Ayahuasca contain psychotropic alkaloids of this type. Meaning the combination of these plants produce strikingly more potent and profound effects, than a potion prepared from either species. How shamans living in a rainforest comprising 40,000 species of plants discovered the appropriate blend to induce otherworldly visions and insights remains a shamanic riddle. 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. In ergot poisoning the active principles are again indole alkaloids derivatives — that is, ergotamine and ergotoxine — that cause severe vasoconstriction responsible for ergotism and gangrene. Other psychotropic lysergic acid amides are responsible for the convulsions, delirium, and madness. Amazingly, these psychotropic derivatives are similar to those found in Mexican morning glories and bind weeds previously mentioned.[ 11] According to Castaneda, Don Juan was a Yaqui Indian sorcerer from the Sonora desert area of Mexico, who accepted Castaneda as a student and took him under his tutelage for several years. The apprenticeship entailed the repeated and ritualistic use of hallucinogenic plants to assist Carlito in becoming “a man of knowledge,” a sorcerer and warrior, like his mentor Don Juan. The plants were categorized by Don Juan as “teachers” or “allies,” and would lead Carlito to reach a state of non-ordinary reality, a separate realm of reality. Before becoming a full-time author and internationally renowned lecturer, Rätsch worked as professor of anthropology at the University of Bremen and served as consultant advisor for many German mu

Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and

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.” Plants of the Gods: S4E6. Part 1 — Ayahuasca and Tobacco Shamanism: an Interview with Ethnobotanist Dr. Glenn Shepard Steffensen, Jennifer. “The Reality (TV) of Vanishing Lives: An Interview with Glenn Shepard.” Anthropology News, vol. 49, no. 5, 2008, pp. 30–30., https://doi.org/10.1525/an.2008.49.5.30. These are not plants or compounds to be trifled with. And let me tell you about my worst ayahuasca experience of all. I was in the middle of a ceremony with a Komsa shaman, actually an Ingano shaman from Colombia, and I soon was able to realize that this was going to be a very, very, very bad trip. And I then found myself vomiting purple phosphorescent scorpions. So anyone who thinks that this is going to be a fun ride, anyone who thinks this is always going to be a world of wonder and magic, and lots of fun, is underestimating what these types of journeys can consist of.Here’s how Schultes described taking peyote with the Kiowa. “It began with a period of contentment and oversensitivity, and a period of nervous calm and muscular sluggishness. Then came the colored visual hallucinations and abnormal synesthesia, the mingling of the senses, alterations in tactile sensation, very slight muscular incoordination. Disturbances in space and time perception and auditory hallucinations may accompany severe peyote intoxication. The most striking characteristic, however, is the occasionally induced peyote visions which are often fantastically colored.” There’s two things that are particularly noteworthy about this count. One is the striking visions, which he discovered by reading about them. Unlike most people, he pursued it and he experienced it himself. The other is the idea of synesthesia, and this is characteristic of many of these entheogens, the mingling of senses where you can see music and taste colors. Plants of the Gods” is a term referring to the religious meaning members of many primitive cultures worldwide attribute to plants containing hallucinogenic or mind-altering substances. The plants are customarily considered sacred and consumed in religious rituals in an attempt to reach and communicate with gods or revered ancestors. They are frequently used in healing rites. Occasionally, they are used for purely recreational purposes, this being their main use in the modern societies of both industrialized and underdeveloped nations. However, it must be noted that the hallucinogenic or psychedelic experiences, recreational, are not always euphoric. Narby, Jeremy, and Rafael Chanchari Pizuri. Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge. New World Library, 2021. Please enjoy this transcript of a special edition of The Tim Ferriss Show, featuring episodes from the podcast Plants of the Gods, hosted by Dr. Mark Plotkin. I’ve listened to all the episodes and chose a few favorites to share with you all.

Plants of the Gods by Richard Evans Schultes - Waterstones

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Sam Corcos, Co-Founder of Levels — The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Assistants, 10x Delegation, and Winning Freedom by Letting Go (Plus: Creating Leverage with Tools, Systems, and Processes) (#694) I recommend Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Power with the following caveat: The book was published 20 years ago, and during that time many advances have been made in the area of neuropharmacology.[ 1] The tome still makes good reading for enthusiasts, as well as a secondary reference source for neuropsychiatrists, neurologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and neuropharmacology medical researchers. By reaching a separate reality and becoming a sorcerer or warrior, Carlito would escape the mundane everyday existence that most of us lead and become inaccessible to old friends and family. As a man of knowledge in the state of non-ordinary reality, Carlito would attain vast amounts of supernatural powers by which he could then carry out extraordinary feats — such as fly great distances, converse with animals, render enemies harmless, vanquish powerful foes, and accept death without fear when it came. There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror? It contains an incredible amount of rigorous and fascinating information in a highly accessible, beautiful, and compelling format."

