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In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. 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 Ratsch 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.
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Psychoactive plants were the object of a pioneering study published in Germany in 1855: Von Bibra drew on his own travel experiences as well as writings of his predecessors to examine the cultivation, preparation, and consumption of the world's major stimulants and inebriants. He devotes a full chapter to each of 17 plants, ranging from coffee and tea, through tobacco and hashish, to powerful plants such as opium and fly agaric. Witty, engaging, and intellectually open.
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This superbly illustrated, encyclopedic volume provides a much needed, well-balanced scientific perspective on the use of hallucinogenic plants. Richard Evans Schultes, the worlds most eminent ethnobotanist, and Albert Hofmann, the former research director at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, emphasize the need for continued education about both the potential benefits and the inherent dangers involved in the use of hallucinogens. - Shaman's Drum
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A recent theory by David Spess proposes that the Soma plant is Nymphaea (water lilies and the lotus plant) deserves attention. Spess begins with the fact that India has the
largest variety of water lily and lotus plants in the world, and that some of these were known as Soma and called so in Sanskrit texts. The psychoactivity of these plants is discussed. Certain indigenous varieties of the plants are known to be visionary and auditory entheogens when properly processed. In particular, the flowers of Nymphaea induce ecstatic states as...
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The practice of spagyrics is the application of ancient alchemical working methods to the preparation of tinctures, essences, and other products from medicinal plants. While ordinary tinctures and infusions use only a part of the great curative potential of plants, spagyric methods “open” medicinal plants completely to reveal their more powerful healing properties. Spagyrics includes the Plant Magistery of Paracelsus and the Life Elixir recipe of Andreas Libavius among its historic techniques as well as a wealth of scientific information that demonstrates the greater efficacy of alchemical methods of plant essence extraction.
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