“WE ARE LIVING IN A DEPRIVED SOCIETY, as far as spiritual rituals are concerned,” Ram Dass writes in Psychedelic Rites of Passage. “We suffer from a shortage of rites of passage — or at any rate a shortage of meaningful rites of passage.”

In 21st Century America, the closest thing we have to a ceremonial rite of passage is a Bar Mitzvah or First Communion — yet these efforts have become meaningless and lame — completely insignificant, he argues.

Ram Dass contends the rite of meaningful ritual can be a helpful role for psychedelics:

“If we have only the most superficial of ossified religious rituals, it is because these rites of passage no longer provide direct contact with the numinous. This is where psychedelics can help. But sadly, a first psychedelic experience is much more likely to happen at a noisy party somewhere than in a sacred setting filled with reminders of spirit. And that’s a big missed opportunity, for us as a society.”