Ayahuasca : Rituals, Potions, and Visionary Art from the Amazon

An authoritative treatise on the use, history, culture, and art of the sacred plant medicine Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is the strongest shamanic plant medicine. Brewed from the combination of the Amazonian vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, and leaves from the plant, Psychotria viridis, Ayahuasca creates sweeping visual and mentally startling effects. For many of the indigenous cultures of the Amazonian basin, Ayahuasca is central to their culture, revealing to mankind its role in the universe and the true nature of reality. Used properly, Ayahuasca provides healing and integration with nature and community and stimulates the creative process. The authors are recognized experts in the field of ethnology, anthropology and pharmacology and demonstrate the use of Ayahuasca in shamanic rituals. They dive deep into shamanic visionary worlds, explore the plants and their souls, and share their authentic encounters with Amazonian cultures and their artistic works.

Arno Adelaars lives in Amsterdam and explored psychedelic substances for over 20 years. He works as a freelance journalist and author, and previously as a reporter for Dutch and German news channels. He wrote the very first book in Europe on MDMA (Ecstasy) in 1991, and was initiated by a Colombian ayahuasca shaman in his tradition eight years ago. He regularly contributes to various magazines and was a co-organizer of the ' Psychoactivity' conference in Amsterdam and continues to organize various psychoactivity events in Europe and Nepal together with Claudia Müller-Ebeling.

Claudia Müller-Ebeling is an art historian and ethnologist specializing in visionary art. Over the last 20 years she wrote about Korean Shamanism, the Amazon region, and about principles of shamanic art in Nepal. She is an internationally sought after speaker and co-author of several books, among them the classic Shamanism and Tantra in Nepal.

Christian Rätsch, is an Ethnologist and Ethnopharmacologist, speaker, and author. He studies shamanic cultures and their use of psychoactive plants worldwide since many years. He wrote a number of books, among others the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants the standard work for the psychoactive ethnobotanical field now in its 12th reprint (original German edition).