The New Intoxication - part 4: Motivation by Ritual

     In the last post in this series I opened up the discussion of possible motivations for the use of intoxicating substances. As I continue now with the discussion of the motivation by ritual, I'd like to point out that this list I've generated is by no means exhaustive. As I believe I already said, there are probably as many motives for an action as there are persons acting.

Motivation by Ritual: this type of motivation is closely linked to the motivation by culture and in some ways would be a sub-category of it. Often referred to as the ethnogenic use of drugs, many people in the past and today are enticed to drug use through their implementation in religious ceremonies. Many such substances involved in these types of rituals are illegal in the US (Opium, marijuana, Peyote, DMT, and Psilocybin Mushrooms) and others are culturally discouraged (Salvia and others). Historically, and for obvious reasons, these substances had been extracted by interested persons from plant material. This motivation is also closely related to the motivation based on physical sensation because in such ritual use it is believed that the chemical alteration of the state of mind and the feelings induced on the body have an element of supernatural or otherworldly cause. Those using certain substances in a religious manner may try to explain the experience this way: that some supernatural being or force uses the drug as a means to communicate through its effects. This motive is not exclusive to cultures in third world countries or secluded villages in New Guinea or Central America. Knowledge of such practices, likely combined with other motives, has generated sub-cultures even in the US in the last 60 years or so. In both the Beatnik and Hippie movements (which have experienced a sort of revival in the last 20 years) one would find individuals who use drugs (illicit or otherwise) to induce an altered state of mind, coupling it perhaps with some other sort of shamanistic or even Eastern religious practice such as transcendental meditation.

      In the next post in this series I plan to discuss the motivation by sustenance.