A Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants

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A Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants by Richard Evans Schultes & Elmer W. Smith

Published in 1976,  this book has been out of print for many years. It is  beautifully illustrated with detailed botanical paintings and extremely  informative narratives. There is a conspiracy theory that it was removed from publication (albeit after four editions!)  due to pressure by the authorities. In the Golden Guide Collectors page it says ” I will finish my tutorial by talking about the myths on Hallucinogenic Plants. Almost every time I see this book for sale it’s mentioned that it was pulled, suppressed, recalled or words to that effect. I’m sure this book was frowned upon when it showed up in libraries. And Golden Press probably was pressured to quit publishing this title. But it took a while. The softcover went through 4 printings. And the large hardcover went through 2 printings. The ultimate reason Golden Press quit publishing this book may never be known”.

Schultes Foreword

Hallucinogenic plants have been used by man for thousands of years, probably since he began gathering plants for food . The hallucinogens have continued to receive the attention of civilized man through the ages. Recently, we have gone through a period during which sophisticated Western society has “discovered ” hallucinogens, and some sectors of that society have ta ken up,for one reason or another, the use of such plants. This trend may be destined to continue.

It is,therefore,important for us to learn as much as we can about ha llucinogenic plants. A great body of scientific literature has been published a bout their uses and their effects, but the information is often locked away in technical journals. The interested layman has a right to sound information on which to base his opm1ons. This book has been written partly to provide that kind of information.

No matter whether we believe that man’s intake of hallucinogens in primitive or sophisticated societies constitutes use, misuse, or abuse, hallucinogenic plants have undeniably played an exten sive role in human culture and probably shall continue to do so. It follows that a clear understanding of these physically and socially potent agents should be a part of man’s general education.

R . E . S

 

RICHARD EVANS SCHULTES, Ph.D., F.L.S., is professor of natural sciences and director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University. An internationally known botanist specializing in narcotic, medicinal and poisonous plants, Dr. Schultes spent some 14 years in South America living among Indian tribes in order to investigate directly their uses of such plants. Dr. Schultes is the recipient of numerous honors, among them a decoration from the government of Colombia for his work in the Amazon, and is a member of several American and foreign academies of science, including the National Academy of Sciences. He is editor of the journal Economic Botany and the author of many scientific papers; with Albert Hofmann he wrote The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens.

ELMER W. SMITH, a new England Yankee by birth and inclination, is a free-lance artist, self-taught in art, with an M.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts. He illustrated the Golden Guide ORCHIDS, and has traveled and collected in the Amazon with his friend and colleague the author of HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTS. Smith’s work appears in children’s books as well as in scientific journals, and he has illustrated numerous textbooks in the field of biology. Currently he is an artist at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

The Back Cover Blurb

What are hallucinogenic plants? How do they affect mind and body? Who uses them — and why? This unique Golden Guide surveys the role of psychoactive plants in primitive and civilized societies from early times to the present. The first nontechnical guide to both the cultural significance and physiological effects of hallucinogens, hallucinogenic plants will fascinate general readers and students of anthropology and history as well as botanists and other specialists. All of the wild and cultivated species considered are illustrated in brilliant full color.

Pablo Amaringo featured on ‘Living in Peru’

Click to view feature on the Living in Peru website.

 

The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo - book cover

Pablo Amaringo, from the Amazon city of Pucallpa, Peru, was renowned for his intricate, colorful paintings inspired by shamanic visions. A communicator of the ayahuasca experience, a ritual hallucinogen from Peru’s Amazon, Amaringo’s art presents a doorway to the worlds of ayahuasca intended for contemplation, meditation, and inspiration. His paintings present a world where where snakes, jaguars, subterranean beings, celestial palaces, aliens, and spacecraft all converge.

The book Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo, to be published in April, 2011, presents a collection of never-before-published paintings by Amaringo. The book illustrated the evolution of Amaringo’s intricate art with 47 full-color reproductions, including detailed explorations of the rich Amazonian mythology underlying each painting.

See more paintings fromAyahuasca Visions.

Coauthors Howard G. Charing and Peter Cloudsley are able to share the personal stories behind the visions and experiences with Amazonian people and folklore, capturing Amaringo’s ecological and spiritual message through his art and words.

More about the artist and authors

Pablo Amaringo (1938-2009) was trained as a curandero in the Amazon, healing himself and others from the age of ten, but retired in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher at his Usko-Ayar school in Pucullpa, Peru. His art has been displayed throughout the world.

