Belief in Mormonism hinges upon the examination of a handful of specific extraordinary events—events that have sparked the interest of historians and believers alike for centuries. One of these events is the First Vision in the spring of 1820, in which the founder of the church, Joseph Smith Jr., encountered what he describes as a remarkable vision of two personages. This took place after a difficult, dark experience in the woods. There are many more events that deserve a second look in the context of entheogenic inspiration. Today, Smith is one of the most analyzed religious leaders in American history.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, was founded in 1830 amid the Second Great Awakening—a time when visions, dreams, and the speaking of tongues were commonplace in animated church congregations across the U.S.
Were these visual and auditory hallucinations, visions, and ecstasies in early Mormon history—sometimes involving entire congregations—the result of hallucinogenic entheogens or entheogen-laced sacraments? Were some of these mass visions a collective hallucination or folie à deux?
A new documentary, EntheoMagus, released by Seer Stoned Productions, explores this hypothesis in detail. The team of researchers, authors, and experts interviewed in the film not only believe that the First Vision and numerous other dreams and visions in early Mormon history could have been induced by specific herbs and/or fungi, but that they can pinpoint particular side effects, potential sources, and ingredients involved in these instances.
“I was introduced to psychedelics in depth about 10 years ago,” says EntheoMagus director and producer Brandon Crockett. “I was a fully active Mormon, was in the bishopric, and discovered Terence McKenna. I went in depth on him for a long time, never hearing about psychedelics in the way that he was talking about them up to that point, and started to realize the language he was using to describe the psychedelic experience was so similar to the language used by early Mormons. I wondered if anybody had done any research on it.”
Crockett also hosts Roughly Stoned, part of the “Mormons on Mushrooms” podcast network, and is a backer of the psilocybin facilitator matchmaking service Good Facilitators. He discovered research proposing a hypothesis that Joseph Smith utilized entheogens in regard to his highly scrutinized visionary experiences. Crockett eventually left the church and slowly delved into the world of entheogenic substances. After his first psilocybin mushroom experience—gobbling four grams—he began integrating it into his research, discovering a peer-reviewed paper exploring the possible role of entheogens in the foundation of Mormonism. The film interviews several experts on the subject to uncover more about this hypothesis.
Bryce Blankenagel is co-author of an updated paper called “The Entheogenic Origins of Mormonism: A Working Hypothesis,” published June 1, 2019, in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies. Blankenagel, along with Cody Noconi, Michael A. Winkelman, and Robert Beckstead, wrote the paper, which has been called the new standard for the “Smith-Entheogen Theory” embraced in some academic circles. An earlier version was released by Noconi and Blankenagel in 2017. The paper delves into the theory that Joseph Smith Jr. potentially used entheogens, embarking on a psychedelic journey, and how it might be a missing puzzle piece in the foundations of Mormon history. Blankenagel is also the creator of the podcasts Naked Mormonism and The Glass Box.
“I came to the subject with absolutely no knowledge of psychedelics,” says Blankenagel. “It’s such a massive world that you need a guide; you need somebody to help you understand… even just the basics of it.”
The paper proposes the working hypothesis that Smith, his family, and other early Mormon followers could have ingested concoctions laced with entheogens such as black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), or Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric mushroom, based on the difficult experiences the Smiths describe before and during visions or dreams that neatly align with the effects of these entheogens. Visionary ergot alkaloids and Sonoran Desert Toad secretions (5-MeO-DMT) also were likely available to early Mormons and are mentioned in the research. Dozens of other events in early Mormon history seem to suggest psychedelics played a role.
The paper also explains numerous instances in which psychoactive substances were readily available in the Smith family homes, as well as among other Mormon followers from Kirtland, Ohio, to Independence, Missouri, and Nauvoo, Illinois, before Mormons eventually launched their exodus to Salt Lake City, Utah. (Early Mormons were persecuted and driven from town to town due to the now-ceased practice of polygamy and other activities that angered neighboring communities.)
The First Visionary Experience
In the canonical version of the First Vision, Smith said that when he was 14, he encountered a theophany and described his first vision of angelic beings in 1820. Smith said that two personages, God the Father and Jesus Christ, appeared to him and spoke after he prayed in a grove of trees in western upstate New York. The location is now called The Sacred Grove, located in Palmyra, New York, where Smith lived as a boy. Patheos ranked The Sacred Grove as the No. 74 “Most Holy Place on Earth,” a place teeming with entheogenic plants and fungi.
Were entheogens involved, being endemic to the area, despite the church’s association with sobriety and chastity?
Smith said that before his euphoric vision began, he was first seized upon by an overpowering force, binding his tongue so that he could not speak, and blinded by a darkness as he felt imminent doom. Experts can only wonder if this blinding and deafening power could be the effects of poisonous side effects from an entheogen or perhaps the difficult part of a trip such as ego death or dissolution.
