Historians on Drugs: Towards an Empirical Historiography of Global Psychedelic Cultures (Greer, 2025)

Michael Hoffman, October 7, 2026 9:12 am UTC+0

todo: picture here
todo: re-sequence the sections

Contents:

links work on desktop Edge/Chrome:

Citation and Link

Historians on Drugs: Towards an Empirical Historiography of Global Psychedelic Cultures
J. Christian Greer
April 2025, South Atlantic Quarterly
https://www.academia.edu/129077372/Historians_on_Drugs_Towards_an_Empirical_Historiography_of_Global_Psychedelic_Cultures

The Superiority of Greer vs. Recent Academic Deniers of Mushrooms in Christendom

Affirming Greer does not require much revision to the Egodeath theory.

Greer gives sound reasoning; so does the Egodeath theory; so they are largely compatible.

Greer’s cautions, in effect, align with how the Egodeath theory criticizes 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm).

In contrast to the crude scorched-earth approach from Sharday Mosurinjohn & Richard Ascough.

Finished reading every line of article except Biblio (todo).

Christian Greer gives the most coherent, balanced, reasonable viable argumentation:

We’ve discovered amble evidence for psychedelics in western religious history.

The only real debate is about the extent: how normal and mainstream?

I attack the definition of normal and the definition of mainstream as one argument vector I employ.

Huge Faceplant by Greer: “Ruck Used Illegal Amanita”, Stopped Me from Really Reading this Must-Read Article

as bad as Ruck writing “dancing man mushroom has red cap” (plainly blue).

Abstract

Scholarship on the global history of psychedelics is divided into two rival approaches.

This article analyzes these approaches, emphasizing the way in which ideological biases on both sides have stymied serious research on the use of psychedelic substances across space and time, before introducing the empirical approach as an alternative.

~= the minimal entheogen theory of religion:

The most prevalent view, “pharmacological Calvinism,” essentializes mind‐altering drugs and their users as degenerate or antisocial.

This reductive approach has defined the intellectual mainstream across academic disciplines to the present.

~= maximal entheogen theory of religion, IF omit the “Moderate” position and bifurcate into only 2, not 3, positions: i made a 3rd, Max position, in order to reject the alleged maximalist Ruck as way too stingy and defeatist (the Suppression & Absence narrative, where each evidence of presence of mushroom is twisted, by agenda-narrative, into evidence for absence):

In contrast to pharmacological Calvinism, the entheogenic school offers a maximalist interpretation of psychedelics’ impact on human culture and cognition, presenting consciousness‐expanding drugs as the “secret key” behind the world’s religious traditions, mythology, and folklore.

This article proposes that the empirical approach offers a corrective to the overstatements of both schools, as it is defined by comparatively granular research that draws from a deep understanding of primary sources placed in conversation with the intellectual apparatuses of the secondary literature.

Distinctly uninterested in unveiling psychedelics as the “key” to any tradition, this approach interprets the multiplicity of meanings and values associated with powerful psychotropics, alongside other modes of ecstasy and transpersonal relationality, as an integral dimension of the human story.

Comments

Mobile voice transcription draft

Greer is a more mature, balanced, nuanced scholar than Sharday Mosurinjohn re: the extent of psychedelics in Western religious history.

maximal entheogen theory of religion

My 2002 and 2003 model of minimal versus moderate versus maximal is problematic because people like ruck shift and prevaricate and waffle between moderate versus minimal positions

From Greer’s pov, Ruck = maximal entheogen theory of religion.

In 2002 after disappointment w/ book Apples of Apollo, compared to Entheos issue 1 & 2, I broke away from Ruck as too stingy, underestimating (for political agenda reasons) extent of psychedelics in Western religious history. Ruck was taking away entheogens more than positively finding them, like Browns do.

Secret Expose of Overuse of the Secrecy Paradigm/ Suppression Premise

i was titillated to see Greer berate Browns and others, for ALL putting “secret” in their book title.

overused cliche from 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm).

Good analysis from Greer. p. 279

Trajectory of origin of religions:

  1. phase 1: psychedelics cause eternalism-driven control-transformation.
  2. phase 2: a religion brand forms, based on that.
  3. phase 3: the institutional religion denies its psychedelic origin due to conflict of interest.

