entactogen.
entheogen: From the Greek, “generating the divine within.” A psychoactive substance that
produces or facilitates a spiritual experience. Entheogens have been used by many cultures for
thousands of years, whether by shamans or as part of religious or spiritual practices. However, the
term was not coined until the 1970s, by a group of scholars that included R. Gordon Wasson,
Richard Evans Schultes, Jonathan Ott, and Carl Ruck. The word was intended to help rehabilitate
psychedelics by distinguishing their ancient spiritual role from the recreational uses to which they
were often put beginning in the 1960s.
Esalen, or the Esalen Institute: A retreat center in Big Sur, California, founded in 1962 to
explore the various methods for expanding consciousness that often go under the umbrella of the
human potential movement. Esalen was closely identified with the psychedelic movement before
the drugs were banned; in the years afterward, a series of meetings took place at Esalen, where
strategies to rehabilitate and restart research into psychedelics were developed. Many psychedelic
guides now working underground received their training at Esalen.
5-HT2A receptor: One of several types of receptors in the brain that respond to the
neurotransmitter serotonin. Psychedelic compounds also bind to this receptor, precipitating a
cascade of (poorly understood) events that produce the psychedelic experience. Because of its
distinctive molecular shape, LSD binds particularly well to the 5-HT2A receptor. In addition, a
portion of the receptor folds over the LSD molecule and holds it inside the receptor, which might
explain its intensity and long duration of action.
5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine): A powerful, short-acting psychedelic
compound found in certain South American plants and in the venom of the Sonoran desert toad
(Incilius alvarius). The toad venom is typically vaporized and smoked; 5-MeO-DMT obtained
from plants is usually made into a snuff. The compound has been used sacramentally in South
America for many years; it was first synthesized in 1936 and was not made illegal until 2011.
hallucinogen: The class of psychoactive drugs that induce hallucinations, including the
psychedelics, the dissociatives, and the deliriants. The term is often used as a synonym for
psychedelics, even though psychedelics don’t necessarily produce full-fledged hallucinations.
Harvard Psilocybin Project: The psychological research program established by Timothy Leary
and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard in 1960.
The researchers (who included Ralph Metzner, a graduate student) administered psilocybin to
hundreds of volunteers “in a naturalistic setting”; they also conducted experiments with prisoners
at Concord State Prison and with theology students at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. Later,
the group began working with LSD. The project was engulfed in controversy in 1962 and closed
down after it had been reported that Alpert had given psilocybin to an undergraduate, in violation
of its agreement with Harvard. Leary and Alpert established a successor organization in
Cambridge but outside Harvard, called the International Federation for Internal Freedom.
Heffter Research Institute: A nonprofit established in 1993 by David E. Nichols, a chemist and
pharmacologist at Purdue University, with several colleagues, to support scientific research into
psychedelic compounds. The institute was named for Arthur Heffter, the German chemist,
pharmacologist, and physician who first identified mescaline as the psychoactive component of
the peyote cactus in the late 1890s. Established at a time when psychedelic research had been
dormant for two decades, the Heffter Institute has played a pivotal, but quiet, role in the revival of
that research, helping to fund most of the psilocybin trials done in America since the late 1990s,
including the work at Hopkins and NYU (Heffter.org).