By now the image of the adventurous anthropologist boldly experimenting with the psychoactive substances of their native informants is something of a cliche. Images from Carlos Castaneda’s influential series of books, in which a young anthropologist is initiated into the world of Yaqui sorcery through extraordinary psychedelic experiences, immediately spring to mind when the subject comes up. But there is a history of serious anthropological inquiry beyond Castaneda’s popularisation (and possible fictionalisation) of anthropology’s involvement with psychoactive substances. In this paper I aim to give a brief, introductory, chronological summary of developments within this field of study, from the Nineteenth Century to the present day, through presenting snapshots of key figures and their research. These will include, in order of appearance, J.G. Frazer, Weston La Barre, Richard Evans Schultes, Napoleon Chagnon, Carlos Castaneda, Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Michael Harner, Zeljko Jokic and others. Andy Letcher (2007) recognises two dominant discourses in academic approaches to the study of psychedelic mushrooms, which can be equally applied to other psychedelics. The first set, which he defines as “pathological,” “psychological,” and “prohibition” discourses derive from objective observations of the effects, the symptomatology, of psychoactive substances on others. The second set of discourses, including “recreational,” “psychedelic,” “entheogenic” and “animistic,” emerge in opposition to these discourses and derive from practitioners themselves (2007:75). What we have seen in this brief history, then, is an expression of the friction between these dominant sets of approaches, and of the deficiencies of the discourses that have dominated academic research in this area, progressing from the pathological and prohibitional discourses of the Nineteenth century to a more reflexive, experiential, and sensitive understanding. Although not a complete history, a trend towards a more reflexive and experiential approach has emerged. Anthropological approaches to the use of psychoactive plants have gradually changed with the development of the disciplineʼs underlying paradigm. Nineteenth century approaches were limited by the assumptions of the evolutionist paradigm, according to which non-Western cultures were seen as somehow ʻprimitive,ʼ ʻsuperstitiousʼ and already superseded by the Euro-American scientific worldview. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century this assumption was being questioned, with nonWestern cultures beginning to be seen as parallel with, rather than subordinate to, Western culture. The cultural relativist paradigm would lay the foundations for further developments in anthropological approaches to the study of psychoactive plants. By the middle of the Twentieth century a new experiential approach emerged, placing an emphasis on the experiential foundations of traditional belief systems and paving the way for a new ʻtranspersonalʼ modes of understanding the value of psychedelic experiences in both Western and Non-Western societies.