Drug assisted religion?

Charles Jones' book on Pure Land Buddhism notes how early Buddhism always had "a trove of utopian imagery ready to hand."  He gives two examples, one of the alleged (but former) grandeur of the town where the original Buddha died:

 

And a second description from generic Buddhist cosmology of a fabled continent:

Okay.  That bit about using rubies to cook on reminded me of Minecraft, actually!   I wouldn't be surprised to find that some Buddhist nerd from Asian has been creating a "Pure Land" world in Minecraft as his life's goal.

But more generally, this has made me curious as to why Buddhism has, even from close to the start, had quite the thing about imagining what a "perfect" or heavenly realm looks like.   I mean, I would guess that it is something more likely to come from a religion originating in a desert, rather than one from a relatively lush part of the world such as India (or the other Eastern Asian countries it migrated to.)   But the Jewish and Christian imagination has not spent that much time on the question, comparatively.

It also made me think that imagining jewelled cities and gold trees and magical landscapes is something we now associate a bit with tripping on LSD or other substances, at least if it's a "good" trip, and this reminded me of the somewhat nutty theory semi-popular for a time in the 1970's - that Jesus was a completely imagined figure from a cult of psychedelic mushroom eaters hanging around the Middle East.   

I googled up topic of what natural drug might be most inclined to give visions of a jewelled heaven, and came up with Dr James Cooke, a neuroscientist into psychedelics research.  

As usual, I'm not the first person to have had this thought:

Mike Crowley, author of Secret Drugs of Buddhism, has argued that in both Hinduism and Buddhism, the blue peacock acted as a symbol for psilocybin mushrooms.  Psilocybin breaks down into psilocin and, when this happens, the chemicals give off a blue appearance.  As a result, mushrooms like psilocybe cubensis turn blue when bruised, and this color may have resonated with the appearance of the peacock.  The soma of the Vedas is also referred to as amrita, and this is the name of the sacrament consumed in Tibetan Buddhism.  In this tradition, amrita is also associated with peacocks.  Furthermore, the name of a Hindu order of monks who worship Shiva, matta-mayuri, translates as “the intoxicated peacocks”.  According to Crowley, this may be explained by the peacock symbolizing a psychedelic mushroom sacrament.

The deliriant datura has traditionally been used in Tibetan Buddhism.  A paste made from the seeds can be applied to the skin, formed into pills, placed in the eyes, or the wood can be burnt and the smoke inhaled in religious ceremonies.  Datura has been found at the site of cave paintings, indicating that it may have a strong legacy of being used in visionary religious ceremonies.  As with the other major religions of the Indian subcontinent, cannabis appears to have also been used.  Tibetan Buddhism formed out of the merger between Buddhism and the indigenous, shamanistic Bon religion of Tibet.  It may be this direct link to a shamanistic religion that accounts for the presence of mind-altering substances in this particular Buddhist tradition.

Western Buddhism has had a deep link with psychedelics, both emerging on the US scene in the 50s and 60s.  Both acted as avenues for self-transcendence and have been linked in Western culture ever since.  An exploration of the relationship between psychedelics and Buddhism can be found in a collection of essays entitled Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics.

He also has an entry on psychedelics in the Bible, in which he is sensible enough to dismiss the "Jesus was a mushroom" theory, but he lists various other ideas people have suggested for what may have been influencing Biblical figures.   

So, there you go.  Blissed out Buddhist visions of their version of a (kind of) heaven might have something to do with drug assisted reveries?   An interesting theory, at least. 

Update:   A lengthy old article in Tricycle, mostly about the relationship between interest in both psychedelics and Eastern religion in the West in the 20th century:

If the sixties was the high point of the Zen generation, the seventies belonged to the Tibetans. The proximate cause, of course, was the Tibetan Diaspora. But the hallucinogenic aspect of the psychedelic experience itself was certainly a contributing factor. The visual pyrotechnics of psychedelia made a close fit with the colorful flamboyance of the radiant gods and goddesses and fiery deities of Tibetan art. The putative correspondence was further strengthened by seeming similarities between the visionary experience of the most popular Tibetan text of the sixties, the Bardo Thodal or Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the psychedelic experience. These elements of psychedelia had their part to play in the increasing popularity of Tibetan Buddhism. But as most would-be practitioners soon discovered, the first wave of lamas were more interested in students who were willing and able to engage in a series of demanding practices. The point was not to have visions, but to visualize.