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Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
Author Index | Title Index
Religion and the Individual: a Social-Psychological Perspective.
Batson, C. Daniel; Schoenrade, Patricia; and Ventis, W. Larry. (1993).
New York: Oxford University Press.
- ISBN: 0-19-586208-6 hardcover
- 0-19-506209-4 paperback
Description: hardcover, x + 427 pages
Contents: preface, 11 chapters divided into 4 parts: Part 1. Sources of
the Individual's Religion, Part 2. Nature of Individual Religion, Part
3. Consequences of Individual Religion, Part 4. Implications, Appendix:
The Scientific Method and Social Psychology of Religion, indexed
references, subject index.
Excerpt(s): To understand dramatic, life-changing religious
experiences, we made use of psychological analyses of another type
of reality-transforming experiences, creativity. It was suggested
that in creativity the cognitive structures that the individual uses
to think about the world are changed. This cognitive restructuring
leads to the creation of a new reality for the individual. Typically,
this process of reality transformation involves four stages:
preparation -- unsuccessful attempts to solve the problem by using
the old cognitive structures; incubation -- giving up the attempt to
solve the problem: illumination -- emergence of a new cognitive
organization that enables the individual suddenly to see the
components of the problem in a new way, permitting solution; and
verification -- testing the functional value of the new solution.
Generalizing from this understanding, we suggested that a
similar sequence occurs in many religious experiences, although the
problems addressed are not intellectual but personally significant
existential questions. The religious experience state sequence
includes existential crisis, self-surrender, new vision, and new life.
Moreover, just as it is possible to identify more or less creative
changes in the cognitive structures in response to intellectual
problems, it seems possible to identify more or less creative changes
in the cognitive structures in response to religious problems.
Relatively uncreative religious experiences involve rigid adherence
to a specific solution that emphasizes only one aspect of the problem
while ignoring others (e.g., solving the problem of death by believing
that one is going to live forever because one has mouthed certain
phrases); in contrast, relatively creative experiences involve a
higher-level integration that takes account of various aspects of
the problem and resists simplified, absolutistic solutions. (pages 114-
115)
We have considered four possible facilitators of religious
experience psychedelic drugs, meditation, religious language, and
music. We suggested that although none has the power to produce
religious experience, each has the power to facilitate it. Moreover,
we suggested that each works in its own unique way: Drugs affect both
the self-surrender and new vision stages; meditation only the self-
surrender state; religious language the existential crisis, new
vision, and new life stages; and various forms of music affect all four
stages. Note that if these suggestions are correct, then to
facilitate all four stages using drugs, meditation, and religious
language, two or more techniques must be combined. To combine drugs
with meditation would be largely redundant, and it would still leave
two stages uncovered. So we would not expect such a combination to
occur. But to combine either drugs or meditation with religious
language would cover all four stages. Therefore, we would expect such
combinations to occur and to prove effective. We would expect
various forms of music, which affect emotional rather than cognitive
processes, to be combined with any and all of the other facilitators.
There is some observational evidence that these expectations
are justified. Drugs were effectively combined with religious
language and music in Pahnke's Miracle at Marsh Chapel experiment and
with language in Carlos Castaneda's spiritual pilgrimage under the
tutelage of don Juan. A drug-language-music combination exists in the
native American church, where peyote is used in conjunction with
Christian teachings and rhythmic music, and among the Rastafarians
of Jamaica. As we have already noted, meditation with or without
accompanying music is combined with religious language in a number
of traditions. (page 151) (The authors do not recognize that ego
dissolution, a common effect of psychedelic drugs, causes an
existential crisis. TR)
Compilation copyright © 1995 – 2001 CSP
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