Howard G. Charing and Peter Cloudsley. Charing is the director of the Eagle Wing’s Centre for Contemporary Shamanism and the coauthor of Plant Spirit Shamanism. Cloudsley is a musicologist, writer, and the founder of the Amazon Retreat Centre in Peru. Both live in Lima, Peru.

Click to to View a gallery of Pablo Amaringo Paintings

http://www.livinginperu.com/features-1747-art-culture-lifestyle-see-paintings-from-ayahuasca-visions-perus-shaman-artist

 

Fine Art prints and reproductions of Pablo Amaringo’s work featured in the new book ‘The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo’. This is a ‘pre launch’ promotion with 20% discount on prints and reproductions until April 2011.

Click to view the gallery of paintings;

 

NEW BOOK – The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo – FORTHCOMING April 2011

Cover of forthcoming book - April 2011 About The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo A new collection of never-before-published paintings by renowned artist Pablo Amaringo • With written contributions by Graham Hancock, Jeremy Narby, Robert Venosa, Dennis McKenna, Stephan Beyer, and Jan Kounen • Contains 47 color plates of Amaringo’s latest works, with detailed narratives of the rich Amazonian mythology underlying each painting • Shares Amaringo’s personal stories behind the artistic visions Recognized as one of the world’s great visionary artists, Pablo Amaringo was renowned for his intricate, colorful paintings inspired by his shamanic visions. A master communicator of the ayahuasca experience–where snakes, jaguars, subterranean beings, celestial palaces, aliens, and spacecraft all converge–Amaringo’s art presents a doorway to the transcendent worlds of ayahuasca intended for contemplation, meditation, and inspiration. Illustrating the evolution of his intricate and colorful art, this book contains 47 full-color reproductions of Amaringo’s latest works with detailed explorations of the rich Amazonian mythology underlying each painting. Through their longstanding relationship with Amaringo, coauthors Charing and Cloudsley are able to share the personal stories behind his visions and experiences with Amazonian people and folklore, capturing Amaringo’s powerful ecological and spiritual message through his art and words. With contributions by Graham Hancock, Jeremy Narby, Robert Venosa, Dennis McKenna, Stephan Beyer, and Jan Kounen, this book brings the ayahuasca experience to life as we travel on Amaringo’s visionary brush and palette. About the Author(s) of The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo Pablo Amaringo (1938-2009) trained as a curandero in the Amazon, healing himself and others from the age of ten, but retired in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher at his Usko-Ayar school in Pucullpa, Peru. The author ofAyahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, his art has been displayed throughout the world. Howard G. Charing is a director of the Eagle Wing’s Centre for Contemporary Shamanism and the coauthor of Plant Spirit Shamanism. Peter Cloudsley is a musicologist, writer, and the founder of the Amazon Retreat Centre in Peru. Authors: Howard G. Charing Peter Cloudsley and Pablo Amaringo ISBN-13: 978-1-59477-345-7 ISBN: 1-59477-345-9 Hardcover Book — 01/04/11 Page Count: 192; 10.50 (width) x 13.50 (height) Includes 48 color plates and 12 color photographs Imprint: Inner Traditions http://www.amazon.com/Ayahuasca-Visions-Pablo-Amaringo/dp/1594773459/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284285889&sr=1-3

Ayahuasca, Moses, and the Ten Commandments – Entheogens of the Old Testament

Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

The world wide media interest in Benny Shanon’s paper about Moses and entheogens, is encouraging us to take a good and hard look at the roots of religions and the notion that they were based on fertility cults, and shamanic practices such as Entheogens (or hallucinogenic) plants as a source of spiritual communion with the universal consciousness, or the mind of God.

John Allegro, in his book “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East”, postulated through the etymology of words and relates how the development of language indicated that the roots of the religions emanating from the Middle East were based on fertility cults, and shamanic practices such as Entheogens (or hallucinogenic) plants as a source of spiritual communion with the universal consciousness, or the mind of God..

Back in the 1970’s the reaction against these ideas was so strong that it destroyed Allegro’s career, the book was not published in the UK as it was regarded as blasphemous, and blasphemy was still a crime. It’s good to think that we have made some progress in recent years.

Allegro’s theory was visionary and ground-breaking. He was the first to propose in some detail that two major religions Christianity and by extension Judaism were entheogen-oriented and that the entheogen was Amanita Muscaria. His book was published at a time when there was little or no awareness about the use of entheogens, and was indeed a courageous act to publish this book.

Another great explorer and pathfinder in human consciousness was Terence Mckenna, in his book “Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution”, proposed that hallucinogenic plants, in this case Psilocybin mushrooms, were the cause of the astounding and unexplained rapid evolution and development of the human brain within the evolutionary time scale (just 500,000 years from the hominids). In other words how we developed from our ape relatives . His theory also encompasses the development of linguistics , and human civilisation itself.

