The answer to this might seem obvious but it’s a little fuzzier when you really examine the question. Let’s take a look at why.

In the 60’s and 70’s Wicca, and the broader Pagan movement, were reflections of the experimental age that was sweeping the advanced world. “Make love not war”, hippies. Woodstock and the cheaper options for recreational drugs were all popular practices and lifestyles amongst some of the ‘trendies’ around the world. Wicca was growing and attracting a demographic that often also identified with the freedom searching of the younger generation at that time. As a result, Wiccan history shows us that some rituals were occasions for not only honouring deity but also for doing so in a supposedly enhanced state of awareness through drugs and/or alcohol. Wicca’s history is littered with stories of drug induced, or enhanced, rituals and of ‘free love’ practices in the name of the God and Goddess.
I think we’ve grown up allot since then and most contemporary coven and group leaders would frown on such practices now. We now have a greater understanding of the repercussions and dangers associated with illicit drug and even alcohol use. However, we’re also greater consumers of prescribed and over the counter medicines to combat the vast array of disease and sickness that infects humankind. We spend billions of dollars on cold and flue medications, we take advantage of the amazing list of prescription drugs available to help our ailing bodies and we often do so without any consideration of the drug’s impact on our ability to successfully engage with ritual.

Let’s be fair here and reinforce that I am not an advocate for ‘drug free ritual’. I am a very serious campaigner however for ‘illicit drug and alcohol free ritual’ but reality implies that many of us rely on sensibly prescribed medication to enable us to live and operate happily and healthily within the world around us. Can you imagine the repercussions if a practitioner was told that they absolutely could not take their heart medication for at least 24 hours prior to ritual or that a diabetic was refused the use of insulin prior to a ritual? The results could be disastrous. Let’s be sensible here folks. We’re not out to kill or harm anyone when all said and done!

So lobbying for drug and alcohol free ritual must come with provisos. Practitioners must never be denied their right to administer their prescribed medications under any circumstances and over the counter medicines, when used effectively, should enhance your ritual by alleviating troublesome symptoms. However, where a prescribed drug also has the potential to alter such things as your serotonin levels or modify your capability to look at the world through your own eyes, then we have to reconsider any ritual practice as well. For example if you are taking medications which make you sleepy, which seriously inhibit your mental capabilities or actively modify your emotional engagement with the world, you might also consider if the medications could hinder your physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual safety in ritual.  Some medications, whilst necessary to maintain wellness, may also inhibit the practitioner’s capability within ritual. It may well be a good time to refrain from ritual and focus instead of remaining healthy under the guidance of an appropriate healthcare professional and within the love of the Divine.

So the argument for or against drugs and alcohol within ritual isn’t quite as cut and dried as first thought. The answers may need to be much more flexible depending on the circumstances.

Smiles and blessings, Amethyst