"From Native Americans' use of tobacco for solemnizing oaths, to the spread of New Age religious beliefs in Haight-Ashbury coffeehouses, drugs have been intimately associated with American spirituality. In Stairways to Heaven, Robert C. Fuller presents a rarely considered but very important dimension of American religious history - the use of mind-altering substances as an aid to spirituality - in a clear, engaging style.

Fuller's entertaining narrative illustrates how such substances as peyote, jimson weed, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD, marijuana, wine, and coffee have stimulated ecstatic revelations of spiritual truth and strengthened the social bonds that sustain communities of faith."--BOOK JACKET.