That answers Greer, “must account for … drugs are no longer a MAJOR component”. My 3 phases don’t explicitly employ concept of secret & suppression; my model is more articulate than that. ‘Secret’ implies that 3-phase model.

See this site’s copy of Cyberdisciple post “against suppression/secrecy premise”.

My Ideas Are Orthogonal; a 3rd option (vs his Empiricism 3rd option)

False common-core mysticism and perennialism (positive unity), vs. True (eternalism-driven control-transformation)

eg perennialism: everyone holds Perennialism v1, which is wrong. My perennialism v2 is the correct variant: the best, most important mystical experience is eternalism-driven control-transformation, NOT positive unity.

Greer criticizes articulately, the neo-Advaita, positive unitive model of mystical experience, baked into Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) forming psychedelic pseudo science.

He crit’s Walter Stace 1960. Good writing against the ignoring & discrediting of chall experiences; Great Canterbury Psalter is notable for its depiction of dread and being “paranoid” ie experiencing helplessly being threatened (by eternalism; by the beyond-control preexistence of one’s personal future).

Doubled Down on Firm Commitment to Great Canterbury Psalter Analysis & Explanation

Error: “I’m interested in the Egodeath theory, but not psalter art.”

The #1 most profound and profitable art to analyze is Eadwine’s in Great Canterbury Psalter.

The best, most valuable, useful, relevant, profound, insightful thing that I can contribute is explain these images, in terms of psychedelic eternalism-driven control-transformation, which the images are designed to convey and depict.

TRUE, v2 common-core mysticism and perennialism. correctly id’d as eternalism-driven control-transformation, NOT (per everyone/ “the perennialists”) the Positive Unitive model.

I am not a “perennialist” (V1: Positive Unitive);
I am a V2 Perennialist (eternalism-driven control-transformation).

i am not an “entheogen scholar” as in, 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm).

i’m an entheogen scholar, as in 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm).

My commitment to Great Canterbury Psalter decoding is corrob’d by Foraging for Psychedelic Mushrooms in the Wrong Forest: The Great Canterbury Psalter as a Medieval Test Case (Ronald Huggins, 2024)

YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE.

Heading

On Tuesdays, Ruck is Moderate; on Wednesdays he’s Minimal. From Greer POV, Ruck is Maximal.

Waffle House Gang.

my 2003 M M M model fails to address waffling, shifting, illusion, as from one angle, Ruck appears Maximal, Moderate, or Minimal.

Sharday Mosurinjohn commits the fallacy: arg from silence:

one side of mouth:

“There is insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion on the extent of psychedelics in western religious history.”

other side of mouth:

“TIK/ Muraresku / Rogan/ Ruck is definitely wrong. There are definitely no psychedelics in western religious history. Everyone who says so is fools. “

Greer is way better than Sharday Mosurinjohn here. Greer explains the culture-war motives w/o reducing entire field to only that, like Sharday Mosurinjohn does. Greer manages to balance & have it both ways.

Indeed plants are throughout history, AND there are culture scholarly disputes about this. Rightly describes Allegro as an odd combination of the two bad approaches: calvinism & entheogen scholarship

Outline of Headings in Greer

  • Abstract
  • Intro
  • Pharmacological Calvinism
  • Entheogenic School
  • Empirical Historicism
  • Conclusion

Demonizing “Essentialism”

The essence of mystical experience is psychedelic eternalism; eternalism-driven control-transformation, per the Egodeath theory’s version of common-core mysticism and perennialism.

Against Greer, dogma, essentialism, paradigm commitment, & circularity of reasoning are actually good and required – if done right.

Without a paradigm-lens, blind to the evidence.

By applying the psychedelic eternalism lens, that has proven to reveal tons of superior evidence, surpassing Ruck and others.

eg Great Canterbury Psalter:

  • Day 4 mushrooms in folio image f11 point to the {balance scale} held by Creator, thus id’ing what’s in the pans of the {balance scale}.
  • f134 harvest, behind oxen, blue vase, row 3 middle, he looks at the psilocybin dispensary above on row 2, thus id’ing what’s in the vase jar.

Good Advocacy of Not Separating Mystical Experience vs. Challenging Experiences

The 3 Available Approaches According to Greer: Pharmacological Calvinism; Entheogenic School; Empirical Historicism [clueless, blind, directionless, lens-less, paradigm-free, unable to perceive evidence]

“empirical historiography” means, lacking any interpretive frame. Advocated by Wouter Hanegraaff, whose so-broken cosmos model cannot allow any stars in the sky, bc that would positively value evil heimarmene (fatedness, eternalism, pre-extant future).

