[Page 307]Abstract: An article recently published in an online journal entitled “The Entheogenic Origins of Mormonism: A Working Hypothesis” posits that Joseph Smith used naturally occurring chemicals, called “entheogens,” to facilitate visionary experiences among his early followers. The entheogenic substances were reportedly derived from two mushrooms, a fungus, three plants (including one cactus), and the secretions from the parotid glands of the Sonoran Desert toad. Although it is an intriguing theory, the authors consistently fail to connect important dots regarding chemical and historical cause-and-effect issues. Documentation of entheogen acquisition and consumption by the early Saints is not provided, but consistently speculated. Equally, the visionary experiences recounted by early Latter-day Saints are highly dissimilar from the predictable psychedelic effects arising from entheogen ingestion. The likelihood that Joseph Smith would have condemned entheogenic influences as intoxication is unaddressed in the article.

table {border: 1px solid #dddddd; width: 100%; margin: auto;} table td{border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 5px !important; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;}

 

In 2019, retired emergency department physician Robert Beckstead, Naked Mormonism podcaster Bryce Blankenagel, independent researcher Cody Noconi, and retired Arizona State University Professor Michael Winkelman published “The Entheogenic Origins of Mormonism: A Working Hypothesis” in the online Journal of Psychedelic Studies.1 Their lengthy article, richly illustrated with 41 color figures and more than 300 references in the bibliography, attributes many of [Page 308]Joseph Smith’s visionary experiences and those of other early Latter-day Saints to the use of “entheogens,” or psychedelic chemical substances available in the environment.2 The authors state:

[N]o single explanation has to date successfully accounted for the number and quality of visions in early Mormonism. Nor can these modalities explain the “on-demand” visions that were neither spontaneous nor the result of prolonged austerities. To date, Joseph Smith’s and early Mormon converts’ visionary experience are neither easily defined nor understood. Against this background, we present compelling evidence suggesting that many early Mormon visionary experiences were facilitated by entheogenic substances. … We propose that the entheogenic context of early Mormon involved sacraments, ordinances, and endowments feeding these seekers’ hunger for primary religious experience. (212–13)

The primary thesis promoted throughout EOMWH assumes that “[h]erbs were a physical means to profound religious experience, experiences that rarely occur without using entheogens” (214).

All human experience and insight emerge in the chemistry of the brain. … To explore how brain chemistry was involved in Joseph Smith’s religious experiences and those of other early Mormon believers and whether entheogens facilitated those experiences is not to question the spiritual validity and power of those experiences but to illuminate how such compelling experiences were accessed then and draw implications for how they may be accessed now (213).

For support,