In 1956, pioneering psychedelic researchers Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond were invited to join members of the Red Pheasant First Nation near North Battleford, Saskatchewan, to participate in a peyote ceremony hosted by the Native American Church of Canada. Inspired by their experience, they wrote a series of essays explaining and defending the consumption of peyote and the practice of peyotism. They enlisted the help of Hoffer's sister, journalist Fannie Kahan, and worked closely with her to document the religious ceremony and write a history of peyote, culminating in a defense of its use as a healing and spiritual agent. Although the text shows its mid-century origins, with dated language and at times uncritical analysis, it advocates for Indigenous legal, political and religious rights and offers important insights into how psychedelic researchers, who were themselves embattled in debates over the value of spirituality in medicine, interpreted the peyote ceremony. Ultimately, they championed peyotism as a spiritual practice that they believed held distinct cultural benefits. A Culture's Catalyst revives a historical debate. Revisiting it now encourages us to reconsider how peyote has been understood and how its appearance in the 1950s tested Native-newcomer relations and the Canadian government's attitudes toward Indigenous religious and cultural practices.--$cProvided by publisher.
Authors
Fannie Kahan, Erika Dyck, Abram Hoffer, Duncan Blewett, Humphry Osmond, Teodoro Weckowicz
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 113 - 126) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 299.7/91
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn---
- ISBN
- 9780887558146 9780887555084
- LCCN
- E98.R3
- LCCN Item number
- K34 2016eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xxxvi, 130 pages)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)kck00237529 (OCoLC)939202443 (CaOOCEL)452691
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Contents 6
- List of Illustrations 7
- Acknowledgements 8
- Introduction 10
- Photographs 36
- Editor's Note 42
- A Culture's Catalyst (1963) 44
- Chapter 1. Peyote—A Culture’s Catalyst (Fannie Kahan) 46
- Chapter 2. The Great Bastian (Fannie Kahan) 51
- Chapter 3. The Struggle for Peyote (Fannie Kahan) 67
- Chapter 4. The Spiritual Herb (Fannie Kahan) 93
- Chapter 5. Night in the Tipi (Humphry Osmond) 110
- Chapter 6. The Psychedelic Experience in the Native American Church (Duncan Blewett) 127
- Chapter 7. Peyote Ceremony and Jungian Archetypes (Teodoro Weckowicz) 139
- Chapter 8. Peyote: A Sacrament by Medical Prescription (Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond) 150
- Notes 156
- Bibliography 168
- Index 170