“There are two facets to it,” says Alex Criddle, an independent researcher, writer, editor, and gardener. “One is the experiential. It does sound like he’s working towards an ego death and sort of dealing with all of the fear of dying and whatnot. But then, on the other facet, it also explains a lot of the physical symptomatology behind psychedelic use.”
But Criddle thinks something else was at play. “In the 2019 paper that Cody and Bryce wrote, there’s a chart, you know, that links different facets of the First Vision with anticholinergic toxicity, and so all of these different things, you know, the dry mouth, inability to speak, paralysis—all of this stuff lines up perfectly with, you know, a psychedelic experience, both physically and experientially.”
Datura stramonium toxicity usually occurs within 60 minutes after ingestion. When the onset of peripheral anticholinergic syndrome begins, pupils dilate, and sweating, trouble breathing and speaking, and fear of ego dissolution follow. It’s a terrifying experience in certain doses and also can induce religious experiences. Did the First Vision involve an entheogenic herb such as datura or something similar?
Three years after the First Vision, Smith said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient pre-Columbian American civilization. He said he used magical stones to translate the plates. Three witnesses—Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer—issued a joint statement saying they had seen the source material of the golden plates themselves, and eight more witnesses said the same. The church eventually splintered into many factions, with the Church of Christ now being the second-largest after the mainstream LDS church. The LDS church now cites over 17 million members and counting, though only about 42% of Utahns now identify as Mormon. This percentage has fallen below 50% in Salt Lake City proper as well. But understanding Mormon culture is critical to living in Utah as it remains a dominant facet of the state’s culture.
There are many other unexplainable instances in Mormon history that spark conversations about the potential for entheogens. In 2022, Criddle wrote Studio Magicae: A Journal of Practical and Theoretical Magic exploring the phenomenology of magical consciousness.
According to Mormon lore, Smith as a boy rejected alcohol to the point that he resisted whiskey as an anesthetic during leg surgery. He developed osteomyelitis and a fever sore, and a doctor had to remove bone or amputate. But the Mormon approach to tobacco, alcohol, and drugs—as outlined in the Word of Wisdom—varies drastically depending on what point in time you’re looking at. (The Word of Wisdom and abstention from alcohol and drugs, for instance, wasn’t considered mandatory in the church until 1921, and many early Mormon leaders were involved with distilleries and wines before the rules changed.) In addition, all “wholesome herbs” are permitted under the Word of Wisdom.
The culture of the early church could be viewed as being lightyears away from the modern church and the mandatory abstention from alcohol, tobacco, and drugs.
Kirtland Temple Dedication Mass Visions
Experts and historians also hypothesize on the potential of laced sacraments, sacred anointing oil, or other sacred concoctions.
In one particular instance in 1836—dubbed the “Mormon Pentecost”—hundreds of Mormons in the congregation said they encountered a unified vision of a multitude of angels, the loud sound of rushing wind, and strange sounds and languages. The Kirtland Temple dedication is now hallowed as a rare, particularly eventful day regarding Mormon visions. Moreover, the sacrament of wine and bread was administered just before the visions began at the day-long event.
“You know, people are falling over and convulsing, and their hands are drawn up like claws, and they’re, you know, they’re seeing visions, having not imbibed as much alcohol as you would need in order to cause alcohol hallucinosis,” says Blankenagel. (Alcohol hallucinosis is a rare but real condition in which alcoholics may experience auditory and visual hallucinations.) Mormon apostles were accused of being “drunken” at the event, though a sacrament-sized dose of wine wouldn’t do that.
Blankenagel explained instances of magical rituals and how, at times in his research, they were clearly using psychedelics within their rituals. “It’s fascinating because the world of Mormon history is written by Mormon historians—most of them being believing Mormon historians—who never even consider psychedelics. I, as a non-believing Mormon, just a cultural Mormon, said, ‘This sounds like psychedelics.’”
Was the sacramental wine used at the Kirtland Temple dedication laced with other ingredients? In Joseph Smith’s own words, he describes a noise that was heard like the sound of a “rushing mighty wind,” and the congregation simultaneously rose, being moved upon by “an invisible power,” and many began to speak in tongues and prophesy. Many reported seeing visions, such as the Temple being filled with angels. People began running around and huddling together, hearing unusual sounds and reporting a bright light like a pillar of fire.
Blankenagel describes Noconi as a key component in the research of the Mormon-entheogen hypothesis.
“Bryce and I connected over his podcast he’d done about the Kirtland Temple dedication, and I’d read Robert Beckstead’s paper a year before,” says Noconi. “I’ve been researching that angle of it, and saw another historian who, or a fan of history, who I think was receptive. So we got into contact with him. We met up in Seattle. We did a podcast. We started meeting every Sunday; we started calling it our church sessions.” Noconi is the author of The Psychedelic History of Mormonism, Magic, and Drugs, a 500-page book on the possible role of entheogens in early Mormon history.
