities in the US, underscoring – among other things – possible health hazards, due to the possible lack of an adequate setting. Therefore the author concludes that the administration of entheogens had better remain confined to a therapeutic setting.

All articles appear in the September edition of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (volume 49, no. 3), The Potential Religious Relevance of Entheogens.

 
[1] “Entheogen” is a synonym for “psychedelic” that is often used in a religious context. Literally, it means a compound that “generates the divine within”.
[2] The default mode network is a network of brain areas that is mainly active in a state of rest, when attention is more focused inwards than outwards.
[3] See for example Griffiths et al. (2006).
[4] Richards (2008).
[5] Huston Cummings Smith is a well-known religious studies scholar from the United States.
[6] Griffiths et al. (2006).
 
References
Barnard, G. William (2014). Entheogens in a Religious Context: The Case of the Santo Daime Religious Tradition. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(3), 666-684. [Abstract]
Carhart-Harris, Robin L., Robert Leech, Peter J. Hellyer, Murray Shanahan, Amanda Feilding, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Dante R. Chialvo, and David J. Nutt (2014). The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8. doi : 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020 [Abstract]
Cole-Turner, Ron (2014). Entheogens, Mysticism, and Neuroscience. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(3), 642-651. [Abstract]
Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U. & Jesse, R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance, Psychopharmacology, 187, 268–283. [Abtract]
Hummel, Leonard. By Its Fruits? Mystical and Visionary States of Consciousness Occasioned by Entheogens. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(3), 685-695. [Abstract]
Richards, W. A. (2008). The Phenomenology and Potential Religious Import of States of Consciousness Facilitated by Psilocybin. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 30, 189-199. [Abstract]
Richards William A. (2014). Here and Now: Discovering the Sacred with Entheogens. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(3), 652-665. [Abstract][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

By its fruits? Mystical and visionary states of consciousness occasioned by entheogens

August 26, 2014 / Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Mystical experiences, Papers, Personality, Publications, Religious studies, Safety, Spirituality / By /

Abstract

A new era has emerged in research on entheogens largely due to clinical trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University and similar studies sponsored by the Council for Spiritual Practices. In these notes and queries, I reflect on implications of these developments for psychological studies of religion and on what this research may mean for Christian churches in the United States. I conclude that the aims and methods of this research fit well within Jamesian efforts of contemporary psychology of religion to assess religious practices by their fruits for life. Furthermore, some communitarian religious concerns that religious experiences occasioned by entheogens pose risks to the integrity of religious community are shown to be largely unfounded. However, it is suggested that certain risks for religious life posed by all investigations/interventions by knowledge experts—in particular, the colonization of the religious life world and the commodification of its practices—also attend these developments for Christian churches. Additionally, risks of individual harm in the use of entheogens appear to be significant and, therefore, warrant earnest ethical study.

Hummel, L. (2014). By its fruits? Mystical and visionary states of consciousness occasioned by entheogens. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49(3), 685-695. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12112
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