Lacking an interp’v frame “bc that would be circular” is nothing to brag about.

Wouter Hanegraaff & C. Greer are bad in pushing a formless, directionless empiricism.

the Egodeath theory (the theory of psychedelic eternalism) that’s proven to provide a guiding paradigm framework that enables perceiving evidence – higher qty & quality than previous paradigms or “being free from any contaminating paradigm”.

Getting rid of circular paradigm does not give empirical data; it prevents perceiving such – but, must be the correct circular paradigm.

not Positive Unity & Secret Christian Amanita Cult, but rather,
eternalism-driven control-transformation & the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm.

p. 284 top, Greer advocates broad coverage of all psychedelic experiences, not limiting to Stace 1960 narrow exclusive top-down, ahead-of-time, neo-Adv model and dismissing all experience that doesn’t fit that popular model.

Greer is wrong to blanket-disparage “an essentialized view of the psychedelic experience”.

The best, most valuable most insightful, most essential mystical experience is, eternalism-driven control-transformation, which is depicted and articulated in Great Canterbury Psalter, within the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}.

Greer wrongly says entheogen scholars are fixated on drugs. p. 284 40% down page (Weil 1988 quote).

Greer says we must avoid 2 extremes:

  • pharm calvinists: “degrades the mind; non-drug methods are better”
  • entheogen scholars – “psychedelics are exceptional”. the theory of psychedelic eternalism agrees, but, my approach is NOT the one char’ized by Greer. Superior.

Greer’s Other Drugs and Non-Drug Techniques SUCK and FAIL; False Equivalency

Scopolamine (deliriant) was highly available subst for what was considered the real deal, psilocybin (which was rarer in avail’y). The orig driver was not scop, but psilocybin.

The Only Effective Trigger of eternalism-driven control-transformation is Classic Psychedelics, per the Egodeath theory.

Mystics historically had a clouded, confused view, much of the time, obscuring and not clearly getting, psychedelic eternalism.

History of esotericism descriptions/ communications left us with a garbled mess that includes yet obscures the classic revelation of psychedelic eternalism.

We have to work to apply paradigm to weed out & ID the BEST and truest aspects, from garbled writings & poor clueless art like later Ortho icon images that fail to grasp and convey the 4 motif categs: {mushroom}, {branching}, {handedness}, and {stability} motifs.

Junk modern Newage? We must deal w/ the history of junk exoteric esotericism.

The RIGHT circular reasoning is required. top-down model to drive perceiving / collecting evidence. Wouter Hanegraaff/ Greer wrongly dismisses top-down models, advoc’ing naive “bottom-up empirical” approach, which is blind, clueless, and subject to bias.

We must judge, sort, excavate the solid best treasure. Ancestors left us jewels in mud, undiff’d.

A would-be “neutral, paradigm-free, empirical” approach (Wouter Hanegraaff, Greer) is incapable of id’ing and explaining and recognizing eternalism-driven control-transformation.

theory-free gathering of evidence doesn’t work. not effective. weak, limp-wristed, without vigor or direction.

i resent phrase “THE entheogenic school” in Conclusion p. 287. I sit aside from that school, largely, to the extent I reject 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm) and advocate eternalism-driven control-transformation (not Positive Unitive like everyone else) & 2nd-generation entheogen scholarship (the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm).

Nice treatment of Allegro as a unique crossover between Calv & entheogen school.

Wouter Hanegraaff’s cosmos model is so broken by (prejudiced) ruling out a positive role for Heimarmene, the model cannot bear including any stars.

See my 2004 post, 8 years before Wouter Hanegraaff’s keynote title, “Entheogenic Esotericism”. don’t use “can” to fabricate a false equivalency, as Greer does, p. 284 middle, end of paragraph: “other drugs” & “techniques”.

“Circular!” – effective research and theorizing is inherently circular-paradigmatic commitment, in some way.

Bragging “I have no paradigm to limit me” actually means “I am blind and expect to randomly gather data w/ no guiding explanatory framework paradigm lens.”

and means, i’m gonna sneak covertly in, a bad malformed paradigm instead – covert malformed circular reasoning instead of explicit well-formed circular reasoning like the Egodeath theory.

