From James to the 1950s, again, when this was all fair game, I think that I sense kind of a return to the big questions. In addition to the relief of suffering, what do psychedelics really mean for people today? Why do people find meaning, even if all you think about psychedelics are agents of relieving suffering for PTSD? Okay, if you’ve ever talked to, and I’ve talk

Plants of the Gods” and their hallucinogenic Book Review “Plants of the Gods” and their hallucinogenic

Shahapet, also called Khshathrapti, Shavod, Shoithrapaiti, Shvaz and Shvod, were usually friendly guardian spirits of Armenian mythology, who typically appeared in the form of serpents. They inhabited houses, forests and graveyards. The Shvaz type was more agriculturally oriented, while the Shvod was a guardian of the home. The active principle in the chemistry of the Yopo tree ( Anadenanthera) derivatives is the open and close rings of the tryptamine (indole alkaloids) neurochemicals related to serotonin. Psilocybe cyanescens, the wavy cap mushroom species, have a wavy brown cap but unlike P. mexicana, grows in decaying plants, “coniferous mulch, and humus-rich soil.” Reportedly, it has been used in neo-pagan rites in Central Europe and North America. “Visionary doses are 1 g of the dried mushroom, which contains approximately 1% tryptamine (e.g., psilocybin(e) and psilocin(e).”[ 11] Ceres, goddess of growing plants and motherly relationships; equivalent to the Greek goddess DemeterIn the Orinoco river basin between Colombia and Venezuela, the Guahibo Indians use a powerful tobacco snuff, Cohoba, which is hallucinogenic, and to which the local Indians refer to as Yopo. It had been recorded by Spanish explorers as early as 1496 that Cohoba may have been brought by the Taino Indians of the Caribbean and used as a snuff mixed with tobacco to communicate with the spirit world from earlier times. Cohoba comes from the beans of the Yopo tree, Anadenanthera peregrina, that was part of the flora studied by the German naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) in the early 1800s. Fjörgyn, the female personification of the earth. She is also the mother of the goddess Frigg and, very rarely, mother of Thor If you want to truly begin to understand shamanic cultures and shamanic healing, and the plant of the gods, and the fungi of the gods, and the magic frogs of the gods, you need to experience the ceremony as the shaman as the indigenous people see it. Now as an ethnobotanist, I’ve been through probably 80 or 90 ayahuasca ceremonies. Always in a ritual context, always led by a shaman, because these are plants of power and knowledge and danger as well.

Plants of the Gods by Richard Evans Schultes - Waterstones

Clinicians are equally enthused about the possibilities of experimenting with these therapies to treat ailments as diverse as anorexia, early stage Alzheimer’s, insomnia, and even PTSD, one of the most terrible afflictions of our troops. The late Stanislav Grof, a pioneer in the field of psychotherapy, I love this quote, was fond of saying that “Psychedelics are to psychology the same way that telescopes are to astronomy, and microscopes are to the study of bacteria.” About 10 years ago, I was in Bogota and I was visiting Jesus Idrobo. Schultes passed away, I think, in the year 2000. I was visiting Jesus Idrobo, one of the Schultes’ old botanical colleagues, and I said, “Why did Schultes never feel the effects of ayahuasca?” He smiled and said, “He did, and I can prove it.” Hemp (marijuana) was mentioned by the Greek geographer and historian Strabo (c. 63 BC-AD 21) in his Geography as growing in Colchis in Scythia, and he referred to “Getae dancers who burned cannabis flowers to reach states of ecstasy.”[ 3] The Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides (AD 40–90) cites hemp as a source of fiber for making textiles and recommends it as treatment for earache. The great Greek physician and surgeon Galen (AD 130–200) notes that hempseed was added to sweet foods in banquets to induce euphoria and arousal.[ 3]The exact mechanism of how THC acts to alter mood and cognition and other psychogenic effects is not known, but it is known that the drug induces its most powerful effects by binding to its own cannabinoid receptors in the brain and that additional psychotropic effects may take place by the indirect release of dopamine.[ 13] And this is the proposition of the Mysteries that belong to the pagan world to whether it’s the mysteries of Eleusis that we talked about or the mysteries of Dionysus, which I think have far more in common with early Christianity, and we can talk about that later. But this notion of encountering the divine within [personal] experience, so how did Aristotle define this this notion of the Eleusinian vision?