A Culture’s Catalyst

“A fascinating glimpse of psychiatry’s encounter with peyote and First Nations cultures, Fannie Kahan’s A Culture’s Catalyst is by turns patronizing and sympathetic, supportive and paternalistic. On one level Kahan’s collection of essays by cutting-edge mental health experts is both a critique of colonialism and a defense of their own embrace of psychoactive treatments. On a deeper level it is an intriguing illustration of First Nations’ savvy appropriation of elite power and influence to protect cultural and religious rites. It will definitely find a place on my bookshelf and syllabus.”

– Maureen Lux, Department of History, Brock University, author of award-winning Medicine that Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880–1940 and the forthcoming Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s to 1980s.

“Offers valuable insights into two intersecting cultural worlds. On one hand it illuminates a moment in the history of the Native American Church as it was taking shape in Canada in the 1950s. On the other it illuminates the culture of the mid-century psychiatrists and other scholars who became interested in peyote through their work on psychedelic substances. This book is not a history of the Peyote religion or of the Native American Church in Canada. Nor does it reflect twenty-first century scholarly approaches to the study of First Nations and Native American history and traditions. But it is a fascinating historical document in its own right, and Dyck has done us all a favor by editing and introducing it so skillfully.”

– Tisa Wenger, Pacific Historical Review

“In 1956, several non-Indian scientists attended a Native American Church (aka peyotism) service in Saskatchewan and wrote sympathetic depictions of the ceremony. In 1963, a journalist gathered those writings into a book-length manuscript, composed introductions to the peyote religion, and submitted the work, unsuccessfully, for publication. Finally, the manuscript has found print. Why were these white men on hand for an all-night rite in which peyote was ingested amid solemn song and prayer? Because the Indians—Stoney, Cree, and Crow—wished to employ “scientific credibility” in their defense against Canadian anti-peyote laws. Frank Takes Gun, then president of the international branch of the NAC church, was a canny solicitor of positive commentary about his faith, and he chose for the job men committed to religious freedom and intrigued by psychedelic-induced spirituality. Their essays interpreted peyotism as a heroic expression of cultural survival following centuries of white oppression. Though the tone of the essays is paternalistic, the writers’ analysis has been corroborated by scholarship over the past half century. Far from being a dangerous narcotic cult, peyotism provides mystical experience, nativist solidarity, and moral uplift in a church setting combining Christian and indigenous religious form and values.”

– C. T. Vecsey, Colgate University, CHOICE

“An extraordinary and unreservedly recommended study.”

– Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review