44 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 ignored an entire body of research. It is therefore important to be clear about the benefits of entheogens when used under the right conditions, seeing as much fear has been instilled by poor research that has only served to thwart public access to accurate information about this phenomenon. Psychiatrist Sidney Cohen (1910–1987) points out (quoted in Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization of the Committee on Government Operations 1966, 152): It must be explicitly stated that some individuals should never take drugs of this category, and that one’s friends are not suitable judges of who are suitable candidates. Furthermore, a secure environment is essential for the protection of the subject who takes LSD for he is vulnerable, hypersuggestible and emotionally liable. In the hands of experts these agents are relatively safe, but they are potential mind-shakers which should not be lightly or frivolously consumed. The United States government also had a large part to play in the harmful (and unethical) dehumanization of diverse peoples – especially in marginalized communities – caused by psychedelics through the MK-ULTRA and other mind-control programs of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which sought to experiment with behavioral modification techniques by covert means (Lee and Shlain 1992; Albarelli Jr. 2009; Strauss et al. 2022). It cannot be overlooked that the infamous cult leader Charles Manson (1934–2017) participated in CIA-funded drug research and used psychedelics to brainwash his followers into murdering people without remorse (O’Neill and Piepenbring 2019). It can hardly escape notice that the “birth of the Psychedelic Age” (Ott 1980, vii) very much resembles the advent of the introduction of Eastern thought to the West, which figured significantly in the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s. It was during this time that there was a great hunger and fascination for all things Eastern. With the weakening of faith in the dominant religions of the West (namely Judaism and Christianity), seekers sought refuge in Eastern philosophy to free themselves of the perceived baggage of the faiths they had abandoned. The ambiance of the psychedelic movement decades later appears to be the same, albeit with more restraint and sophistication. The focus is now on the psychological health and well-being that psychedelics can offer, as evidenced by clinical trials that confirm their efficacy for use in mental health treatment. There is also recognition of the errors made in the previously widespread and indiscriminate use of these powerful substances that led to their prohibition. In order to avoid similar mistakes again, the movement has established education protocols to help shape the public narrative, to dispel myths and misinformation, and to highlight the benefits of entheogens. As modern psychology has supplanted the role of religion in the contemporary world, people have been left alone to “find themselves,” encouraged to seek relief from their travails without any recourse to the spiritual domain. Yet all valid forms of sacred psychology prior to the modern world had an ontological foundation. During the medieval period, the West shared a largely common metaphysical outlook with many of the world’s spiritual traditions; it was only in the period following the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the European Enlightenment that a desacralized outlook gained ascendancy (Bendeck Sotillos 2022a, 29–46). Never before has humanity had access to these sacred medicines without having to participate in a ritual order of reality revealed by sacred tradition. Since their discovery and use in the modern world, these remedies have been employed for the first time outside a committed spiritual path. Traditional peoples have always maintained very strict formal requirements and ethical guidelines for their use. Today, anyone wishing to have the experiences they offer is free to do so with little to no constraints. Advocacy for the use of psychedelics in isolation from a traditional spiritual context dates back to 1924, when German pharmacologist Louis Lewin (1850–1929) documented the therapeutic potential of entheogens in his landmark study Phantastica (Lewin 1998, xv): Not only are these [note: mind-changing] drugs of general interest to mankind as a whole, but they possess a high degree of scientific interest for the medical man, especially the psychologist and alienist [note: psychiatrist], as well as for the jurist and ethnologist. Modern psychedelic science could be said to have begun in 1938 when Hofmann synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel in Switzerland, or when he discovered the psychoactive properties of LSD when accidentally dosing himself in 1943 and taking his well-documented and life-changing bicycle ride under its influence. However, it was Richard Evans Schultes (1915– 2001), an American biologist considered to be the “father of modern Ethnobotany,” who, in 1938, discovered the botanical identity of ololiuqui (Turbina corymbose – formerly known as Rivea corymbose, a species of morning glory), a psyche-
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