Just when you thought it was safe to speculate…
I came across this during one of my inspired google searches; this one into theories on the origin of religion.
And so forth. Again and again the relationship between religion and psychoactives is obvious. And even in those cases where drugs are not used, esoteric techniques/rituals that induce brain chemistry changes ARE used: fasting, whirling (a la Dervishes), pain (a la the Kavandi of India, the Hopi Sun Dance), chanting, sensory deprivation (sitting in a cave), conscious dreaming, etc. In short, Showalter’s theory of the origin of religion is that the initial founders of a given religion got higher than a fucking kite at some point, and then tried to tell people about it.