The Forgotten People of The Psychedelic Renaissance

Members of the Wixárika at a Peyote Pilgrimage Ritual - Image sourced via The New York Times ‘Inside a Peyote Pilgrimage’

With a revival of psychedelics happening now caused by individuals turning to them to treat their psychiatric conditions as an alternative to modern medicine, ‘new-age hippies’ are coming to appreciate the benefits that traditional medicines such as botanical psychedelics have to offer. However, there remains a group often overlooked in this resurgence.

There was a moment last summer when I randomly pondered, “I wonder what was going through the mind of the first person to see a psilocybin mushroom and think to eat it, consequently experiencing a full-on trip.” However, my subsequent research quickly revealed that there is a tradition to these practices. It’s unlikely that someone simply stumbled upon a plant one day; the folk stories behind these medicines usually suggest a sort of calling towards the plant, evolving into a ceremonial practice that eventually becomes an integral part of a community's identity.

With a psychedelic revival happening in recent years, renewed interest in traditional botanical medicines has brought both promise and challenges to the indigenous communities to whom psychedelic plants are native and a part of their ethnomedicine. On one hand, there's a growing recognition of the sacred and cultural significance of indigenous psychedelic practices. On the other hand, there's also a risk of drug tourism depleting the access that these indigenous communities have to these plants as the mainstream embraces these substances.

It's important to acknowledge that the right of these communities to use these medicines has not always been guaranteed. The ongoing war on drugs in the United States (yes, it's still ongoing and has been for the last 52 years, 6 months, and 23 days as of January 15, 2024) continues to threaten the use of these medicines by indigenous communities as part of their religious ceremonies.

In this resurgence, there needs to be a collective effort to ensure that the benefits of the psychedelic renaissance currently happening extend inclusively, without eroding the integrity of these age-old practices, because psychedelics aren't just having a moment; they're deeply rooted in a historical journey through human experience.

A drug that has stayed pretty much under the radar even during the psychedelic resurgence is a compound called mescaline, there isn’t much recent literature on it like there is for other popular psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, MDMA etc, and it’s not really talked about presently, but there is a lot of historical literature on mescaline due to it being a huge part of the identity and history of indigenous communities in the southern Americas. Mescaline is a psychedelic compound produced in two types of cactus. (1) The peyote cactus which grows in a narrow band around the Rio Grande River in Mexico, this area is commonly known as the ‘peyote gardens’ and is the only place in the world where the peyote cactus grows. (2) The San Pedro cactus is another plant in which the mescaline compound can be found, it is native to the Andes where is it known as Huachuma. Interestingly enough, it is legal in the U.S to grow San Pedro, but not peyote. Huachuma, or San Pedro, is a very mild psychedelic, it contains mescaline, but not a lot in comparison to the amounts that can be found in peyote.

The Story of San Pedro

"Huachuma" is the plant's original name in Quechua. When Europeans arrived in the Americas over 500 years ago, they targeted medicine keepers in an attempt to dismantle native culture. This led to many traditions and practices being forced underground for preservation. One method of preservation involved assigning sacred plants Catholic names to avoid suspicion of traditional use or meaning. This is how "Huachuma" came to be known as "San Pedro," meaning Saint Peter in Spanish. In Catholicism, Saint Peter is associated with 'holding the keys to the gates of heaven,' which highlights the nature of the medicine even in its adopted Catholic name.

The Forgotten History of The Native Use of Peyote

Conquistadors arrive in the Americas in 1492 and encounter the natives who have a completely different religious belief and tradition to their Catholicism, why were they using plants in their religious rituals?

The incorporation of peyote into Native American religious ceremonies elevated it to the status of a powerful sacrament, posing a potential challenge to the authority of Catholic doctrine. Reports emerged of individuals ingesting peyote experiencing visions or encounters with God, raising concerns that access to such spiritual experiences could undermine the need for the priesthood as intermediaries. In response, the Spanish authorities attempted to suppress and ultimately eradicate the use of peyote, marking the beginning of the war on drugs.

Peyote Cactus

When the Mexican Inquisition denounced peyote as a “heretical perversity opposed to the purity and integrity of our Catholic faith”, the Native use of peyote in religious rituals became under serious threat. Natives Americans were interrogated with questions such as “Do you consume the evil peyote?”. Thus a smear campaign against the drug that Native people use as a medicine began, with peyote being dubbed as the “diabolical root” - since then, native people have been in a continuous fight for their right to use peyote in religious rituals.

Peyote Ceremony

Archaeological findings indicate that Native Americans have been using peyote for religious purposes for thousands of years. The peyote ritual typically involves a night-long ceremony where individuals gather in a special location, such as a tipi or other structure, facing a fire and a crescent-shaped altar.

The ceremony comprises four basic components: praying, singing, consuming peyote, and quietly contemplating. Through this ritual, individuals often experience personal revelations leading to forgiveness of sins, alleviation of both bodily and spiritual ills, fostering a greater sense of community, and gaining insights that aid in leading a moral and ethical life.

