Salvinorin A is the main active psychotropic molecule in Salvia divinorum, a Mexican plant which has a long history of use as an entheogen by indigenous Mazatec shamans. Salvinorin A is considered a dissociative exhibiting atypically psychedelic effects.

It is structurally distinct from other naturally occurring hallucinogens (such as DMT, psilocybin, and mescaline) because it contains no nitrogen atoms, hence it is not an alkaloid (and cannot be rendered as a salt) but a terpenoid.

Salvinorin A can produce psychoactive experiences in humans with a typical duration of action being several minutes to an hour or so, depending on the method of ingestion.

Salvinorin A is found with several other structurally related salvinorins. Salvinorin is a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid. It acts as a kappa opioid receptor agonist and is the first known compound acting on this receptor that is not an alkaloid. Its pharmacological mechanism was elucidated in the laboratory of Bryan L. Roth.

Salvinorin A was first described and named in 1982 by Alfredo Ortega and colleagues in Mexico. They used a combination of spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography to determine the chemical structure of the compound, which was shown to have a bicyclic diterpene structure. Around the same time, Julian Valdés independently isolated the molecule as part of his PhD research, published in 1983. Valdés named the chemical divinorum, and also isolated an analog that he named divinorum B. The naming was subsequently corrected to salvinorin A and B after the work was published in 1984. Valdés later isolated salvinorin C.

Jonathan Ott is an ethnobotanist, writer, translator, publisher, natural products chemist and botanical researcher in the area of entheogens and their cultural and historical uses, and helped coin the term "entheogen".

Ott has written eight books, co-wrote five, and contributed to four others, and published many articles in the field of entheogens. He has collaborated with other researchers like Christian Rätsch, Jochen Gartz, and the late ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson. He translated Albert Hoffman's 1979 book LSD: My Problem Child (LSD: Mein Sorgekind), and On Aztec Botanical Names by Blas Pablo Reko, into English. His articles have appeared in many publications, including The Entheogen Review, The Entheogen Law Reporter, the Journal of Cognitive Liberties, the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (AKA the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs), the MAPS Bulletin, Head, High Times, Curare, Eleusis, Integration, Lloydia, The Sacred Mushroom Seeker, and several Harvard Botanical Museum pamphlets. He is a co-editor of Eleusis: Journal of Psychoactive Plants & Compounds, along with Giorgio Samorini.

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.

Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado. He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home. From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature.

At age 16, McKenna moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA. In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of The Village Voice that talked about psychedelics.

McKenna claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing." In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday.