Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants : Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications

REFERENCE / ETHNOBOTANY 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. When taken in a culturally sanctioned context, such plants can produce important insights into the nature of reality. 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 full monographs on 168 of the most well-known psychoactives--such as Cannabis, Datura, and Papaver--then presents minor monographs on 135 lesser known plants. He also explores plants used by indigenous people that have not yet been identified by modern botanists as well as plants and psychoactive substances known only from mythological contexts and literature, such as ephemeron, kykeon, and soma. He offers a thorough discussion (including 20 full monographs) of psychoactive fungi, referred to in ancient times as the "food of the gods" and used by shamans in many cultures for entry to the spirit world. He also covers psychoactive plant products from around the world--smoking blends, alcoholic beverages, snuffs, incense, and ointments. The author concludes with an analysis of the chemical constituents responsible for plants'' psychoactive powers. He is careful to say, though, that the effects of isolated chemical substances are not identical to the psychoactive effects produced by whole plants. Each plant contains a synergistic blend of active constituents--from the shamanic point of view, the plant''s spirit. The text is lavishly illustrated with 670 black-and-white illustrations and 800 color photographs--many of which come from the author''s extensive fieldwork conducted around the world. They show the people, ceremonies, and art related to the ritual use of the world''s sacred psychoactives. CHRISTIAN RÄTSCH, PH.D., is a world- renowned anthropologist and ethnopharmacologist who specializes in the shamanic uses of plants for spiritual as well as medicinal purposes. He studied Mesoamerican languages and cultures and anthropology at the University of Hamburg and spent, altogether, three years of fieldwork among the Lacandone Indians in Chiapas, Mexico, being the only European fluent in their language. He then received a fellowship from the German academic service for foreign research, the Deutsche Akademische Auslandsdienst (DAAD), to realize his doctoral thesis on healing spells and incantations of the Lacandone-Maya at the University of Hamburg, Germany. In addition to his work in Mexico, his numerous fieldworks have included research in Thailand, Bali, the Seychelles, as well as a long-term study (18 years) on shamanism in Nepal combined with expeditions to Korea and the Peruvian and Colombian Amazon. He also was a scientific -anthro-pological advisor for expeditions organized by German magazines such as GEO and _Spektrum der Wissenschaften_ (Spectrum of Sciences). 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 museums. Because of his extensive collection of shells, fossils, artifacts, and entheopharmacological items, he has had numerous museum expositions on these topics. He is the author of numerous articles and more than 40 books, including _Plants of Love_, _Gateway to Inner Space_, _Marijuana Medicine_, and _The Dictionary of Sacred and Magical Plants_. He is also coauthor of _Plants of the Gods_, _Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas_, and _Witchcraft Medicine_ and is editor of the _Yearbook of Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness_. A former member of the board of advisors of the European College for the Study of Consciousness (ECSC) and former president of the Association of Ethnomedicine, he lives in Hamburg, Germany.