Ayahuasca in My Blood - 25 Years of Medicine Dreaming concerns his longstanding relationship with the Amazonian visionary medicine. Here's what people have said about it:"Unlike many writing about ayahuasca, Peter Gorman knows this plant and these forests long and well. Explorer, ethnobotanist, writer and raconteur - Gorman is uniquely qualified to tell this incredible tale. A wild mixture of adventure, horror, spirituality, tenderness, and insight, Ayahuasca in My Blood is most highly recommended!" -- Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D, Amazon Conservation Team "Long before ayahuasca tourism became a pastime for rich gringos, Peter Gorman was knocking around Iquitos and the Amazon. He's traveled the rivers and quaffed the brew with the best (and the worst) of them and been way, way beyond the chrysanthemum on many a dark jungle night. This is the intensely personal story of an old-school jungle rat for whom ayahuasca is not just a hobby, but a life-long quest." -- Dennis McKenna, Ph.D, noted ethnopharmacologist, "I have known and traveled with Peter for almost a decade and was present for a number of the events he included in this book as well as many others. Don Julio was the most powerful man I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Further, as a trained scientist I believe the plant medicine truly offers a doorway to a rich world that needs to be understood in our postmodern lives. This is destined to become a must read for anyone who is serious about understanding the world of the shaman." -- Lynn Chilson, Chilson Enterprises, Inc.

    Illustrated.

    alone will try LSD for the the first time, joining the 23 million who have already experimented with this substance. Called "America's wisest and most respected authority on psychedelics and their use," James Fadiman has been involved with psychedelic research since the 1960s. In this guide to the immediate and long-term effects of psychedelic use for spiritual (high dose), therapeutic (moderate dose), and problem-solving (low dose) purposes, Fadiman outlines best practices for safe, sacred entheogenic voyages learned through his more than 40 years of experience--from the benefits of having a sensitive guide during a session (and how to be one) to the importance of the setting and pre-session intention.Fadiman reviews the newest as well as the neglected research into the psychotherapeutic value of visionary drug use for increased personal awareness and a host of serious medical conditions, including his recent study of the reasons for and results of psychedelic use among hundreds of students and professionals. He reveals new uses for LSD and other psychedelics, including extremely low doses for improved cognitive functioning and emotional balance. Cautioning that psychedelics are not for everyone, he dispels the myths and misperceptions about psychedelics circulating in textbooks and clinics as well as on the internet. Exploring the life-changing experiences of Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, and Huston Smith as well as Francis Crick and Steve Jobs, Fadiman shows how psychedelics, used wisely, can lead not only to healing but also to scientific breakthroughs and spiritual epiphanies.

    That article struck a chord with psychotherapist Rachel Harris, who had encountered many clients unresponsive to traditional therapy and antidepressant protocols. Used for more than 8,000 years in the Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is a powerful — and illegal — psychedelic that has distressing gastrointestinal side effects. Yet Harris found many willing to try it, so deep was their suffering. Harris here shares her original research (the largest study of ayahuasca use in North America) into its effects on depression, anxiety, and PTSD, along with her own personal experiences. By detailing ayahuasca’s risks and benefits, she aims to help those driven to investigate ayahuasca to do so safely and to give their psychological caregivers a template for transformative caring and healing.

    Ayahuasca, the Amazonian psychoactive plant brew, has become vastly popular. Once the sole purview of shamans and indigenous native people in the great Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is now becoming well known—and widely used—around the globe. Today, foreigners from all over the world flock in ever-burgeoning numbers to the steamy Amazon, drinking bitter ayahuasca with shamans and curanderos in order to access its potent healing and spirit-enlivening effects. What began as a mere trickle of visitors in the 1980s has become a surging riptide of seekers. Chris Kilham (Fox News's "Medicine Hunter") has worked closely with South American shamans for two decades and has sat in ayahuasca ceremonies with at least 20 different shamans. Through his "Ayahuasca Test Pilots" program, Kilham has brought numerous people to the Amazon to engage in ceremonies with maestro ayahuasceros. Clear, concise, straightforward, and well informed, The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook is an indispensable guide for anyone curious about this unusual plant medicine.

    • Numerous new and rare color photographs complement the completely revised and updated text. • Explores the uses of hallucinogenic plants in shamanic rituals throughout the world. • Cross-referenced by plant, illness, preparation, season of collection, and chemical constituents. Three scientific titans join forces to completely revise the classic text on the ritual uses of psychoactive plants. They provide a fascinating testimony of these "plants of the gods," tracing their uses throughout the world and their significance in shaping culture and history. In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. The most powerful of those plants, which are known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness, have always been regarded as sacred. The authors detail the uses of hallucinogens in sacred shamanic rites while providing lucid explanations of the biochemistry of these plants and the cultural prayers, songs, and dances associated with them. The text is lavishly illustrated with 400 rare photographs of plants, people, ceremonies, and art related to the ritual use of the world's sacred psychoactive flora.

