Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers - Softcover

Schultes, Richard Evans & Albert Hofmann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0892814063 ISBN 13: 9780892814060

Publisher: Healing Arts Press, 1992

Synopsis

The use of hallucinogenic plants has been a part of human experience for millennia, yet modern Western societies have only recently become aware of the significance that these plants have had in shaping the history of diverse cultures. Capable of bringing human beings in closer touch with the spirit worlds, hallucinogenic plants have long been venerated as aids to mental health and as the sacred connection to the mystical. The authors of this definitive book examine the cross-cultural ceremonial and ritual use of many hallucinogenic substances.

Profusely illustrated, this book contains an extensively researched plant lexicon, providing common and botanical names, history, ethnography, preparation, chemical components, usage in healing, and effects for 91 hallucinogenic plants.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Evans Schultes is a Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University (Emeritus). In recognition of forty years of field studies in Amazonian ethnobotany, he was awarded Britain's annual Gold Medal of the World Wildlife Fund by Prince Philip.

Dr. Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, is the retired director of the Pharmaceutical-Chemical Research Laboratories of Sandoz, Ltd., in Basel, Switzerland. He has synthesized or isolated numerous psychoactive alkaloids, contributing immensely to biochemical studies. A member of several prestigious academic organizations, he has been elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London.

Review:

A truly exellent book. -- Journal of Ethnobiology

An extraordinary blend of botany, ethnobotany, chemistry, history, mythology, and art. A visual, spiritual, and intellectual feast, Plants of the Gods is the best book ever written on hallucinogenic plants and it was written by the two most knowledgeable people on the planet. -- Dr. Mark Plotkin, Conservation International

Richard Evans Schultes has been the nexus of almost everything interesting and supportive concerned with economic and cultural uses of plants. Plants of the Gods gives precise and illuminating portraits of the many peoples of the Earth who pay homage to and gain insights with the aid of psychedelic plants: an exquisite, thoroughly scholarly book. -- Whole Earth Review

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Healing Arts Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0892814063
• ISBN 13: 9780892814060
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192
• Illustrator: Profusely Illustrated