Entheogenic Reformation

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Entheogenic Reformation nov. verb.— The anachronistic "Archaic Revival" of shamanism and the use of shamanic "plant-teachers" in the contemporary "overdeveloped" world; and the simultaneous appearance in several "underdeveloped" countries of syncretic Neo-Christian religions in which placebo sacrament of the Eucharist is replaced by entheogenic plants traditionally associated with shamanism; such as sacramental use of Péyotl by the Native American Church, similar use of Ayahuasca by Brasilian chruches, and sacramental use of Iboga in the African Bwiti religion.

   1994 Ott Ayahuasca Analogues, 9. 

The resulting "countercultural" movement of the "Psychedelic Sixties" marked an unprecedented departure from business as usual, setting the stage for a modern Entheogenic Reformation, which promises to evoke more radical and far-reaching changes in western religion than did its predecessor. Indeed, Martin Luther's 95 theses of October 1517 packed far less punch than did Gordon Wasson's one thesis 440 years later—for Wasson had peeled away the ossified accretion of many, many layers of symbol and dogma which enshrouded the core mystery in inpenetrable obfuscation; had laid bare before the eyes of an astonished world, in all its dazzling quotidian humility, the holy sacrament itself, a sacrament which "carried its own conviction" and did not limp along encumbered by faith in an absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation; a sacrament which obviated the necessity of faith itself, allowing every communicant to attest to "the miracle he has experienced."

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The Entheogenic Reformation

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...a great historical movement which is unfolding simultaneously in the overdeveloped world as this astonishing revival of interest in shamanism and especially in shamanic inebriants - what Terence McKenna aptly characterized as The Archaic Revival [McKenna 1991]. To be sure, Shamanism is the pangæan Ur-religion of our remote Eurasian ancestors, the "highest vehicle for the expression of man's religious yearnings" throughout the timeless millenia characterized by R. Gordon Wasson as the Age of Entheogens [Wasson 1980]. While the Bwitists of Africa, like the peyotlists of North America and the Daimistas and Vegetalistas of South America, are replaciong the placebo sacrament with the real thing, albeit still within the confines of Christian liturgy, the entheogenic psychonauts of the industrialized world are going back to the source, not just of Christian symbols like the Eucharist and the Tree of Life/Knowledge of Good and Evil, but of Christianity itself and of every other religion... far, far back in our remote past to shamanism and shamanic plant-teachers, which first instilled in our primordial forebears the awe, terror, fascination, and mystery of a divine presence.

By the same token, the contemporary World War on Drugs is nothing more nor less than the modern manifestation of the millenial struggle between state power and individual freedom; between the proselytizers of purely symbolic simulacra of religion - propagandists of what Blake called "pale religious letchery" - and the practioners of the real thing - for religion is an experience, not merely a "social activity with mild ethical rules" [Wasson 1961]. This War on Drugs originally started as a War on Religious Experiences, and it is nothing new - it dates back, in the Old World or Palæogæa, at least to the end of the fourth century of our era; and in the New World or Neogæa,to the second decade of the sixteenth century, when Europeans began to sow a genocidal reign of terror throughout the vast reaches of the Americas. It is the Pharmacratic Inquisition, distinguished from outcroppings of brutal bigotry in other eras only by the choice of scapegoat [Szasz 1970,1974], and with a psuedoscientific veneer of rational civility which, however ingeniously constructed or vociferously defended, remains far too small and transparent to conceal the ignorant superstition and unrestrained cruelty which fuels it.

Shamanic ecstasy is the real 'Old Time Religion', of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy the mysterium tremendum, the unio mystica, the eternally delightful experience of the universe as energy, is a sine qua non of religion, it is what religion is for! There is no need for faith, it is the ecstatic experience itself that gives one faith in the intrinsic unity and integrity of the universe, in ourselves as integral parts of the whole; that reveals to us the sublime majesty of our universe, and the fluctuant, scintillant, alchemical miracle that is quotidian consciousness. Any religion that requires faith and gives none, that defends against religious experiences, that promulgates the bizarre superstition that humankind is in someway separate, divorced from the rest of creation, that heals not the gaping wound between Body and Soul, but would tear them asunder... is no religion at all [Ott 1994]!

We stand on the threshold of a new millenium which will determine whether our species continues to grow and prosper, or destroys itself in a cataclysmic biological and cultural Holocaust unprecedented in the last 65 million years of life on this planet. We suffer a crisis of faith in the modern world, we frightened sonambulists stumbling in a lethean, penumbral dream-world of materialistic delusion, and we desperately need the healing balm of shamanic ecstasy to salve the lesions of materialism. The Entheogenic Reformation is our brightest hope for overcoming the evil and hypocritical, sixteen-hundred-year-old crusade to excise religious experience from human memory, to eliminate genuine religion from the face of the Earth. May the Entheogenic Reformation prevail over the Pharmacratic Inquisition, leading to the spiritual rebirth of humankind at Our Lady Gæa's breasts from which may ever copiously flow the amrta, the ambrosia, the ayahuasca of eternal life!

   Source:

       The Age of Entheogens & The Angel's Dictionary
       by Jonathan Ott