Greer is again pure / simple / naive constructivism that asserts, “Psychedelics have no inherent effect; the effects are whatever the culture expects.” p. 283 bottom.

The anything-but-drugs academics vs. “counterculture” entheogen scholars.

Sharday Mosurinjohn w Richard Ascough makes their biggest point that “Ruck switches from “there might be psychedelics” to writing as if there definitely were psychedelics.

It is natural and reasonable for Ruck to write this way. Would they expect him to say “alleged” before every single word?

yet these hypocrites themselves make that very same fallacious move, worse than Ruck does.

(every accusation is a confession)

Sharday Mosurinjohn online in various forums, including Harvard presentations is immature and nasty and incoherent and self-contradictory, and just mean, and deservedly her articles, get rejected by every kind of journal for her rough, crude attack and self-aggrandizement, which I’ve posted about here w red hilite quotes.

She entered the field five minutes ago because she had no direction in her tenure career and latched onto the trendy pop topic of psychedelic therapy and history like a parasite opportunist. Professhunul Debunker of Muraresku / Rogan/ Ruck

I have not read the entheogen scholar Joseph Rogan, but it’s ridiculous how the co-authors treat popular reception of allegro and Ruck to equate Rogan and Muraresku and Ruck.

Sharday Mosurinjohn entered the field, a bully, a newbie, with both fists swinging, as clumsy as aggressive, clumsily contradicting herself, committing the same fallacy that she makes a big stink out of attributing to Ruck.

her stupid pop followers on the internet – “yeah, u DESTROYED Ruck!!” (by fallacious arg from silence)

Her first book was nothing to do with psychedelics. Directionless.

Muraresku / Rogan to the rescue: career idea!💡- Latch onto pop entheogen scholarship as self-appointed head of debunkers.

Easy pickins! Easy mode: just appease anything-but-drugs academia, & internet fans, w words that sound like arguments. just Read Muraresku & ur rdy to go.

Her career positioning posture marketing.

like Thomas Hatsis defending psychedelics in Western religious history – at the same time as “but def no mushroom in Western religious history”.

Thomas Hatsis’ 2025 book Psychedelic Injustice: How Identity Politics Poisons the Psychedelic Renaissance https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634312783 & https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/08/17/psychedelic-injustice-how-identity-politics-poisons-the-psychedelic-renaissance-hatsis-2025/

Hatsis’ rigidly Allegro-framed (grossly underinformed by Giorgio Samorini) Amanita / sacred mushroom [awful hazy fake 1950 Wasson-fabricated bucket to force / smush together/ conflate Amanita = psilocybin but w entire emph on Amanita – even Jan Irvin 2008 does same

brittle crude arg’n

Thomas Hatsis can only arg against his own strawman, young Thomas Hatsis who is the #1 fanboi of Allegro.

Ignorant of articles on psilocybin history.

Proof: watch his video titled proof of no mushroom in Christianity, but the content of the video only covers Amanita, and is completely unaware of the existence of psilocybin focus in other writers.

because he is ignorant of any writings about psilocybin – he only has eyes for Allegro 😍 – he totally and absolutely conflates Amanita with “the sacred mushroom”, equals “psychedelic mushroom”.

There is only one mushroom in his little mind, none other than the specifically John Allegro-framed Amanita Amanita hypothesis.

Secret Christian Amanita Cult

as if John Allegro 1970 is the beginning and end and totality of the scope of the idea of mushroom in western religious history.

John Lash nauseatingly mis-attributes the entire topic of psychedelics to be “Wasson’s idea” – fortunately he does this weird fanboy move to the extreme, way beyond what anyone else does.

No one else tries to give entire credit to every psychedelic idea to be “Wasson’s idea”, which is ridiculous and absurd, just bad scholarship & writing.

It’s more fanboyism rather than scholarship.

