The following is the first of a three-part series. The second part can be found here. In this essay I am going to explore New Religious Movements (NRMs) emergent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that use entheogens or psychedelic substances as sacrament. This means that the use of mind-altering substances performs an important part in theological views and ritual performances for these groups. While a wide spectrum of theologies exists among these groups, I argue that the best way of conceptualizing them as NRMs is through transnational impulses, inspired by global economic trade. This does not mean that features of these groups do not derive from various ancient traditions; it only means that insofar as we recognize them as new, colonizing and emergent globalizing factors allow us to see the motivation to form these communities in response to diasporic and economic conditions. It does mean I will have to at times in a point-blank way confront existing generalizations about some groups. This economic analysis requires a combination of theories to provide more than just a materialist critique. I will further argue that the historical contexts in which such religions arise is often masked by primitivist and perennial rhetorics that ultimately derive from European categories of ‘Religion,’ causing ethical and scholarly problems in studying NRMs. I begin by discussing psychedelic religions more generally and then develop a more focused critique of ayahuasca religions, ending with some remarks about the transnational spread of them.