Peyote: The Psychedelic Cactus of Ancient America

By: Greg Schmalzel

Many years before tie‑dye shirts and LSD electrified San Francisco, ancient vision‑seekers gathered beneath desert skies to chew peyote buttons and journey into altered realms. Flickering torchlight danced across sandstone walls, casting elongated shadows of robed figures. The figures moved in slow, deliberate circles around a smoldering fire. The air tasted of warm wind and crushed mescaline. Their heartbeats synchronized with tribal drumming that seemed to echo from the depths of the earth. As the bitter peyote traveled throughout their body, shimmering patterns of neon green and violet rippled through their vision. The stars overhead were painted into constellations of gods and feathered serpents. Their chants rose and fell as if the desert itself was breathing. They felt their bodies melt into the sand. The boundary between the human and spirit world blurred. Every rock, cactus, and breeze felt like a message. 

We’ve always known that indigenous American cultures are steeped in rituals and shamanism. Many groups participate in sun or rain dances to influence weather and agricultural productivity. Others have a history of building and using sweat lodges to rid disease and illness. Included amongst these practices is the ritualization of psychedelic substances. Like many cultures around the globe, indigenous Americans have a long history of consuming  “magic mushrooms”. But unique to the Americas is a magic cactus, not found anywhere else in the world. It’s a mysterious plant, and we now have a better idea of how long it’s been infused into Native American society.

From ancient archaeological sites to modern, desert pilgrimages in search of this cactus, let’s see how people have consumed peyote for thousands of years. In its earliest stages, natives probably stumbled upon it in search of food. Then, they started to experiment, just like Timothy Leary did with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms in the 1960s. However, these prehistoric shamans opened the doors of perception centuries before the electric guitar was ever invented.

So, what really is peyote, and why do people seek the visions it can conjure?

For the full YouTube video, click HERE.

What is Peyote? 

Native to the scrublands of Mexico and southwestern Texas, peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a low-growing, button-shaped cactus dotted with delicate, hair-like tufts. By day, it unfurls tiny pink, white, or pale-yellow blooms that ripen into edible berries—nature’s confetti against a rocky backdrop. Touch a stamen and it snaps shut in a neat spring-motion, a trick botanists call thigmotaxis. Though it rarely tops three inches, peyote is a desert endurance champion: cultivated buttons take 3–10 years to flower, while wild plants may need 30 years to mature, thanks to water-storing stems and a leafless form that slashes evaporation. Inside each button lies mescaline, a potent psychoactive alkaloid that has driven centuries of sacramental use—transforming perception, sparking visions, and forging a timeless bridge between humans and the mystical beyond.

The Archaeological Evidence

Carolyn E. Boyd, J. Philip Bering (1996), “Medicinal and hallucinogenic plants identified in the sediments and pictographs of the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic”, Antiquity 70, 256-75

The story of peyote stretches far beyond 1960s counterculture—its sacred role in North America goes back thousands of years. In the 1500s, Spanish priest Fray Bernardino de Sahagún documented Indigenous Chichimeca warriors chewing peiotl and entering two- to three-day vision trances that banished fear, thirst, and hunger. But peyote’s history runs even deeper.

In 1941, archaeologists unearthed a burial cave in Coahuila, Mexico, containing a string of small peyote “buttons” dated to around 900 AD. Lab analysis of one 1.5 g button revealed 32 mg of alkaloids—65% potent hallucinogens like mescaline and 35% milder phenolics such as pellotine—confirming intentional harvest and ritual use.

Even older evidence lies in Texas’s Shumla Caves. Here, three peyote effigies—ground cactus mixed with other plant tissues and molded into lifelike buttons—survived 6,000 years in the desert’s arid hush. Remarkably, they still retain 2% of their original mescaline, making them the oldest directly dated peyote specimens ever analyzed.

Peyote even appears in ancient art: Colima ceramics from 100 BC carry cactus motifs, while Lower Pecos pictographs—deer pierced with black-dotted antlers and rows of speared buttons—encode ceremonial hunts of the sacred cactus. These lines of evidence rewrite peyote’s timeline, revealing a visionary tradition that wove plant, art, and spirit into human life for millennia.

The Huichol - A Modern Example

José Andrés Solórzano

High in Mexico’s Sierra Madre, the Wixárika—better known as the Huichol—farm maize and weave a vivid world of bead art, yarn paintings, and embroidered symbols that map their mythic journeys. At the heart of their culture lies Wirikuta, the sacred desert shrine of hikuri (peyote). Every few years, entire villages embark on a 250-mile pilgrimage—by foot, mule, and song—led by shamans carrying deer antlers, rattle-sticks, and woven mats. They pause at holy wells and mystical gates, tracing ancestral paths toward renewal.

