The use of plants and fungi with psychedelic properties in the Americas can be traced back centuries, even millennia. Psychedelic plants and fungi, including cactuses, exhibit mind-manifesting or soul-manifesting properties—the word psychedelic is a novel combination of Greek words meaning “mind/soul” + “to show”—that enhance human mental faculties such as visionary consciousness and imagination. Psychedelic substances, which “manifest the mind/soul,” are classified as psychoactive, “activating the mind/soul” in pharmacology, meaning they affect the central nervous system.  

Native Cultures in the Americas and worldwide deploy sacred plants and fungi with psychedelic properties for purposes that can be deemed sacramental or sacred/religious but also therapeutic, philosophical, creative or aesthetic, social and political, hedonistic or laudatory/recreational, and palliative or compassionate for people with terminal illnesses, expanding upon the United Nations World Drug Report 2023 that distinguishes only three types of use: therapeutic, spiritual, and non-medical. (González Romero 2023) The lack of accurate frameworks for cultural uses of psychedelics has caused unnecessary misunderstandings and significant, enduring problems that include prohibitionism, cultural appropriation, lack of recognition, and, perhaps most urgently, extractivism, an ideology of access and cultural consumption that literally extracts from the Native Context. 

Each entry in the Sacred Plants and Fungi of the Americas Series documents the name(s) of a psychedelic substance among a group or groups of Native Americans, and then it presents an image of art associated with different psychedelic plants and fungi: paintings, monuments, sculptures, or ornamented tools. Each image is accompanied by an explanation of the plant or fungi and its place in the cultural heritage of those Native American people and cultures who revere and cultivate these plants and fungi. Entries set out cultural and geographic contexts for the psychedelic substances’ uses. Finally, entries interprets the cultural uses, implications, and impacts of sacred plants and fungi in their Native Contexts, especially their role establishing and cultivating relationships with human and more-than-human agents. Throughout the Series, our interpretations are supported by scientific evidence but also humanistic approach; we value scientific archaeology, history, and material culture as equally as we value humanistic ethnography, mythography, and art. 

Sacred plants and fungi must be differentiated from simplistic labels that reduce or ignore complexities of their roles in Native Cultures, especially the term hallucinogenic, a once catch-all term for psychoactive substances that affect sense experiences and alter mental faculties. Psychedelics substance’ visionary potency distinguish them from other sacred plants like tobacco and coca leaf, which, in ways similar to coffee, stimulate of central nervous system. Plants without strong visionary properties when consumed not usually considered psychedelic, are used ritually and sacramentally throughout Native Cultures. Psychedelics strengthen users’ visionary consciousness and also cause significant and lasting transformations in thought and mood that amount to changes in consciousness and perception, but these experiences are not mere hallucinations.

Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann (1992) used the term hallucinogen in their ground-breaking publications—Hofmann arguably coined the term psychedelic in a 1956 letter to Aldous Huxley—because “it was the most common term used” at the time. The term hallucinogen, among whose earliest use is documented in 1954 by, again, Huxley, from a Latin word meaning “to wander in the mind,” is not accurate for plants and fungi with psychedelic properties. Plants and fungi with psychedelic properties have a specific effect on the brain by affecting the 5HT2a serotonin receptors. Pharmacologically, hallucinogens work with different neuroreceptors than plants and fungi with psychedelic properties, but hallucinogens have a high rate of toxicity, different from natural psychedelics that do not have lethal doses. 

The term hallucination connotes seeing something false, something that is not really there, that is only apparent to the experiencer and nobody else, something that is, thereby, materially false. The psychedelic experience among Native Cultures is a source of knowledge, not falsehood or distortion. Psychedelic experiences profoundly change experiencers by revealing what they consider to be truths. The agency of the experience and the agency of the more-than-human entities encountered through psychedelic experiences prevents the dismissing of psychedelic experiences as something false, just as a myth may not be historically accurate but is nevertheless true.

Archaeology and historical records are the main primary evidence for this Sacred Plants and Fungi of the Americas Series, but examining historical records reveals their limits, and the historical sources for plants and fungi with psychedelic properties are particularly limited. Historical records and colonial records—such as the Florentine Codex, also known as the Natural History of New Spain—enhance our knowledge about these plants and their use, but these records have gaps since they were not produced by Native Cultures. Those gaps can filled by studying art and art history and incorporating ethnography and the study of material culture. The Sacred Plants and Fungi of the Americas Series disseminates images of Native artistic masterpieces, including ceramics, sculptures, rock art, ritual paraphernalia, and ancient codices. The Series encourage informed reflection and responsible scholarship about plants and fungi. Whenever possible, archaeological and art historical archives are interpreted according to cutting-edge research in anthropology and material culture.

Psychedelic experiences mediated by sacred plants and fungi is a broad element of social life in Native Cultures. Psychedelic experiences are usually group and collective in Native Cultures rather than an attempt to escape or flee from the realities of social life. A rigorous historical account of scared plants and fungi in the Americas shows an array of cultural uses enduring today. Understanding the history of these plants and fungi illuminates the roots of Native Cultures’ knowledge about these sacred substances’ transformative power and their value for the cultural heritage of the world.

Taking inspiration from the Harvard Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture Program, the Sacred Plants and Fungi of the Americas Series strives for pluralism, cultural diversity, scientific accuracy, reciprocity, and respect. This series will be presented in English, Spanish, and the Native American languages Nahuatl and Mazatec, in harmony with UNESCO´s proclamation of an Indigenous Languages Decade from 2022 to 2032.  To overcome hasty generalizations and external denominations bedeviling psychedelic studies, the Series uses Native American peoples’ self-denominations, which is not only ethical but best practice. 

The Series is informed and guided by the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR), which highlights cultural uses of plants and fungi with psychedelic properties in order to explore religious and spiritual traditions that “aim to transcend our normal states of being, consciousness, and embodiment, and thus to transform the individual, community, and society.” 

This Sacred Plants and Fungi Series is an example of the collaboration required for studying psychedelics and engaging the emerging field of Psychedelic Humanities. The Harvard Divinity School and the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) are committed to psychedelic education to a broad audience, namely the dissemination of trustful information and responsible philosophical interpretation. 

References.

Gonzalez Romero, O. S. (2023). Cognitive liberty and the psychedelic humanities. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1128996

Osmond, H (1957). “A Review of the clinical effects of psychotomimetic agents.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 66 , p.429.

Schultes, R.E, Hofmann, A., and Rätsch, Ch. (1992). Plants of the Gods Their Sacred, Healing and,Hallucinogenic Powers (Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, pp. 9-30.

United Nations World Drug Report.(2023). “Recent Developments Involving Psychedelics”. Contemporary Issues on Drugs. UNODC Research. 1-14.

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/wdr-2023_booklet-2.html