Mike Jay, Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic

A comprehensive book about mescaline is a timely addition to the growing field of psychedelic history. In classic Mike Jay fashion, this book elegantly presents the history of the first psychedelic—mescaline—not only because it led to the introduction of the word psychedelic but because it ties together many of the delicate threads that make psychedelic history so colorful. Organized chronologically, the story of mescaline unfolds over ten chapters, beginning and ending with it encased in the peyote cactus and part of a legacy of Indigenous cosmologies.

Throughout the book, readers are invited to consider who has known mescaline and how that has shaped its reception and experimentation. As one of the psychoactive alkaloids in cacti, including peyote and San Pedro, a natural starting point for this story begins in Central and Latin America, where these plants have grown for millennia and where local Indigenous cultures have learned to cultivate, harvest, and prepare these plants for consumption, mainly for spiritual and healing purposes. But as Jay deftly reveals, non-Indigenous interests in these cacti generated a complicated set of relationships. He explains that missionary accounts sometimes revealed a blend of fear and wonder, stating: “under peyote’s influence the Devil was summoned, and it was he who worked its magic and whispered knowledge of the future” (p. 37).

The author introduces key characters in this history, from sympathetic anthropologists and Indigenous leaders, missionaries, and colonists, to people like Quanah Parker. Parker was an insider/outsider. Son of a Comanche chief and a white settler mother, he grew up as an emblem of colonialism. He disavowed Christianity and was allegedly resented by his Comanche community for his mixed background. Yet, as Jay explains, Parker became a fierce defender of Indigenous rites, including the ghost dance, and later peyotism, emerging as a vital voice in defense of worship with peyote. Jay explains that Parker was considered by his contemporaries “‘altogether the ablest man in the history of the western tribes of Oklahoma’, and certainly ‘as shrewd and able as any white man’” (p. 74).

Other characters appear later in the story who similarly straddle worlds and knowledge systems. A striking example is Havelock Ellis, a physician by training but more comfortable as an art critic and literary figure. Ellis was one of the many curious intellects drawn to mescaline as it became more widely available when Detroit-based Parke Davis crystallized the cactus, and later when a synthesized pure form further separated the main psychoactive ingredient from the plant itself, allowing for more widespread use and efforts to define and describe its signature visual effects.

Jay’s book takes readers beyond debates about supplies and user profiles to examine how mescaline inspired discussions about philosophy, art, chemistry, healing, Christianity, Indigenous sovereignty, and even the counterculture. Western mescaline consumers, from William James to Jean-Paul Sartre, Aldous Huxley and Allen Ginsberg, fixated on visual stimuli. Even those like Sartre and Huxley, who lived with compromised eyesight, commented on the visual aspects—including some that appeared somewhat menacing. Jay explores how descriptions of mescaline inspired deeper conversations about how visions influenced philosophy and language itself, including the Surrealist movement (p. 150). Meanwhile, Indigenous uses seemed less focused on the visual aspects of the experience, instead emphasizing peyote’s spiritual and political significance as an experience that brought people together across time and place, reinforcing the pan-Indigenous uses of peyote for sacred purposes.

Another historical thread emerges with the desire to define mescaline through chemistry and pharmacology. By tracing key developments from the collection of peyote buttons for the Smithsonian, to its synthesis in Vienna in 1919, to its pharmacological descriptions by Alexander Shulgin in the 1960s, Jay walks readers through an enduring history of fascination with this psychoactive substance at a structural level. This story of modern organic chemistry is no less riveting than the chapters illustrating its place in ceremonies or among bohemian vision seekers in Paris. Approaching mescaline from different perspectives, Jay shows how the plant, the chemical, and the experience have captivated people for different reasons, and they used different tools to interrogate its value. The lively approach to storytelling highlights the passion and fascination that drove early researchers and thinkers to experiment with this proto-psychedelic drug.

Amid the current resurgence of interest in psychedelics, mescaline remains largely a historical remnant, while debates rage over the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge and how or whether to incorporate psychedelics into contemporary mental health treatments. In Mescaline, Jay provides an example of how we might imagine psychedelics as integrated into many different projects at the same time. Rather than pitting one side against another, he provides critical perspective on this history of perhaps the original psychedelic that nourished many visions and in that sense may have enduring value as psychedelics are reimagined today.