Once in Wirikuta, the hunt for peyote is a communal rite: the first cactus found is shared, then the rest harvested for the year’s ceremonies. Consumed in guided ceremonies, peyote visions open portals to the gods, heal communal strife, ensure bountiful harvests, and strengthen bonds of trust between people, shamans, and spirit.

Despite mining, tourism, and legal pressures, the Huichol remain vigilant stewards of their trails and traditions. In 2010, UNESCO recognized the 500 km braid of trails linking 20 sacred sites as a Living Spiritual Corridor. For the Huichol, peyote is more than a cactus—it’s a compass, a covenant, and the beating heart of a culture that still walks the old pathways of vision and faith.

The Native American Church

Founded in early 20th-century Oklahoma, the Native American Church (NAC) blends Christian beliefs with traditional Indigenous spirituality—and centers peyote at the heart of its rituals. Often called Peyotism, this practice isn’t just religious; it’s deeply therapeutic. In many Indigenous communities where alcohol abuse is a widespread issue, peyote is seen as a spiritual remedy. NAC members have testified that they only found freedom from addiction through peyote, describing it as “the power of the medicine” that helped them regain control of their lives. These powerful accounts suggest that peyote may play a legitimate role in treating deep-rooted mental health challenges. But what does the science say about how peyote affects the brain? Let’s take a look.

Psychological Studies

In 2005, John Halpern’s landmark study tested three Navajo groups—veteran NAC peyote users (100+ ceremonies), sober ex-alcoholics, and low-use controls—on memory and executive-function tasks. The results? Peyote veterans performed just as well as the low-use group, while former alcoholics showed clear deficits across the board. Even heavy lifetime peyote use wasn’t linked to any cognitive decline. This isn’t to say peyote is side-effect-free, but it does suggest that regular, ritualized consumption can coexist with long-term mental stability—an impressive feat in communities where peyote has anchored social and healing traditions for centuries.

Legal Status

Peyote’s U.S. legal status reflects a tug-of-war between federal drug policy and Native religious rights. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act slapped mescaline—and peyote—onto Schedule I. But three years later, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act granted a narrow exemption for bona fide Native American Church ceremonies. Some states still banned sacramental use until a 1994 amendment closed those loopholes, securing nationwide protection. Along the way, the 1990 Supreme Court’s Employment Division v. Smith decision challenged religious-use claims under “neutral” laws, which led to the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act—firmly anchoring peyote rites as constitutionally protected acts of faith.

Conclusion

​The evidence is clear. Peyote is essential to the lives of many Native Americans and has been for millenia. With radiocarbon dates indicating its use around 6000 years ago and its documentation by early Spanish ethnographers, peyote’s history runs deep in the Americas. Today it is used for both religious and medicinal purposes by the Huichol people of Mexico and members of the Native American Church in the United States. After many years of repression and legal scuffles, members of the NAC have been granted the right to use this psychedelic cactus in the United States. 

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, go check out this video where I talk about ancient humans experimenting with psychedelic mushrooms. It’s an older video of mine but was one of my favorites to make when I did. I’ll see you over there. 

Sources:

[1] Carod-Artal, F. 2015. “Hallucinogenic drugs in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. Neurologia.” 30(1):42-9.

[2] Bruhn, J., et al. 1978. “Peyote alkaloids: identification in a prehistoric specimen of lophophora from coahuila, Mexico.” Science 199(4336):1437-8.

[3] Terry, M., et al. 2006. “Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates.” Journal of Archaeological Science 33(7):1017-1021.

[4] Furst, P. Hallucinogens in Precolumbian art, in: M.E. King, I.R. Traylor (Eds.), Art and Environment in Native America, Texas Technical University, 1974, pp. 55e107 (Special Publications of the Museum, No. 7).

[5] Boyd, C., and Dering, J. 1996. “Medicinal and hallucinogenic plants identified in the sediments and pictographs of the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic.” Antiquity 70(268):256-275.

[6] Wixárika Route through Sacred Sites to Wirikuta (Tatehuarí Huajuyé) 

[7] Garrity, J. 2000. “Jesus, peyote, and the holy people: alcohol abuse and the ethos of power in Navajo healing.” Med Anthropol Q 14(4):521-42.

[8] Halpern, J., et al. 2005. “Psychological and cognitive effects of long-term peyote use among Native Americans.” Biol Psychiatry 58(8):624-31.