“We submitted it to the Sunstone Conference, and it was accepted,” Noconi says. “Bryce printed out a bunch of little pamphlet versions of our paper, and we just walked around handing them out and shaking hands. A couple years later, Robert Beckstead contacted us. He wanted to do an updated version of the paper through the Journal of Psychedelics, run by Michael Winkelman. We spent a few more months putting that together, which was published in 2019, and it just keeps spiraling out. Alex joined the circle—the research circle.”
The hypothesis has stirred the pot, to say the least. Leading researcher and Mormon apologist Brian C. Hales wrote an extensive article responding to the four authors of the Smith-entheogen hypothesis for Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. In it, Hales argued that Smith would have likely condemned psychedelics. Hales also did an interview and talked about the topic with the Latter-day Saint YouTube talk show Saints Unscripted. Noconi explained that they also put together a rebuttal in a response paper to Hales on the topic that is yet to be published.
Entheogenic Herbs Available at the Time
Knowledge of entheogens, as well as the entheogens themselves, were readily available to the Smiths. Documents listed throughout Blankenagel and Noconi’s work demonstrate numerous occasions in which entheogens were in their possession. Joseph and Emma’s encounters with Native Americans, for instance, often involved exchanges of psychoactive herbs. A lot of interest surrounds early Mormon followers such as Frederick G. Williams, an apothecary who grew scores of entheogenic herbs, as well as others such as Luman Walters and John C. Bennett. Many of these early Mormons were eventually excommunicated after falling out of favor with Smith.
Separating fact from fiction is no easy feat when it comes to Mormon history. It’s a topic that stokes emotions in believers and intrigues non-believers.
“So this is where it requires kind of an interdisciplinary approach,” says Blankenagel, “because Mormons don’t do psychedelics, and to most psychedelic researchers, Mormonism is just another religion. So bringing those two fields of study together is kind of what forged our 2017 paper, and we had kind of the blueprint of Robert Beckstead’s 2007 Restoration and Sacred Mushroom paper to build off of. So that kind of adds a little more meat to our backstories and connections of psychedelics to Mormon history.”
Beyond entheogens, magical items were a fundamental element of early Mormonism, such as the Urim and Thummim, Hebrew words describing a translator. But in the Mormon sense, the words describe two stones (some say that were put into spectacles, and others say they were put into a hat) used to translate the golden plates that would lead to the publishing of The Book of Mormon in 1830—an event that would eventually lead to violence and the formation of a major religion. The Smiths also allegedly possessed magical items like amulets, daggers, and talismans with astrological characters.
“In making the documentary, we’re really trying to walk a very fine line of not doing a ‘gotcha on Mormonism,’ or not trying to say that we figured it out—Joseph Smith was just hallucinating, or the early Mormons were just tripping. It’s not that,” says Crockett. “If you look at what has happened anthropologically, throughout all time, psychedelics have played a key role in developing religion and spiritual practices throughout all civilizations, throughout the development of religion, all throughout time. Mormonism is no different.”
Bashing Mormonism is not what the film is about. Instead, the film is intended to shine a light on one of the lesser-known facets of church history—the use of entheogens and the role they played in Mormon history.
“With early Mormons, it is almost certain they were using psychedelics, but this is in no way meant to degrade the faith or to say Joseph Smith was a fraud,” says Crockett. “It’s just offering an explanation of how they were having these divine experiences. And so even today, I’m not personally dismissing the story of Joseph Smith. It’s just coming up with a feasible explanation for it and also adding value to the spirituality of Mormonism. And so that’s really what we’re trying to do with this film: appeal to all audiences. We’re in no way trying to destroy the faith of a current active, participating member of the LDS church. We’re not trying to say that psychedelics are the answer for everybody or anything like that. We’re really trying to just explain another form of spirituality and connection to the divine that is open to anybody that watches the film.”
The very story of The Book of Mormon takes place in pre-Columbian America, so the Mesoamerican cultures in the book, such as the Nephites and Lamanites, likely would have also used entheogens in religious practices. But the history of the church is even more fascinating.
EntheoMagus shines a light on the Joseph Smith-entheogen hypothesis as a source of visions during numerous events without attempting to confirm or dismiss the visions Joseph Smith Jr. and others received. The goal isn’t to dismiss belief in Mormonism and how the church was originally formed. Arrive at your own conclusions when it comes to learning about early Mormon history and the possibility of entheogens. Today, the church promotes abstinence from drugs and alcohol. However, many Mormons are choosing to use psychedelic-assisted therapy as it becomes more commonplace. The same can be said of medical cannabis and its role in medicine. The potential role of psychedelics in early Mormon history is something that should not be overlooked.
