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Psychedelic Connections in Art, Religion, and Consciousness
This is an excerpt from Sky Gods and the Recipe for Immortality: The secret influence of psychoactivity over science, society, and the supernatural.
The lethal and hallucinogenic Datura, known as jimson weed, featured in the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe — one of America’s most influential artists. Psychedelics such as Datura and peyote are also at the roots of two popular American religions: the Native American Church and Mormonism.
A Mormon researcher once noted in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought how Joseph Smith’s great-grandson was highly influenced by Native American traditions:
Frederick Madison Smith was the third president and prophet of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints… Smith was a highly educated man interested in the relationship between science and religion. His interest led him to experiment with the religious significance of the hallucinogenic drug peyote. By his own admission, he widely used the drug in searching for what he would identify as the…
