“Every culture has found such chemical means of transcendence, and at some point the use of such intoxicants becomes institutionalized at a magical or sacramental level,” NYU neuroscientist Oliver Sacks says. “The sacramental use of psychoactive plant substances has a long history and continues to the present day in various shamanic and religious rites around the world . . . some people can reach transcendent states through meditation or similar trance-inducing techniques, or through prayer and spiritual exercises. But drugs offer a shortcut; they promise transcendence on demand. These
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