Thomas Hatsis similarly mis-frames the entire question of mushrooms in western religious history with the ultra narrow, specific framing from John allegro 1970, The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross

Thomas Hatsis the disappointed Allegro fanboi. sees no other arg’n, only Allegro, not:

Conjuring Eden: Art and the Entheogenic Vision of Paradise (Hoffman, Ruck & Staples, Entheos 1, 2001), https://entheomedia.net/Issue%20one.htm & https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/12/24/entheos-issues-1-4-mark-hoffman/#Entheos-Issue-1

which incorps “Mushroom-Trees” in Christian Art (Giorgio Samorini, 1998) https://www.samorini.it/doc1/sam/sam-alberifungo-1998.pdf & https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/mushroom-trees-in-christian-art-samorini/.

as if Giorgio Samorini never wrote 1997 and 1998 milestone breakthrough articles, expanding the question to encompass psilocybin as well as the number one uber most important, be all, end all, mushroom, which is of course Amanita

Giorgio Samorini perpetuates that false centering of Amanita.

Overemphs the lone pop proxy Ama tree example, Plaincourault fresco, to be the model paradigm to copypaste to apply to all mushroom imagery in Christian art.

my criticisms of entheogen scholarship; 1st-generation entheogen scholarship (the Secret Amanita paradigm) are better than Sharday Mosurinjohn scorched earth.

entheogen scholarship needs correction, not discarding the field / hypoth wholesale.

Foraging for Psychedelic Mushrooms in the Wrong Forest: The Great Canterbury Psalter as a Medieval Test Case (Ronald Huggins, 2024) broke that monopoly that the Plaincourault fresco held.

“Allegro is wrong, thus the mushroom (= Secret Christian Amanita Cult) is NOT in Western religious history.”

Sharday Mosurinjohn makes her career direction opportunity the claim that Brian Muraresku, who equals ruck (& rogan), is tot wrong.

but the real problem in the field is not Bunk evidence but rather fallacious argumentation which the shameless academia appeasing, shameless of the rotten argumentation fallacies.

The Huggins article is just a solid wall of bad argumentation, but he has no shame and no embarrassment over these wretched, terrible arguments that might appease the academia expectations, but totally collapse the moment that you challenge them.

Sharday Mosurinjohn & Deniers of mushroom imagery in Christian art ought to be embarrassed and ashamed of their wretched wall of fallacious arguments, but no, since they’re singing the song that they get paid to sing by the expectations of anything-but-drugs academics, they do not sense any need to put forth arguments that can actually stand up to challenge.

For example, Huggins saying that Canterbury day four of creation has trees – when in fact, there’s no branching at all, and these are literal mushroom specimens

his “conclusion” section is simply a negative declaration pretending to be a detailed argumentation.

It’s just a negative declaration really. a faith statement proclamation. (instantly approved by anything-but-drugs academics. )

yet Sharday Mosurinjohn cites Huggins as if solid argn.

entheogen scholarship does not suffer from bad evidence, or lack of attention to texts surrounding art; entheogen scholarship suffers from fallacious argumentation by the deniers.

See Also

todo: copy or move from linked articles to present article:

My previous discussion of Greer’s article:

https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=%22defied+legal+prohibitions%22 —

Search of this site for “Greer”:
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=greer – many hits; many pages probably just mention Greer in a list.

YouTube search for “Christian Greer”:
url —

Video: Historical Currents in Psychedelics | J. Christian Greer & Mike Jay (Mar. 6, 2026)

Video title:
Historical Currents in Psychedelics | J. Christian Greer & Mike Jay | Academic to Academic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m75rOlI48k
Mar. 6, 2026

“J. Christian Greer (Stanford University) and author-historian Mike Jay reflect on how the study of psychedelics emerged as an academic field, and why it is best understood not as “drug history” alone but as a lens on wider questions of consciousness, culture, religion and medicine.

“They note how psychedelic history is often reduced to a familiar mid-twentieth-century narrative.

“This obscures both the continuities of the following decades and the longer history of scientific inquiry into altered states of consciousness, from early modern experiments on perception to nineteenth-century self-experimentation.”

Video: Christian Greer – Psychedelic Militancy in the 1980s [Dissertation] (May 7, 2021)

Video title:
Christian Greer – Psychedelic Militancy in the 1980s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAQOCmNfqIU
May 7, 2021

“Christian Greer (PhD) gives a lecture on the topic of his dissertation: “Psychedelic Militancy in the 1980s”.

“The psychedelic dimension of religious experience occupies a marginal position in the scholarship of American culture.

“For the last seven decades, scholars have viewed the psychedelicist church movement as, variously, an excuse for taking illegal drugs, an inauthentic mode of religious fellowship, and a purely oppositional “counter-culture.”