Season 4 of Plants of the Gods wraps up today with an episode featuring Peter Grinspoon, MD, cannabis specialist at Harvard Medical School. During this conversation, Dr. Plotkin and Dr. Grinspoon discuss everything from the pain-relieving and uplifting qualities of cannabis sought by people with chronic illnesses to marijuana in popular culture (cannabis trilogy to brush up on your history!), as well as his father’s successful efforts to fend off the Nixon Administration’s attempts to deport John Lennon because of a cannabis conviction. Join us today for this captivating interview. Many of the initial evaluations from the Western medical perspective have focused on mescaline, which is of course from Mexican peyote. We’ll be talking about in a later podcast, psilocybin from magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca itself. These mind-altering remedies have been clinically proven to produce promising therapeutic effects in some cases of addiction, depression, and even OCD. After attaining fame and commercial success, Castaneda remained mysterious and inaccessible, a secretive man in all aspects of his life, while orchestrating from afar a vast following of admirers, students, and apprentices. Questions were asked and are still being asked about his anthropological apprenticeship, the veracity of his research, the existence of Don Juan, and the logical question of whether his PhD should have been given in anthropology or creative writing! Suffice to say that since the 1970s the literary reference to the persona of Don Juan shifted almost imperceptibly in America from the amorous Don Juan of Spanish literature to Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui sorcerer, “man of knowledge,” and mentor of Carlos Castaneda. (The reader should keep in mind that it is in fact Carlos Castaneda himself who is speaking through the persona of Don Juan and who is expounding his purported philosophy of life in all of his books.). Schultes did his training at the Botanical Museum. The Botanical Museum is actually part of a complex. It is the Peabody Museum, which is anthropology; the Mineralogical Museum, which is geology; the Botanical Museum, and the Zoology Museum. Now these are all grouped together known as the Harvard Museum of Natural History, but the museum got its start under the leadership of Louis Agassiz. Today's episode features world-renowned mycologist Giuliana Furci. Giuliana is the founder of the Fungi Foundation, the first NGO in the world solely dedicated to Fungi. This two-part discussion between Giuliana and Dr. Plotkin covers everything from her experiences in the field of mycology, influential mycologists and their work, and even a new species of fungi named after fellow mycologist Paul Stamets. Join us today for part two of this captivating interview.

PLANTS OF THE GODS | Gegea Oana-Mihaela - Academia.edu (PDF) PLANTS OF THE GODS | Gegea Oana-Mihaela - Academia.edu

Now I learned from professor Schultes that if you want to save the rainforest, you have to save the indigenous peoples of the rainforest. And if you want to save the indigenous peoples of the rainforest, you not only have to work in partnership with all of them, you particularly have to partner with the shamans themselves. This is what we call biocultural conservation. It’s not about saving rainforests or saving shamans. They are intricately linked. One of the first tribes he worked with were the Cofan, who were master curare makers. He was able to collect many different forms of curare. In fact in later years, Schultes sent a student, a graduate student, to continue studying with the Cofans and he actually found a curare, an arrow poison made from a nutmeg — I mean, a cinnamon tree. This is totally unreported prior to Pinkley’s groundbreaking work. Dr. Mark Plotkin: Today, we want to talk about coca, truly a plant of the gods. It’s often confused with coconuts or cacau, but coca is a family unique to South America, typically about a meter or two high, and has been in use by indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The latest finds, I think, indicate use of coca, coca quids, coca that’s been chewed, about 8,000 years ago. Albert Hofmann (1906-2008), the father of LSD, was a world-renowned scientist, member of the Nobel Prize Committee, Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, and member of the International Society of Plant Research and of the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He was a leader in pharmaceutical-chemical research and the author of several books, including LSD: My Problem Child. Richard Evans Schultes (1915-2001) was a Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University, considered by many to be the father of modern ethnobotany.I discovered the tome, Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers,[ 11] while researching and ascertaining the veracity of certain stories contained in an immensely celebrated series of books from the sixties and seventies by Carlos Castaneda, an anthropology student and PhD candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles.[ 4] I wanted to verify the existence and corroborate the action of the powerful hallucinogenic plants mentioned in that popular series and that were consumed by Don Juan, the teacher, and Carlos Castaneda (“Carlito”), his younger apprentice.