Current models of drug addiction emphasize how drugs hijack the brain's reward system, focusing on pleasure as a primary cause. By comparing ancient shamanic rituals with modern rave parties, this analysis challenges that assumption. In archaic contexts, drug use served supernatural purposes, not recreation. Only after a fully secular setting for drug use emerged did psychoactive substances fully express their hedonistic potential, a development that occurred gradually.
Theories that religious experiences have an evolutionarily conserved biological basis may only apply to modern religious and cultural contexts, not to all historical beliefs. Culture strongly influences both the subjective effects of psychoactive drugs and religious thoughts, arguing against a common brain pathway uniquely responsible for these experiences. Personal beliefs, expectations, and experiences can bias the interpretation of drug-induced states as reflecting biologically based religious thought. Psychobiological research proposing specific brain mechanisms should consider anthropological and historical data. A model based on cognitive unbinding accommodates the evidence better than one positing a specific brain locus for religion.