“More recent scholarship challenges these interpretations by emphasizing the legitimacy of the experiences occasioned by psychedelics.

“Psychedelicism in the 1980s took shape as the “zine scene,” a vast information network composed of approximately ten thousand self-publishers.

“Through an examination of the hipster militants of the zine scene, the work of Dr. Christian Greer re-centers psychedelicist fellowships in 1980s hip culture.

“It is only by recognizing the interplay between the hipsters of the psychedelicist movement, and hip capitalism, that the role of esotericism in American culture can be understood.”

Video: Psychedelic Christianity: Real and Imagined | Christian Greer (Sep. 9, 2025)

Psychedelic Christianity: Real and Imagined | Christian Greer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYlotZTyOFA
Sep. 9, 2025

“Was the original Eucharist a psychedelic?

Were the original Christian communities entheogenically supercharged?

Was Jesus actually a mushroom?

These are simply some of the questions that historians of drugs field on a regular basis.

And to be clear, our answers are almost always disappointing.

All of the arguments that suggest a psychedelic origin of Christianity are pure conjecture.

There is simply no solid proof that Christianity had a psychedelic origin or that ancient[?] Christians used psychedelics.

Yet, as the expression goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

And I anticipate that some archaeo-chemists will eventually unearth a vessel that demonstrates some Christians in some part of the ancient world use some sort of psychedelic sacrament in their worship.

And why not? Over the last few millennia, humans across the globe have used a variety of psychedelic substances to access visionary states of consciousness.

This vast pharmacopoeia includes plants, roots, vines, cacti, nuts, herbs, nectar, roots, snuffs…. you get the picture.

There is no doubt that psychedelic substances have played a key role in human culture, animating religious rituals, rites of passage, communal ceremonies, not to mention healing, sorcery, divination, communion with the dead.

And all of that continues to the present day.

But again, there is still no proof that they were used amongst Christians in the ancient world.

I’m not going to belabor this point by mapping all of the deficiencies in the arguments suggesting a psychedelic origin of Christianity.

Rather, I’m going to focus on the real stakes involved with this preoccupation with an imagined psychedelic Christian origin, as opposed to the real traditions of psychedelic Christianity.”

Video: RU Sirius Psychedelic Panel (Apr. 14, 2026)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyoLUcZ6C-8

[I met and spoke with R. U. Sirius at Stanford univ. around 1995. I hated his answer: “Mondo 2000 magazine doesn’t cover LSD, because passe.” Superficial! Shallow! Trendy-driven! – mh]

Video title:
RU Sirius Psychedelic Panel
Apr. 14, 2026

“A panel about psychedelics in the 1960s and the 2020s hosted by R.U. Sirius at Psychedelic SF Gallery on Haight Street in San Francisco, March 27, 2026.

“Panelists are — left to right — Christian Greer, Bia LaBate and Michael Marinacci.

“Christian Greer is a scholar of Religious Studies with a special focus on psychedelic culture and an author whose upcoming book is Angelheaded Hipsters: Psychedelic Militancy in Nineteen Eighties North America.

Dr. Bia Labate (Beatriz Caiuby Labate) is an anthropologist, educator, author, speaker, and activist, committed to the protection of sacred plants while amplifying the voices of marginalized communities in the psychedelic science field. She is the founder of the Chacruna Institute. Their event Psychedelic Culture 2026 is taking place in San Francisco April 17-19. [for critique, see Thomas Hatsis’ 2025 book Psychedelic Injustice: How Identity Politics Poisons the Psychedelic Renaissance https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634312783 & https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/08/17/psychedelic-injustice-how-identity-politics-poisons-the-psychedelic-renaissance-hatsis-2025/ ]

“Michael Marinacci is the author of Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches: LSD, Cannabis, and Spiritual Sacraments in Underground America.”

