Disclaimer: No implied or explicit encouragement is given here for the breaking of any laws. Countries make laws prohibiting some substances, and encouraging others. usually on account of being able to control and tax them. No encouragement is intended towards the usage of legal drugs either - they are generally the most poisonous (caffeine), addictive (Nitrous oxide from Potassium Nitrate in cigarettes) and socially damaging (alcohol) drugs available. Please note that there is nothing a mind-altering drug can do to the brain and neural system that cannot be done by the body itself under the right conditions. The great risk of using drugs is that the drug generally provides a "window" to the experience, not the experience itself. In the absence of correct guidance, a seeker can become trapped in revisiting the experience via the drug. Tolerance to the drug typically develops, and often, addiction. Drunks and downers-junkies are often what natural born shamans and mystic poets become in our culture.

An important warning: Our culture uses and abuses various drugs recreationally. Drugs that may be of use in a shamanistic or other supported context are often dangerous outside of that context. This information is not provided as encouragement to take any drugs, it's just documenting their purpose, appropriateness and historical usage. If you feel that you'd benefit from exploring this area, find a teacher, who knows the ground and is still (more or less) sane. Know that there are risks, as with all extreme human endeavours. You can break a leg or lose your life climbing a mountain, you can damage your mind severely, permanently or even fatally by misusing drugs.

Enough disclaimers…

Drugs of various types have a long history of use in meditational, shamanistic and magical pursuits.

One class of these substances are seen by the body as poisons The body-mind system then automatically goes through its approach to death. This effect is used to explore the space around and perhaps into death. The main difficulty with most substances that have this effect is that many of them can actually cause death. Another difficulty is that one's recall of the experience can be severely affected by some substances. If you've ever had "way too much to drink". If you understand Dean Martin's Law Of Drunkenness: "You're not really drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." Then you've had an experience of approaching your death. That feeling of "falling in" that you resisted with your whole being is the space a meditator dives into, except, hopefully, s/he's not too pissed at the time to have a clue as to what's going on, and will return from the experience with knowledge of the inexpressible variety.

The other category of shamanistic drugs are those that produce a deep alteration, disconnection or re-organisation of perceptions. Some of these enable a kind of insight, others "project" the awareness to realities only loosely related to planet earth. These "teaching plants" were most commonly used to show the initiate with a rigid world view that alternates exist. To show him that there is more in heaven and earth than dreamed of in his philosophy. Once this is done, meditation has some feeling of direction.

Datura

Found in the castor oil plant, locally known as malpitte. Also in moonflowers, witch hazel.

Earliest western shamanistic drug described in writing.

Very dangerous, probably even dangerous under expert supervision. It is said that some people don't come back from the experience in good order and some don't come back. Some people are so sensitive to it that the scent of moonflowers affects them strongly (and apparently unpleasantly).

Nicotine

Found in tobacco, brinjals (egg plant), potatoes.

Used shamanistically by (indigenous) South and North Americans.

When tobacco is used shamanistically, the fellow taking the drug has not generally taken it before, and certainly doesn't use it regularly. The full effect of this powerful poison is not available if a tolerance for it has been acquired. For example, 10 to 20 mg of nicotine injected into a smoker would maybe make him nauseous. Maybe very nauseous. Injected into a non-smoker, it would almost certainly kill.

Very dangerous, severely addictive on a long term, constant use basis, particularly when combined with a Potassium Nitrate high as in factory cigarettes.

Alcohol

Fermentations and distillations. Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and Methyl alcohol (methanol).

Used in some Tantra schools, by way of breaking the students' taboos (alcohol is more or less forbidden in Hindu culture). I know one meditator who insists his experience is enhanced by the occasional bottle of whisky (ethanol methanol blend).

Methanol content in some alcohols (absinthe has this reputation) is far more addictive than ethanol, and can literally blind one. The small blood vessels in the retina burst. The whisky sold to Indigenous American populations by European invaders was allegedly distilled from wood, yielding a very high methanol content.

Unquestionably the most abused and socially damaging drug on the planet.

Psychedelics: LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT (Ayohuasca)

These are various substances which are used shamanistically on account of the altered perceptions enabled by each one. They are generally not habit forming, and are not particularly damaging to the body.

Jungian psychologists have a significant history of LSD assisted work.

Aldus Huxley's excellent description of altered states, "The Doors of Perception" was written to describe a mescaline experience.

The enthusiastic and evangelical attitude of early Western researchers who encountered these substances scared conservative America into making them illegal and otherwise suppressing their use.

Hashish

The resin of Hemp, Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indicus

Likely the oldest and most widely used meditational aid, hashish (in the appropriate dosage) convinces the bodymind that death is happening. Very long trances, up to several days have happened with extreme doses, and no "fatal dose" was established during it's extensive use in Western medicine, although blood sugar levels dropping due to the drug could be a problem for diabetics.

Currently being decriminalised around much of the world.

A common danger with hashish is that it enhances the current state. This means a drunk person can become seriously (or ludicrously) drunk and a nervous person can become paranoiac. This applies to mild doses. The dosages used in mystical pursuit are much larger and one has no option but to lie down. One can appear quite dead, heart very slow and so on. Experienced care is advised, and medical intervention is at best, dangerous. Hashish is the "Romeo and Juliet" drug. In cases of extreme dosage, a deep, almost comatose sleep is induced, and can last a few days. No one seems to have established the lethal dose, even after thousands fo years of usage, medically and shamanistically. On researcher in the 1800's gave a dog a massive dose intravenously. The dog slept for four days then woke up, hungry.

Opiates - Codeine, Laudanum, Morphine, Heroin

From the Opium poppy.

Laudanum, the drug which allegedly inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kublai Kahn" was the medical profession's preferred opiate back then. Morphine is still used. Heroin was developed as a "safe" morphine and was used in children's cough medicine. It's more effective and more addictive than morphine, and some countries don't even allow the medical profession to prescribe it for those in extreme pain.

The opiates can induce a deep trance, but the general trouble with them is that, like alcohol, one isn't in a sufficiently aware state to make the most of the experience. Like alcohol, tolerance develops swiftly.

Dangers include addiction, permanent psychosis and death.

In moderate doses, opiates are stil the basis of many common drugs including coedine. Dosages at or below this level are probably safe for temporary symptomatic relief. The opium poppy can be grown almost anywhere, and tea can be made from the dried flowers.