Spiritual Growth With Entheogens

by Roberts, Thomas B.; Walsh, Roger; Steindl-Rast, David

• ISBN13: 9781594774393
• ISBN10: 1594774390
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-19
• Publisher: Park Street Pr

Summary

Reveals entheogens as catalysts for spiritual development and direct encounters with the sacred

• With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Frances Vaughan, and many others

• Includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants

• Explores protocols for ceremonial use of psychedelics and the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change

Modern organized religion is based predominantly on secondary religious experience--we read about others’ extraordinary direct spiritual encounters in the distant past and have faith that God is out there. Yet what if powerful sacraments existed to help us directly experience the sacred? What if there were ways to seek out the meaning of being human and our place in the universe, to see the sacred in the world that surrounds us?

In this book, more than 25 spiritual leaders, scientists, and psychedelic visionaries examine how we can return to the primary spiritual encounters at the basis of all religions through the guided use of entheogens. With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Frances Vaughan, Myron Stolaroff, and many others, this book explores protocols for ceremonial use of psychedelics, the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change, psychoactive sacraments in the Bible, myths surrounding the use of LSD, and the transformative ayahuasca rituals of Santo Daime. It also includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants. Dispelling fears of inauthentic spirituality, addiction, and ill-prepared encounters with the holy, this book reveals the potential of entheogens as catalysts for spiritual development, a path through which faith can directly encounter God’s power, and the beginning of a new religious era based on personal spiritual experience.

Author Biography

Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University and a former visiting scientist at Johns Hopkins. The coeditor of Psychedelic Medicine and the author of Psychedelic Horizons, he has spoken at international conferences on entheogens, consciousness, and psychedelic science. He lives in DeKalb, Illinois.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Note--Out of Society’s Secret Corners
Thomas B. Roberts

Acknowledgments

Foreword to the 2012 Edition: The Varieties of Mind-Enhancing Practices
Roger Walsh

Introduction: Psychoactive Sacramentals
Brother David Steindl-Rast

1 If I Could Change Your Mind
Rev. Mike Young

2 Do Drugs Have Religious Import? A Thirty-Five-Year Retrospect
Huston Smith

3 From State to Trait: The Challenge of Transforming Transient Insights into Enduring Change
Roger Walsh

4 The Potential of Entheogens as Catalysts of Spiritual Development
Stanislav Grof

5 Psychoactive Sacramentals: What Must Be Said
Charles T. Tart

6 Unitive Consciousness and Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment
Paula Jo Hruby

7 Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment: A Long-term Follow-up and Methodological Critique
Rick Doblin

8 A Pilgrim’s Visit to Marsh Chapel
Thomas Jenden Riedlinger

9 Las noches de los ayahuasqueros
Will Penna

10 Mysterious Tea
Annelise Schinzinger

11 A Scientist’s View of Miracles and Magic
Alexander T. Shulgin

12 LSD as a Spiritual Aid
Albert Hofmann

13 Strychnine and Other Enduring Myths: Expert and User Folklore Surrounding LSD
David E. Presti and Jerome Beck

14 Manna, the Showbread, and the Eucharist: Psychoactive Sacraments in the Bible
Dan Merkur

15 What Is Entheology?
Rev. Aline M. Lucas

16 A Protocol for a Sacramental Service
Myron J. Stolaroff

17 A Theology of Human Liberation and Entheogens: Reflections of a Contemplative Activist
Rev. George F. Cairns

18 Consciousness and Asian Traditions: An Evolutionary Perspective
Roger Walsh

19 The Strengthening Aspects of Zen and Contemporary Meditation Practices
Kathleen O’Shaughnessy

20 Transpersonal Counseling: Some Observations Regarding Entheogens
Frances Vaughan

21 The New Psychotherapy: MDMA and the Shadow
Ann Shulgin

22 The Birthing of Transcendental Medicine
Rev. Karla Hansen, M.Div.

23 The Judicial Architectonics of Psychoactive Sacramentals
Richard Glen Boire

24 On Nomenclature for the Class of Mescaline-Like Substances: And Why It Matters
Robert Jesse

25 An Entheogen Idea-Map--Future Explorations
Thomas B. Roberts

Epilogue

About the Council on Spiritual Practices

Index