Angelheaded Hipsters: Psychedelic Militancy in Nineteen Eighties North America (Greer 2026?)

x https://www.academia.edu/42832778/Angel_Headed_Hipsters_Psychedelic_Militancy_in_Nineteen_Eighties_North_America

Religion Can’t be a Joke, Right? (Greer Entry in Hanegraaff, Dec. 1, 2025)

Anthology entry title:
Religion Can’t be a Joke, Right?
https://www.academia.edu/39833530/Religion_Cant_be_a_Joke_Right
J. Christian Greer

In the book Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism (Wouter Hanegraaff), Dec. 1, 2025.
https://www.amazon.com/Hermes-Explains-Questions-Western-Esotericism/dp/1041180853/

Beyond Counterculture: Towards a People’s History of Psychedelic Networks (Greer)

Beyond Counterculture: Towards a People’s History of Psychedelic Networks
J. Christian Greer
in Psychedelic Intersections
https://www.academia.edu/127611124/Beyond_Counterculture_Towards_a_Peoples_History_of_Psychedelic_Networks

“This article demonstrates how “counterculture” remains a poorly defined way to talk about rapidly developing milieux, scenes, and networks born out of the religious awakening stimulated by psychedelics in the mid-1960s.

“It proposes an alternative framework of “psychedelicism” to better understand the nuances and complexity of historical and contemporary psychedelic communities.”

Video: Between Sacred & Profane: Psychedelic Culture, Drug Spiritualites, and Contemporary America (Greer, Davis, Laderman, May 10, 2021)

Video title:
Between Sacred & Profane: Psychedelic Culture, Drug Spiritualites, and Contemporary America
May 10, 2021

“As part of the “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” series, Dr. J. Christian Greer hosted a discussion panel with Dr. Erik Davis and Dr. Gary Laderman, focusing on the intersection of psychedelic culture, sacred drugs, and the modern American zeitgeist.

In their wide-ranging conversation, this distinguished panel of addressed spiritualities centered on psychoactive substances, the material culture of psychedelia, and the potential role humanities scholars could play in the current wave of clinical research on psychedelics.

Erik Davis is an author, award-winning journalist, and independent scholar based in San Francisco. He is the author, most recently [later: book: Blotter], of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, co-published by MIT Press and Strange Attractor.

Davis graduated from Yale University in 1988, and more recently earned his PhD in religious studies at Rice University. www.techgnosis.com.

Gary Laderman is Goodrich C. White Professor American Religious History and Cultures in the Department of Religion at Emory University.

His new book is Don’t Think About Death: A Memoir on Mortality.

He’s written on the history of death in America and on the sacred in American religious life.

He helped to launch and run Religion Dispatches and Sacred Matters, just started a new podcast, Sacrilegious with Gary Laderman, and is writing a book on religion and drugs.”

Video: Panel Session | Psychedelic Shadows: Reevaluating the Renaissance (May 5, 2026)

Video title:
Panel Session | Psychedelic Shadows: Reevaluating the Renaissance
May 5, 2026
Greer presentation:
The Drug War Fog: Psychedelics, Religion, and the Politics of Erasure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmI298FeJv0&t=1383s [23:03-44:38]

“This panel offered a re-evaluation of the contemporary psychedelic moment, often described as a “psychedelic renaissance.”

The session was moderated by Paul Gillis-Smith, program lead of Psychedelics and Spirituality at the Center for the Study of World Religions.

Presentations included:

Marlena Robbins, Doctor of Public Health candidate at University of California, Berkeley, presented “Across Generations: Urban Native Perspectives on Psilocybin, Healing, and Cultural Renewal.”

J. Christian Greer, lecturer at the Stanford University School of Medicine, presented “The Drug War Fog: Psychedelics, Religion, and the Politics of Erasure.”

Annalisa Butticci, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, and Osiris Garcia Cerqueda, affiliated researcher at Georgetown University, presented “When the Sacred Mushrooms Withdraw: A More-Than-Human Interpretation of Ecospiritual Crisis.”

Stuart Sarbacker, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Philosophy at Oregon State University, presented “Yoga and Psychedelics: The Dynamism of Longevity (dīrghāyu) and Extraordinary Accomplishment (siddhi) in Traditional and Contemporary Contexts.”

LinkedIn: Greer

https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-christian-greer-ba8653231/

“My work is focused on institutionalizing the study of psychedelics from a humanistic perspective within the university system.

To that end, my scholarly expertise is in the history of psychedelic spirituality, religion, and ritual from a global perspective.

Having held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Amsterdam, I am now a full-time lecturer at Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an affiliate professor at the Graduate Theological Union.

I am also also the director of “The Psychedelic Universe: Global Perspectives on Higher Consciousness,” the first university-accredited, intensive summer school exploring the global history of psychedelics, open to participants from a variety of backgrounds (and not simply graduate students).

