This is a reminder that Prof. of Religious and Buddhist Studies at Stanford University, expert in Tibetan Buddhist thought, Dr. James Gentry, shook the field this summer when he single-handedly demonstrated that medieval Tibetan Buddhists knew and experimented with psychedelics and even included them as part of their path to Enlightenment: "Tripping Toward the Real: Inducing Liminal Sensory Experiences through Psychoactive Substances in Buddhist Contemplative Practice," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2026, 94, 548–576 doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfag0… To put this in perspective: Dr. Gentry says this is "the first unambiguous account yet discovered among premodern Buddhist traditions that prescribes the cultivation and consumption of psychoactive substances with the express goal of awakening." This has sparked a heated conversation on Reddit among some Buddhist practitioners, who can't accept the fact that humans in most cultures, including Buddhists, at some point or another have experimented with mind-altering substances since time immemorial, despite what their ethical codes may say (the Buddha famously prohibited taking intoxicants as part of the five vows or precepts for lay people), and within the right context, such substances can yield knowledge. The heated thread in question: "Textual evidence for traditional use of psychedelic/psychoactive fungi in Dzogchen" (though this title is a bit misleading because Dr. Gentry not only mentions fungi, but also datura and others): reddit.com/r/Buddhism/commen…