Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences
ISBN: 9780231540919
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Columbia University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience;

Both a practitioner and professor, Richards writes as a guide into the depths of psychedelic spirituality in an attempt to bring entheogens - substances that "generate the divine within" - back into the mainstream. Opposing the academic backlash against the use of psychedelics in research that picked up in the 1980s, Richards re-introduces the science and psychedelic experience of entheogens as one part study and another part spiritual devotion. He suggests that taken in proper context and used in specific and pointed ways (via contemporary research such as his own) psychedelics can, and reliably do, catalyze genuine mystical and visionary encounters, which can lead to spiritual awakening. Yet, for all its careful documentation and passionate prose, Richards' work still seems dated with references to bygone scholars and questionable sources of authority. More worrying is Richards' lack of serious consideration of appropriating indigenous entheogen practices and the claims of alternate religious pathways. Perhaps this should be expected for a field that has long lain dormant and marginalized; even so, with the legalization of marijuana for recreational use and a general liberalization of views concerning substances such as ayahuasca this might be the perfect time for Richards' wealth of experience in psychedelics to spearhead the renaissance of spiritual psychedelics. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

William A. Richards is a clinical psychologist at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center with formal training in theology and comparative religion. Earlier in his career, he pursued psychedelic research at Spring Grove Hospital Center and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Baltimore. His graduate education included studies at Yale University, Brandeis University, Catholic University, the Andover-Newton Theological School, and the University of Göttingen.

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