SINGING TO THE PLANTS

This accessible study of ayahuasca shamanism introduces its ritual practices including healers' spiritual relationships with the native plants used in its ceremonies.

Stephan V. Beyer -- scholar, adventurer, and expert on both jungle survival and plant hallucinogens -- studied wilderness survival among the indigenous peoples of North and South America, and sacred plant medicine with traditional herbalists in North America and curanderos in the Upper Amazon, where he received coronación by banco ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurama. With a law degree and doctorates in both religious studies and psychology, Steve has been a university professor, a trial lawyer, a wilderness guide, and a peacemaker and community builder. He lived for a year and a half in a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas, and has undertaken and helped to lead numerous four-day and four-night solo vision fasts in the desert wildernesses of New Mexico. He has studied the use of ayahuasca and other sacred plants in the Amazon, peyote in ceremonies of the Native American Church, and huachuma in Peruvian mesa rituals.