Jews, Christians, and Muslims Are Reclaiming Ancient Psychedelic Practices, And That Could Help With Legalization

A psychedelic trip can be among the most sacred experiences of a person’s life. And yet, that impulse to take a psychedelic for a spiritual reason is often overlooked as a reason to lift prohibition for psychedelic substances.

Oftentimes, cannabis legalization is seen as a model for psychedelics. With cannabis, we are seeing the plant being legalized piecemeal, usually for medical and then recreational use. Indeed, we’ve already begun to see two main routes to ending psychedelic prohibition: medicalization and decriminalization. But what this binary paradigm of medicalization versus decriminalization conceals is a third way of using psychedelics: getting legal sanction for the spiritual or religious use of psychedelic substances, which, among a variety of traditions, are deemed to be sacred tools used in holy rituals. 

No, we’re not talking about newly formed weed or psilocybin “churches” that are built around using controlled substances under religious protection; but rather, long-established religions that include the use of psychedelics in contemporary practice. In a small but fast growing movement, members of Abrahamic faiths are incorporating entheogens — substances that occasion spiritual experiences — into their own practices, and referencing Biblical traditions as precedent for doing so. 
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