    The most powerful plants--those known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness--have traditionally been regarded as sacred. In The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants Christian Rätsch details the botany, history, distribution, cultivation, and preparation and dosage of more than 400 psychoactive plants. He discusses their ritual and medicinal usage, cultural artifacts made from these plants, and works of art that either represent or have been inspired by them. The author begins with 168 of the most well-known psychoactives--such as cannabis, datura, and papaver--then presents 133 lesser known substances as well as additional plants known as “legal highs,” plants known only from mythological contexts and literature, and plant products that include substances such as ayahuasca, incense, and soma. The text is lavishly illustrated with 797 color photographs--many of which are from the author’s extensive fieldwork around the world--showing the people, ceremonies, and art related to the ritual use of the world’s sacred psychoactives.

    French Aromatherapy is the art of using essential oils that encompasses all methods of use: aromatic, topical, and internal. You will learn proper safety precautions and how to implement essential oils into your entire lifestyle. This book gives over 300 recipes to help you better understand and use your essential oils.

    Much of what had been learned over thirty years of scientific medical study was so distorted or suppressed that no objective overview was available to the general reader - except for this book. LSD Psychotherapy is a complete account of a remarkable chapter in the ever-continuing inquiry into our transpersonal nature and origins. The controlled studies described in this book reveal exciting and challenging data about the nature of human consciousness, perception, and reality itself. Drawing on this work Dr. Stanislav Grof outlines a new cartography of the human mind, one which accounts for experiences such as shamanic trance, near-death experiences and altered states of consciousness. This vision is also the foundation for Dr. Grof's revolutionary new Holotropic Breathworkâ„¢ techniques. This book is also a visual feast, with numerous color drawings and paintings created by research participants (see featured artist Sherana Harriette Frances' book Drawing It Out: Befriending the Unconscious). Many of these depict archetypal images from the collective human consciousness, which form a powerful addition to the text. LSD Psychotherapy is a valuable source of information for those who are involved with LSD in any way, as parents, teachers, researchers, legislators, or students of the human psyche. The approach to healing described in this book is inspired by the eternal desire of humankind for wholeness and an enduring grasp of reality.

    Zig Zag Zen launches the first serious inquiry into the moral, ethical, doctrinal, and transcendental considerations created by the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics. With a foreword by renowned Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor and a preface by historian of religion Huston Smith, along with numerous essays and interviews, Zig Zag Zen is a provocative and thoughtful exploration of altered states of consciousness and the potential for transformation. Accompanying each essay is a work of visionary art selected by artist Alex Grey, such as a vividly graphic work by Robert Venosa, a contemporary thangka painting by Robert Beer, and an exercise in emptiness in the form of an enso by a 17th-century Zen abbot. Packed with enlightening entries and art that lie outside the scope of mainstream anthologies, Zig Zag Zen offers eye-opening insights into alternate methods of inner exploration.

    Made from the ayahuasca vine and the leaves of a shrub, ayahuasca is increasingly known as a powerful tool for personal transformation that more and more Westerners are flocking to drink in a quest for greater self-knowledge, healing and a reconnection with the natural world.The formerly esoteric, little-known brew is spearheading a global psychedelic renaissance unlike anything seen since the 1960s – but why?Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the cultural and historical origins of the plant, considering the role of the shaman or curandero in Amazonian and Western cultures. They follow the surprising story of ayahuasca as it twines across the world, examining its current legal status and reviewing up-to-date biomedical research and psychedelic science, whilst looking closely at how ayahuasca is perceived and used today.When Plants Dream explores the economic, social, political and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

    In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.

    This book takes a serious look at the use of psychedelic drugs as a means to achieve mystical union with the divine.

    Award-winning Peruvian author Cesar Calvo takes us on a quest through the mysterious, dreamlike world of powerful Amazonian sorcerers.

    Includes 24 1sthand accounts of Ayahuasca experiences & resulting life changes, including contributions from J.C. Callaway, Charles S. Grob & Dennis J. McKenna. Discusses the medical & psychological applications of Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic Amazonian plant mixture that has been used for 100s, perhaps 1000s, of years by native Indian & mestizo shamans in Peru, Colombia & Ecuador for healing & divination. Many Western-trained physicians & psychologists have acknowledged that this substance can allow access to spiritual dimensions of consciousness, even mystical experiences indistinguishable from classic religious mysticism. In Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca Ralph Metzner, a pioneer in the study of consciousness, has assembled a group of authoritative contributors who provide an exploration of the chemical, biological, psychological & experiential dimensions of ayahuasca. He has more than 20 1sthand accounts from Westerners who have used ayahuasca & also presents the history, psychology & chemistry of ayahuasca from leading scholars in the field of psychoactive research. He concludes with his own findings on ayahuasca, including its applications in medicine & psychology, comparing the worldview revealed by ayahuasca visions to that of Western cultures.