The majority opposition to peyote reflected a cultural bias, the belief, unsupported by scientific or historical evidence, that “hallucinatory” experience is automatically bad. Since hallucinations are a form of insanity, the term, “hallucinogen,” is clearly pejorative. Like early descriptions of Buddhism as a “heathen” religion and Islam as “barbaric,” it begs some metaphysical questions. The Indians who use it as part of their ceremony might with equal accuracy call it a “de-hallucinogen,” since it’s their claim that it removes the hallucinations of contemporary life and reveals the reality
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