‘Entheogen’ versus ‘Psychedelic’

At The Revealer, Peter Bebergal unpacks the history and connotation of the terms “entheogen” and the older “psychedelic.”

But many find “entheogen” to be problematic. Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, brother to the late psychedelic and speculative philosopher Terrence McKenna and a respected researcher in his own right, believes these drugs are capable of much more than inducing a mystical hierophany. The word entheogen privileges that experience over all others, but even more importantly, a true spiritual experience with these substances is a rare thing indeed. Why use a term that contains a built-in promise that cannot always be realized?

In an email McKenna explains, “Only under certain, highly controlled circumstances do they manifest ‘god within,’ whatever that means.” For the whole range of substances and the even greater range of their effects, McKenna prefers psychedelic: “I like ‘psychedelic’ even with all its cultural baggage because it reliably describes what they do: they ‘manifest’ the mind.”

Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), concurs. “I never use the term “entheogen.”  I feel it is positively biased to imply drugs that catalyze positive experiences of the divine, and is similar to hallucinogen that is negatively biased to imply drugs that catalyze fundamentally false and delusionary experiences.”

Once I learned the term “entheogen,” I embraced it. For too many years I had heard the term “psychedelic”  devalued to describe music, decor, attitudes, and other subcultural attributes. It seemed to have lost its savor. But what happens—as it always does—when someone uses the word “entheogen” commercially. That upends the discourse too.

2 thoughts on “‘Entheogen’ versus ‘Psychedelic’

  1. Pitch313

    I prefer “psychedelic” a little–because it’s the word I heard first. And because, at least for me, it alludes to a sort of expansive playfulness that may occur during certain drug enhanced experiences.

    What’s more, I do have a few warm and cozy feelings for the early days of Psychedelia in and around San Francisco.

    I don’t think that we, considering the world we live in, can keep the
    influences of commercialization away from anything that we undertake.
    Words are there for us to use in many contexts, and commerce is certainly one of them.

  2. I prefer “entheogen” – but then again I’m pretty much always discussing them in a religious context. And so while I acknowledge that not all use of such psychoactive drugs will result in an intense religious experience, I prefer to emphasize that I believe that’s what they should primarily be used for; that should be the intent even if not always the result. There are exceptions, and I’m not entirely opposed to using them for self-exploration, etc., but it’s still my general bias in the matter.

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