Entheogen
An entheogen ("generating the divine within") is a chemical substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context that may be synthesized or obtained from natural species. The chemical induces altered states of consciousness, psychological or physiological (e.g., bullet ant venom used by the Satere-Mawe people). Entheogens can supplement many diverse practices for transcendence, and revelation, including meditation, yoga, and prayer, psychedelic and visionary art, chanting, and music including peyote song and psytrance, traditional medicine and psychedelic therapy, magic, and psychonautics.
Entheogens have been used in a ritualized context for thousands of years; their religious significance is well established in anthropological and modern evidences. Examples of traditional entheogens include psychedelics like peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, and ayahuasca, psychedelic-dissociatives like Tabernanthe iboga, atypical psychedelics like Salvia divinorum, quasi-psychedelics like cannabis and Ipomoea tricolor, deliriants like Amanita muscaria. Traditionally a tea, admixture, or potion like ayahuasca or bhang have been compounded through the work of a shaman or apothecary.
