The Wonder of Plant Teachers: Entheogens as Cognitive Tools

• In Event: Dwelling and the More-Than-Human in Education

Abstract

The traditional ritual uses of entheogens—psychoactive plants and fungi, such as peyote, ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms—have been an important part of some indigenous cultures. Yet modern political, religious and educational authorities have cast these as diabolical savage practices or archaic magical customs incompatible with Western values and epistemologies. This paper suggests that indigenous peoples may not have been misguided in revering entheogenic substances as “plant teachers,” but rather that the circumspect uses of entheogens as primordial cognitive tools may offer valuable forms of learning for the early 21st century. It deploys some current educational theories and critiques of modern schooling to account for the concept of psychoactive “plant teachers” and the phenomenal wonders they can inspire.

Author

• Kenneth W. Tupper, The University of British Columbia