Book picks similar to
Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers by Richard Evans Schultes
non-fiction
science
psychedelics
drugs
Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft
Raymond Buckland - 1986
The workbook formats includes exam questions at the end of each lesson, so you can build a permanent record of your spiritual and magical training.
Liber Null and Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic
Peter J. Carroll - 1987
Liber Null contains a selection of extremely powerful rituals and exercises for committed occultists. Psychonaut is a manual comprising the theory and practice of magic aimed atthose seeking to perform group magic, or who work as shamanic priests to the community.
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
David Abram - 1996
This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception.For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as inanimate. How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth?In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with a passion, a precision, and an intellectual daring that recall such writers as Loren Eisleley, Annie Dillard, and Barry Lopez.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Sogyal Rinpoche - 1992
In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.”—San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”
The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience
Benny Shanon - 2002
Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, & analyzes them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research presented in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author's extensive experiences with the brew & on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca & travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general. Benny Shanon is a Psychology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem & holder of the Mandel Chair in Cognition.
Animal Spirit Guides: An Easy-to-Use Handbook for Identifying and Understanding Your Power Animals and Animal Spirit Helpers
Steven D. Farmer - 2006
In Animal Spirit Guides, Dr. Farmer provides concise, relevant details about the significance of more than 200 animals that may come to you in physical or symbolic form as guides and teachers. With each animal listed, you’ll find general meanings of the visitation; practical ways that they can help you as spirit guides; and how, as your power animal, they reflect characteristics that you possess. You’ll also find a “whom-to-call-on” section that will tell you which animal spirit guide to call on for any specific purpose.
The Occult
Colin Wilson - 1971
He produces a wonderfully skillful synthesis of the available material—one that sees the occult in the light of reason and reason in the light of the mystical and paranormal. The result is a wide-ranging survey of the subject that provides a comprehensive history of magic, an insightful exploration of our latent powers, and a journey of enlightenment. “I am very impressed by this book, not only by its erudition but…above all for the good-natured, unaffected charm of the author whose reasoning is never too far-fetched, who is never carried away by preposterous theories.”—Sunday Times
To Ride a Silver Broomstick: New Generation Witchcraft
Silver RavenWolf - 1994
"To Ride a Silver Broomstick" presents both the science and religion of Witchcraft so you can become an active participant while growing at your own pace. This book is ideal for anyone, regardless of religious background: male or female, young or old, beginners and initiates.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Robin Wall Kimmerer - 2013
As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
The Secret Doctrine
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - 1888
This title addresses the perennial questions: continuity of life after death, purpose of existence, good and evil, consciousness and substance, sexuality, karma, evolution, and human and planetary transformation.
Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game
Andrew R Gallimore - 2019
But one natural psychedelic in particular towers above the rest in its astonishing power to replace the normal waking world with a bizarre alternate reality replete with a diverse panoply of intelligent alien beings. As well as being the most powerful, N, N-dimethyltryptamine, more commonly known as DMT, is also the most common naturally-occurring psychedelic and can be found in countless plant species scattered across the Earth. DMT carries a profound message embedded in our reality, a message that we are now beginning to decode.In Alien Information Theory, neurobiologist, chemist, and pharmacologist, Dr. Andrew R. Gallimore, explains how DMT provides the secret to the very structure of our reality, and how our Universe can be likened to a cosmic game that we now find ourselves playing.Gallimore explains how our reality was constructed using a fundamental code which generated our Universe -- and countless others -- as a digital device built from pure information with the purpose of enabling conscious intelligences, such as ourselves, to emerge. You will learn how fundamental digital information self-organises and complexifies to generate the myriad complex forms and organisms that fill our world; how your brain constructs your subjective world and how psychedelic drugs alter the structure of this world; how DMT switches the reality channel by allowing the brain to access information from normally hidden orthogonal dimensions of reality. And, finally, you will learn how DMT provides the secret to exiting our Universe permanently -- to complete the cosmic game and to become interdimensional citizens of hyperspace.Alien Information Theory is a unique account of this hidden structure of reality and our place within it, drawing on a diverse range of disciplines -- including neuroscience, computer science, physics, and pharmacology -- to carefully explain these complex ideas, which are illustrated with full-colour diagrams throughout.
Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide
Rosemary Gladstar - 2012
With Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide, Gladstar offers a fresh introduction for a new generation of gardeners and natural health and self-sufficiency enthusiasts.Thirty-three of the most common and versatile healing plants are profiled in depth to get the budding herbalist off on the right foot. Readers will learn how to grow, harvest, prepare, and use each herb. Step-by-step instructions explain how to prepare herbal teas, salves, syrups, tinctures, oils, and liniments to stock the home medicine chest. Simple recipes explore each plant's healing qualities - aloe lotion for poison ivy, dandelion-burdock tincture for sluggish digestion, and lavender-lemon balm tea for stress relief. Gladstar shows how easy it is to make safe, all-natural, low-cost healing remedies for common ailments.
Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine
Andrew Chevallier - 2000
In-depth explanations of today's most popular alternative therapies are enhanced by step-by-step photos.
Urban Shaman
Serge Kahili King - 1990
Uniquely suited for use in today's world, Hawaiian shamanism follows the way of the adventurer, which produces change through love and cooperation - in contrast to the widely known way of the warrior, which emphasizes solitary quests and conquest by power.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous
Embodying a ritual to be performed for the dead, with detailed instructions for the behavior of the disembodied spirit in the Land of the Gods, it served as the most important repository of religious authority for some three thousand years. Chapters were carved on the pyramids of the ancient 5th Dynasty, texts were written in papyrus, and selections were painted on mummy cases well into the Christian Era. In a certain sense it stood behind all Egyptian civilization.In the year 1888 Dr. E. Wallis Budge, then purchasing agent for the British Museum, followed rumors he heard of a spectacular archaeological find in Upper Egypt, and found in an 18th Dynasty tomb near Luxor "the largest roll of papyrus I had ever seen, tied with a thick band of papyrus, and in a perfect state of preservation." It was a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, written around 1500 B.C. for Ani, Royal Scribe of Thebes, Overseer of the Granaries of the Lords of Abydos, and Scribe of the Offerings of the Lords of Thebes.The Papyrus of Ani, a full version of the Theban recension, is presented here by Dr. Budge, who later became perhaps the world's most renowned Egyptologist. Reproduced in full are a clear copy of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and interlinear transliteration of their sounds (as reconstructed), a word-for-word translation, and separately a complete smooth translation. All this is preceded by an introduction of more than 150 pages. As a result of this multiple apparatus the reader has a unique opportunity to savor all aspects of the Book of the Dead, or as it is otherwise known, the Book of the Great Awakening.