If you use psychoactives, most of them they create a ppsychoses.
Don't suspect to act normal or serious in such state.
I do agree that alot more depth could be given to the way some substances are role-played in BM.
back in the days they didn't know that our brain works on chemcials which are altered thanks to these substances.
They usually thought you where comunicating with the devine.
that the substance is for example the telephone to call to god.
If you'd believe that, you'd never have a recreational attitude towards these (psychoactive) substances.
If there would be Marijuana in the game world, it could be used recreational like alcohol, but not with mind/reality altering plants like mushrooms or ayuahsca or mescaline cactus plants.
Thats a world of difference.
it is interesting to read alot more about native use of psychedelics in cultures.
These cultures tend to be the most interesting cultures with knowledge on some mathers(like on the flora of the amazone) greater than our own. (yes i am serious)
They take there rites very serious and do exactly that to guide there 'journey' in the right direction.
Music, certain rythems, settings, dosage etc are all very important.
you can't just get in to contact with the gods by taking a single mushroom either.
The ayuasca people in the amazone even made up a complicated chemical combination for the body to be able to digest the dmt in the ayuasca. Without this almost impossible combination, nothing would be noticeable of the effects. It blocks a certain enzyme that naturally disintegrates/neutralizes the dmt.
Theres lots of very interesting and amazing background information on these aspects of religious ceremonies.
The above almost seems like these people have gotten divine intervention from there gods as discovering this on trial and error base in an area with over a hundred thousand kind of species a square km is just unbelievably incredible.
The funny thing is these people with so much knowledge on there surrounding claim to get all of there knowledge from this ayuasca.
thanks to ayuasca they claim to have developed one of the most important medicines in the world, which they used to inter vainly tranquillize the muscles of monkeys without poisoning them. which is now used by western pharmacy after coping it into a synthetic version, for lots of common diseases or seizures.
Yes lots of very incredible and important (western) medicine are actually invented by these native people!
example:
http://www.ehow.com/info-tip_8164909_plants-used-make-tranquilizer-darts.html (detail: the boiling process is extremely dangerous and takes many many hours, the fumes that come of it are deadly).
Please go on with the project, but seriously go into reading alot about these shamans that exist in our own world.
It's not a simple culture, it's complex and mysterious.
I think that is also what Inidirik means with being mores serious about it.
Cause all of these shamans do take it very serious.