A Culture'S Catalyst

In 1956, pioneering psychedelic researchers Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond were invited to a peyote ceremony of the Native American Church. Afterward, journalist Fannie Kahan was enlisted to write a book on peyote and its historical relationship with Indigenous people in North America. A Culture's Catalyst encourages us to consider how peyote in Canada has been understood and how its appearance in 1950s Saskatchewan tested Native-newcomer relations and attitudes toward Indigenous religious and cultural practices.