Indigenous people aim to preserve this heritage so that future generations can remain connected to the medicine and the land. Many Indigenous people assert that peyote gardens hold historical significance due to the "ancestral pilgrimage that occurred there long ago," as stated by Sandor Iron Rope, President of the Native American Church (NAC) and a member of the Oglala people. The healing aspect of the peyote ceremony is particularly cherished by Indigenous Americans. Arlen Lightfoot, a member of the Otoe tribe, describes the ceremony as "about healing a sick person with this holy medicine." Additionally, ceremonial songs and dances performed during the ingestion of peyote are regarded as a "unique way of expressing the stories of ancients," according to Lakota man Julius Not Afraid.

The 1880s were a very rough period for Native Americans, with Euro-American settlers beginning to force Native people into reservations and mandating Native children to attend Christian schools in Pennsylvania, far away from their homes. Indian Americans had no choice but to abandon their previous hunter-gatherer lives to essentially become “Christianized.” Native children were taken away from their parents and homes in order to be institutionalized. They were placed in boarding schools, forced to have their heads shaved, to learn about Christianity, and weren’t allowed to speak their language—all while being so far away from what they knew. “Kill the Indian, save the man” was a phrase that Julius Not Afraid often heard growing up during this process of institutionalization. This is why the peyote medicine is so important to Native Americans; it is a part of their identity and tells the story of how they survived this suppression.

Some Native folk stories about peyote tell of a girl who found the medicine on her journey. Told by her family to go as far away as she could on a horse from her tribe and home that were being destroyed by Euro-American settlers, the girl went out as far as she could, remembering not to stop or turn back. Eventually, she became weak and couldn’t go any further; her horse had given up and so had she… almost. That was until she saw the peyote plant in her path, calling to her. She ingested it and regained strength; the peyote revitalized her and reminded her of her purpose to reach the end of her journey and carry on her people’s lineage. Regina Sandra Smith of the Navajo tribe says, “I’ve heard a lot of my elders talk about how this medicine started as a woman.” As such, some call the medicine ‘Mother Peyote,’ who represents mother earth and the archetype of the life-giver.

The first wave of psychedelic psychiatry that occurred in the late 50s was followed by a strong anti-drug sentiment that was heavily effectuated by the U.S government, this prevalent anti-drug sentiment is more commonly known as the ‘war on drugs’. Peyote found itself swept up in this war on drugs and under the scrutinisation of governmental authorities who sought to eradicate its use due to its hallucinogenic effects. In the famous Employment Division vs. Smith case, the supreme court ruled that the free exercise of religion clause did not excuse individuals from compliance with neural and generally applicable laws, even if these laws incidentally burdened religious practices. This was after two native Americans, Alfred Smith and Galen Black, were fired from their jobs for using peyote as part of a religious ceremony. This decision systematically lessened the protection that Native Americans had against infringement on their religious practices. After the Native American Church (NAC) along with various other religious and civil liberties groups relentlessly raised concerns about this, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 that ultimately restored the right of Native Americans to use peyote in their religious ceremonies.

It is ironic that Euro-Americans sought religious freedom upon arriving in the Americas but historically denied it to the Indigenous peoples they encountered. The case of Employment Division v. Smith vividly illustrates this contradiction.

Elitism Vs Populism: The Gatekeeping of Plant Medicine

During the first wave of psychedelic psychiatry in the 50s, there was a very profound split in the psychedelic community between psychedelic elitists and psychedelic populists. Elitists like Aldous Huxley ingested psychedelics and believed that these experiences should only be reserved for culture shapers, (these would be our present day influencers and celebrities) that the general public didn’t need to experience psychedelics - it wasn’t necessary and was too powerful for them. Instead, the culture shapers would have these psychedelic experiences, this would influence what they put out into the world and then a ‘new consciousness’ would trickle down into the mainstream. On the other hand, populists like psychologist Timothy Leary believed that as much people as possible should have these psychedelic experiences, a ‘new consciousness’ would also subsequently emerge . You might be inclined to agree with either Huxley or Leary more, but have you considered what either approach means for the communities in which a proportional part their lives and identities rest on these plant medicines?

The psychedelic renaissance currently happening means that drug tourism and the search for alternatives to Western medicine are encroaching on the areas where these plants grow. Plant medicines like peyote are being extracted faster than they can be replenished, and places like the peyote garden are at risk of becoming barren because of said mindless extraction. The propensity to extract in masses rather than taking only what is needed is putting the Indigenous communities to which these plants are native to at risk of losing access to these plant medicines all together.

It also seems to be forgotten that drugs are highly contextualised, the people of Indigenous communities have ways of sustaining a delicate equilibrium that have worked for hundreds of years, as well as ceremonial practices that surround the ingestion of these plant medicines. A singular peyote takes up to 30 years to produce its first flowers, so it is very important for Indigenous people, the custodians of these plants, to be mindful of what they extract, how and when; this is why all ingestion of peyote by Indigenous people is done so in a socially constructive way. It is this socially constructive intake of psychedelics that ensures that Indigenous use of psychedelics remains deeply rooted in tradition and respect for the natural world. This is something that I believe can and should to be adopted by all who participate in the psychedelic renaissance.

Psychedelics help us confront how we think about our place in nature, our relationship to it, and as a result, how we treat it. The psychedelic renaissance currently happening offers a sense of unity with nature that humanity is in dire need of right now, however, there has to be proper consideration and respect for the contexts that surround them in order for them to have a socially constructive impact.