This course is hosted by the University of Amsterdam each June.

I am also the director and lead instructor for “Forbidden Knowledge: Introduction to Esotericism” (offered online each winter) and “Arcane Worlds: New Directions in the Study of Esotericism” (offered every summer), both intensive seminars hosted in collaboration with the Graduate School of Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam.

In the last few years, I also co-founded the Drugs and Religion program unit at the American Academy of Religion, The Harvard Psychedelic Walking Tour (available on Spotify), and The Chalice, a psychedelic salon hosted in Berkeley, CA on the first Wednesday of each month.

My forthcoming book, “Crimes Against Normality: Psychedelic Militancy in the Fanzine Revolution” (Oxford University Press), examines the expansion of psychedelic culture within underground networks that emerged during the Drug War.

With respect to published manuscripts, my latest book, “VOID MACHINES: The Paper Shrines of J. Christian Greer” (2024), edited by Dr. Michelle Oing, is an anthology of my visual art.

Dr. Oing and I also co-authored “Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots” (2021) analyzes the pilgrimage folklore associated with the rainforests of Japan’s Kii Peninsula.”

Crimes Against Normality: Psychedelic Militancy in the Fanzine Revolution (Greer, Forthcoming Late 2026)

OUP
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Crimes+Against+Normality%3A+Psychedelic+Militancy%22+greer

THE CHALICE: Between Science and Spirituality, with Bob Jesse [Council on Spiritual Practices]

LinkedIn Post: Chalice at Alembic in Berkeley, Oct. 5, 2026

THE CHALICE: Between Science and Spirituality, with Bob Jesse
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7512899518363820032/ —

“Each month I host a psychedelic lecture series with Erik Davis and Maria Mangini at the The Berkeley Alembic. [where my psychedelic church meets, in-person & online – mh]

For this month’s Chalice, we are very happy to host Bob Jesse, one of the most thoughtful, sincere, and ethical change-makers influencing the “psychedelic renaissance.”

In the early 1990s, Jesse founded the Council on Spiritual Practices, which argued for the value of “primary religious experiences” and advocated for psychedelic approaches for such experiences.

Eventually, Jesse helped support and guide the groundbreaking psilocybin research at Johns Hopkins, as well as the center’s later studies of psychedelic experience among religious professionals.

More recently, Jesse served as a founding member of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

Tonight Jesse will deliver a short “statement of positionality”, after which we will plumb the current state of psychedelic spirituality, science, and commodification.

Bob Jesse was instrumental in forming the psilocybin research team at Johns Hopkins, and he has co-authored several of its papers.

Bob Jesse is a founding member of the U.C. Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

Earlier in life, Bob trained at Hopkins in electrical engineering and computer science, consulted for AT&T Bell Labs, and worked at Oracle as a VP of business development.

In 1993, he founded the Council on Spiritual Practices.”

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

One thought on “Historians on Drugs: Towards an Empirical Historiography of Global Psychedelic Cultures (Greer, 2025)”

  1. Greer’s proposed third way confuses two different questions: how to conduct historical research, and what explanatory theory best accounts for the evidence. There’s no necessary opposition between close attention to primary sources and a maximal entheogen theory of religion. The latter is a proposed conclusion of historical and theoretical investigation, not an alternative to doing empirical research.

    This reminds me of my criticism of Muraresku’s Immortality Key. His demand for chemical residue evidence wasn’t simply a demand for better evidence. It privileged one kind of evidence over the humanities and constrained what conclusions could be drawn. Greer is more sophisticated, but his empirical approach contains a similar restriction.

    He writes that empirical historiography is “distinctly uninterested” in revealing psychedelics as the “key” to any tradition. Does this mean that the historian shouldn’t assume such an explanation in advance, or that the historian shouldn’t pursue it even if the evidence points that way? The first is reasonable; the second prejudges the question.

    Your point about Ruck being classified as a maximalist gets at another problem. Ruck’s secrecy/suppression premise already limits where he expects to find psychedelics, and how he interprets their presence. Classifying him alongside genuinely maximal theories conceals that difference.

    Greer’s criticism of the older entheogen scholarship has value, but his categories risk preserving some of its limitations. I would rather see him distinguish methods of evaluating evidence from the competing historical explanations that those methods are supposed to test.

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