Psychedelics are all the rage. Well-known figures like quarterback Aaron Rodgers, singer Miley Cyrus and boxer Mike Tyson testify to their transformative impact. Less visible consumers are “microdosing” or signing up for retreats with shamanic guides in this rapidly expanding subculture. In June 2023, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies held a conference in Denver promoting research around psychedelics – part of a larger wave of enthusiasm for the benefits of substances like ecstasy, “magic” mushrooms and LSD to treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, addiction and other afflictions. The current “psychedelic renaissance” is often talked about as revolutionary for the future of the human species. But as a religion scholar who studies the sacred uses of drugs, I think it would be valuable to look backward, not forward, to understand their significance. As usual, the past is present: Humans have incorporated drugs into their spiritual lives for millennia. Drugged animals? In fact, the consumption of psychoactive “drugs” is a feature of other species. The 1989 book “Intoxication” by Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacology researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, raised public and scientific awareness of the fact that animals will seek out intoxicating substances. Signs of stoner life in the animal kingdom go way beyond cats and their catnip. Birds and bees, elephants and bighorn sheep, and a range of other species in the wild return again and again – religiously, you might say – to substances that are dangerous but have appealing effects. Among the more celebrated examples of this phenomenon are Siberian reindeer, which partake in the consumption of the fly agaric mushroom, a hallucogenic. Ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini has described how during the summer the reindeer seek out the mushroom, consume it and exhibit uncharacteristic behavior like twitching their heads, running aimlessly and making strange sounds. Siegel argued that there is evidence humans and other organisms have a universal drive for intoxication via psychoactive substances – a fourth basic drive along with those directed toward sex, food and water. In his view, drugs seem to ignite certain kinds of brain activities and interconnections that relate to biologically and evolutionarily advantageous behaviors, like creativity and performance enhancement.
Source: The Conversation – Articles (US)