JERUSALEM (AFP) – High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

“The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon,” he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to “see music.”

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil‘s Amazon forest in 1991. “I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,” Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

source: Yahoo News.

Paper originally published in:

Time and Mind:
The Journal of Archaeology Consciousness and Culture
Volume I—Issue I, March 2008

Biblical Entheogens: Speculative Hypothesis

pp. 51–74

Benny Shanon is Professor of psychology at the Hebrew university of Jerusalem (Israel). His main foci of research are the phenomenology of human consciousness and the philosophy of psychology. His publications include The representational and the Presentational (1993) and The Antipodes of the Mind (2002). At present, he is working on book devoted to a general psychological theory of human consciousness.

Original Paper by Benny Shanon

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Pablo Amaringo – at home in Pucallpa – Video Clip

A clip of the great visionary artist Pablo Amaringo at his home in Pucallpa (Peru). Pablo is showing Howard some of his work, including some large mural paintings.

Pablo Amaringo’s Foreword to the book Plant Spirit Shamanism

Pablo Amaringo is one of the world’s greatest visionary artists, and is renowned for his highly complex, colourful and intricate paintings of his visions from drinking the Ayahuasca brew. Pablo is a true visionary, and wrote this inspirational foreword to the book Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA).

My visions helped me understand the value of human beings, animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The plants taught me the function they play in life, and the holistic meaning of all life. We all should give special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves our love. And we should also show a healthy respect for her power!

Plants are essential in many ways: they give life to all beings on Earth by producing oxygen, which we need to be active; they create the enormous greenhouse that gives board and lodging to diverse but interrelated guests; they are teachers who show us the holistic importance of conserving life in its due form and necessary conditions.

For me personally, though, they mean even more than this. Plants—in the great living book of nature—have shown me how to study life as an artist and shaman. They can help all of us to know the art of healing and to discover our own creativity, because the beauty of nature moves people to show reverence, fascination, and respect for the extent to which the forests give shelter to our souls.

The consciousness of plants is a constant source of information for medicine, alimentation, and art, and an example of the intelligence and creative imagination of nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these great teachers. Thus I consider myself to be the “representative” of plants, and for this reason I assert that if they cut down the trees and burn what’s left of the rainforests, it is the same as burning a whole library of books without ever having read them.

People who are not so dedicated to the study and experience of plants may not think this knowledge is so important to their lives—but even they should be conscious of the nutritional, medicinal, and scientific value of the plants they rely on for life.

My most sublime desire, though, is that every human being should begin to put as much attention as he or she can into the knowledge of plants, because they are the greatest healers of all. And all human beings should also put effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest, and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.

Even in the Amazon these days, many see plants as only a resource for building houses and to finance large families. People who have farms and raise animals also clear the forest to produce foodstuffs. Mestizos and native Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for subsistence. They have never heard of the word ecology!

I, Pablo, say to everybody who lives in the Amazon and the other forests of the world, that they must love the plants of their land, and everything that is there!

This expression of love must be a sincere and altruistic interest in the lasting well-being of others. We are not here simply to exist, but to enjoy life together with plants, animals, and loved ones, and to delight in contemplation of the beauty of nature. A shaman has in his mind and heart the attitude of conserving nature because he knows that life is for enjoying the company of this world’s countless delights.

Any painting, or book, or piece of art that spreads this message is to be respected, and every reader who picks up a book on this subject is to be honored.

I invite you to read on, and to learn from the greatest teachers of all—the plants, our sacred brothers and sisters.

Pablo Amaringo

Photo: Pablo Amaringo with Howard G Charing presenting the book. Pucallpa, Peru 2007.

Click to view the interview with Pablo Amaringo by Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley first published in Sacred Hoop Magazine

Interview with Pablo Amaringo – Original PDF

A rare interview with the great visionary artist Pablo Amaringo, at his home in Pucallpa. This interview by Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley was first published in Sacred Hoop magazine.

Interview with Pablo Amaringo by Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley

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Machu Picchu – movie clip

Machu Picchu – located about 2,350 meters above sea level. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America. And it is also located in the breathtaking and awesomely beautiful Andes of Peru.

Soundtrack Music from ‘Shamans of Peru’ CD by Eagle’s Wing.

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Coca, and the Spiritual Traditions of the Andean Shamans

PDF of an Article first published in Sacred Hoop magazine with an extended interview with Andean curandera, Doris Rivera Lenz. By Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley.

Coca, and the Spiritual Traditions of the Andean Shamans PDF Article

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