c. 3780–3660 BCE · Americas
Peyote at Shumla Caves, Texas
Two peyote specimens, radiocarbon-dated and analyzed in 2005, still contained mescaline — physical evidence of use going back nearly six thousand years.
Read the study →Sacraments
Sacred Plants Through History
Six thousand years of sacred plants in worship, from the Shumla Caves of Texas to the founding of our church. The Church of the Only Begotten Son holds that the plants God created may be sacred; this timeline sets out the evidence and the debates.
History and scholarship only. This page gives no guidance about any substance and is not legal advice. Membership in The Church of the Only Begotten Son does not make possession of any substance legal.
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Prehistory
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Ancient world
Rig Veda · Asia
Soma, praised as a god
The Rig Veda devotes an entire book to Soma, a plant pressed into a sacred drink. Its Avestan counterpart is haoma in the Zoroastrian tradition.
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Exodus 16 · Near East & Egypt
Manna, bread from heaven
In the biblical narrative, Israel gathers manna in the wilderness “every man according to his eating,” and Aaron lays up an omer of it “before the LORD.”
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c. 1200–500 BCE · Americas
San Pedro at Chavín de Huántar
Carved stones at this Andean temple of the Chavín culture, now a World Heritage Site, are widely read as depicting the mescaline cactus.
Read the study → -
8th century BCE · Near East & Egypt
The altars of Tel Arad
At a Judahite shrine in the Negev, a 2020 study found cannabinoid residue on the smaller limestone altar and frankincense on the larger one.
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Antiquity – late 4th century CE · Mediterranean & Europe
The kykeon of Eleusis
Initiates of the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone drank a sacred barley drink, the kykeon, before the climax of the rite.
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2nd century BCE · Near East & Egypt
Blue lotus in a Bes vase
The blue water lily appears again and again in Egyptian art as a symbol of the sun and rebirth. In 2024 researchers reported traces of it, and of Syrian rue, in a Ptolemaic Bes vase.
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Matthew 2:11 · Near East & Egypt
Gold, frankincense and myrrh
The wise men open their treasures and present the child with gifts: two of the three are sacred resins long burned and used in anointing.
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About 2,000 years ago · Americas
Healing cactus of the Moche
Ethnobotanists trace the healing use of San Pedro in northern Peru back some two thousand years to Moche culture.
Read the study → -
Medieval & early modern
12th century · Mediterranean & Europe
The Plaincourault fresco
A Romanesque chapel built by the Knights Hospitaller in central France preserves a Garden of Eden fresco whose “tree” some read as a mushroom; art historians long called it a stylized tree.
Read the study → -
16th century · Americas
Teonanácatl in Mesoamerica
Spanish chroniclers described the ritual use of mushrooms the Aztecs called teonanácatl, often translated “flesh of the gods”; the colonial Church suppressed it.
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18th century onward · Asia
Fly agaric in Siberia
Travelers and ethnographers described the ritual use of Amanita muscaria among peoples of Siberia, including the Koryak, and by shamans.
Read the study → -
20th century
1918 · Americas
The Native American Church
Incorporated in Oklahoma, its ceremonies join Indigenous tradition and, for many members, Christian faith, with peyote as the central sacrament.
Read the study → -
1930s · Americas
Santo Daime
Founded in the Brazilian state of Acre by Raimundo Irineu Serra, Mestre Irineu, drawing on folk Catholicism and Amazonian tradition, with ayahuasca as sacrament.
Read the study → -
1936 · Worldwide
Kaneh bosm
The anthropologist Sula Benet argued that the kaneh bosm of the holy anointing oil was cannabis, restating the case in English in 1967.
Read the study → -
1957 · Americas
María Sabina and Life magazine
R. Gordon Wasson’s account of a mushroom ceremony led by the Mazatec healer María Sabina brought the subject to a wide audience.
Read the study → -
1961 · Americas
União do Vegetal
The “Union of the Plant” was founded in Porto Velho by José Gabriel da Costa, Mestre Gabriel; its members call the tea hoasca.
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Good Friday, 1962 · Americas
The Marsh Chapel experiment
During a Good Friday service at Boston University, divinity students received psilocybin or a placebo; most given psilocybin described profound religious experiences.
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1968 · Asia
Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality
Wasson argued that Vedic Soma was the fly agaric. Others have argued for ephedra; the identification remains open.
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1978 · Mediterranean & Europe
The Road to Eleusis
This book proposed that the kykeon contained ergot. The theory remains contested; later work, such as The Immortality Key (2020), extended related arguments toward early Christianity.
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1989 · Asia
Haoma and Harmaline
David Flattery and Martin Schwartz argued that Syrian rue was the plant behind Vedic Soma and Zoroastrian haoma.
Read the study → -
1994 · Americas
AIRFA amended for peyote
After Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Congress amended the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to protect traditional ceremonial use of peyote by Indians.
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Today
2006 · Americas
Gonzales v. O Centro
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that the government had not shown a compelling interest in barring the UDV’s sacramental use of hoasca.
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2006 · Americas
Johns Hopkins study
A controlled study led by Roland Griffiths reported that psilocybin could occasion mystical-type experiences of substantial and sustained personal and spiritual significance.
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2009 · Americas
Church of the Holy Light of the Queen
A federal court in Oregon reached a result similar to O Centro for a Santo Daime congregation in Ashland.
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2016 · Mediterranean & Europe
The Psychedelic Gospels
Jerry B. and Julie M. Brown documented images in medieval churches and manuscripts that they interpret as sacred mushrooms. Our church recognizes this work; mainstream art history reads many such images differently.
Read the study → -
A living tradition · Africa
Bwiti and iboga
In Gabon, the root bark of the rainforest shrub iboga is the sacrament of Bwiti, whose central rite is an initiation; some Bwiti communities have incorporated Christian elements.
Read the study → -
December 12, 2018 · Americas
The Church of the Only Begotten Son
Our church is founded in the Four Corners as a free, entheobotanical, original Christian church, holding that the plants God created may be sacred.
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- Ancient sacramentsKykeon, Soma, Syrian rue, blue lotus, iboga and manna.
- Sacred plants A–ZFind a plant by its common or scientific name.
- Sacred plants in ScriptureHerbs, manna and anointing oil in the Bible.
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