Hultkrantz Åke. The Attraction of Peyote: An Inquiry into the Basic Conditions for the Diffusion of the Peyote Religion in North America

Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1997. — 234 p. — (Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion № 33). — ISBN: 9122017127.This book discusses the Peyote religion, a religion centered around the ritual consumption of the Peyote cactus. Its ecclesiastical organization, the North American Church, has stirred some attention among scholars, most of them anthropologists. The author describes what he calls all the "nativistic" religious movements which have emerged in the Peyote tradition in North America over the past 200 years.Dr. Âke Hultkrantz (1920-2006) was recognized as a major authority on Native American religions and shamanism. He was a professor of religion at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. During the years 1948 and 1958, Professor Hultrkrantz conducted field work at the Wind River reservation, which resulted in his ground-breaking book, Native American Religions of North America: The Power of Visions and Fertility. His other works include The Religions of the American Indians, Belief and Worship in Native America and Shamanic healing and ritual drama: health and medicine in native North American religious traditions.Peyote and the Peyote Religion.
The Peyote "Herb" and Its Properties.
History and Diffusion of Peyote Religion.
Doctrine and Ritual.
The Peyote Religion: A Shoshoni Example.
Peyote among the Wind River Shoshoni.
Peyote Symbolism.
A Shoshoni Ritual Meeting.
Why Peyote Spread: the Indian Testimony.
The General Persuasion.
The Origin Legend of Peyote.
Why Peyote Spread: the Research Opinion.
Trends of the Discussion.
The Peyote Religion as a Crisis Religion.
Peyote and the Situation of Cultural Shock.
Peyote as a Means of Personal Adjustment.
Peyote as a Medicine.
Peyote as an Expression of Religious and Ritual Continuity: Peyote and the "Mescal Bean Cult".