Psychedelic Anthropology PDF Download

Author: Allan D. Coult
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780805922707
Category : Anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Author: Nicolas Langlitz
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520274822
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Neuropsychedelia examines the revival of psychedelic science since the "Decade of the Brain." After the breakdown of this previously prospering area of psychopharmacology, and in the wake of clashes between counterculture and establishment in the late 1960s, a new generation of hallucinogen researchers used the hype around the neurosciences in the 1990s to bring psychedelics back into the mainstream of science and society. This book is based on anthropological fieldwork and philosophical reflections on life and work in two laboratories that have played key roles in this development: a human lab in Switzerland and an animal lab in California. It sheds light on the central transnational axis of the resurgence connecting American psychedelic culture with the home country of LSD. In the borderland of science and religion, Neuropsychedelia explores the tensions between the use of hallucinogens to model psychoses and to evoke spiritual experiences in laboratory settings. Its protagonists, including the anthropologist himself, struggle to find a place for the mystical under conditions of late-modern materialism.

Author: John A. Rush
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583946004
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Entheogens and the Development of Culture makes the radical proposition that mind-altering substances have played a major part not only in cultural development but also in human brain development. Researchers suggest that we have purposely enhanced receptor sites in the brain, especially those for dopamine and serotonin, through the use of plants and fungi over a long period of time. The trade-off for lowered functioning and potential drug abuse has been more creative thinking--or a leap in consciousness. Experiments in entheogen use led to the development of primitive medicine, in which certain mind-altering plants and fungi were imbibed to still fatigue, pain, or depression, while others were taken to promote hunger and libido. Our ancestors selected for our neural hardware, and our propensity for seeking altered forms of consciousness as a survival strategy may be intimately bound to our decision-making processes going back to the dawn of time. Fourteen essays by a wide range of contributors—including founding president of the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Religion section Michael Winkelman, PhD; Carl A. P. Ruck, PhD, Boston University professor of classics and an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus; and world-renowned botanist Dr. Gaston Guzma, member of the Colombian National Academy of Sciences and expert on hallucinogenic mushrooms—demonstrate that altering consciousness continues to be an important part of human experience today. Anthropologists, cultural historians, and anyone interested in the effects of mind-altering substances on the human mind and soul will find this book deeply informative and inspiring.

Author: Marlene Dobkin de Rios
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778914
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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A look inside almost half a century of pioneering research in the Amazon and Peru by a noted anthropologist studying hallucinogens, including ayahuasca • Reveals how ayahuasca successfully treats psychological and emotional disorders • Examines adolescent drug use from a cross-cultural perspective • Discusses the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the Amazon Ayahuasca is an alkaloid-rich psychoactive concoction indigenous to South America that has been employed by shamans for millennia as a spirit drug for divinatory and healing purposes. Although the late Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes was credited in the early 1950s as being the first to document the use of ayahuasca, other researchers, such as the distinguished anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios, were responsible for furthering his findings and uncovering the curative capabilities of this amazing compound. The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene Dobkin de Rios presents the accumulated experience of de Rios’s 45 years of pioneering field studies in the area of hallucinogens in Peru and the Amazon. Her investigation into ayahuasca--which she undertook in collaboration with more than a dozen traditional Mestizo folk curanderos, shamans, and fellow ethnobotanists--focuses on the use of this revolutionary plant in the treatment of recalcitrant psychological and emotional disorders. She also shares some of her theories that prove that the ancient Maya used psychedelic plants as part of their religious rituals, thereby demonstrating the impact of plant psychedelics on human prehistory. In addition, Dobkin de Rios examines altered states of consciousness derived from the use of biofeedback and hypnosis and discusses her current work on the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the Amazon.

Author: Brian C. Muraresku
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125027091X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

Author: Beatriz Caiuby Labate
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319767208
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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This is a book about the intersections of three dimensions. The first is the way social scientists and historians treat the history of psychiatry and healing, especially as it intersects with psychedelics. The second encompasses a reflection on the substances themselves and their effects on bodies. The third addresses traditional healing, as it circles back to our understanding of drugs and psychiatry. The chapters explore how these dimensions are distinct, but deeply intertwined, themes that offer important insights into contemporary healing practices. The intended audience of the volume is large and diverse: neuroscientists, biologists, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists; mental health professionals interested in the therapeutic application of psychedelic substances, or who work with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and PTSD; patients and practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine; ethnobotanists and ethnopharmacologists; lawyers, criminologists, and other specialists in international law working on matters related to drug policy and human rights, as well as scholars of religious studies, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians; social scientists concerned both with the history of science, medicine, and technology, and concepts of health, illness, and healing. It has a potentially large international audience, especially considering the increasing interest in “psychedelic science” and the growing spread of the use of traditional psychoactives in the West.

Author: Geraldine Paula White
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Author: Jay Courtney Fikes
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1436397146
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : es
Pages : 212

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Millones de hispanohablantes consideran verídicos los libros de Carlos Castaneda, probablemente porque la mayoría de ellos no han leído esta traducción al español del libro del profesor Jay Fikes, Carlos Castaneda, oportunismo académico y los psiquedélicos años sesenta. El Dr. Fikes publicó este libro en Canadá en 1993, después de llevar a cabo años de investigación en México y en los Estados Unidos. Ahora dos españoles, Juan Samper y Lourdes Escario, han traducido el libro de Fikes sin retribución económica, convencidos de que será de provecho para todos. La afirmación central de Carlos Castaneda, haber aprendido brujería de un anciano indio yaqui llamado don Juan Matus, se contradice con las pruebas del profesor Jay Fikes. Su investigación revela que los escritos de Castaneda están basados en caricaturas de un huichol llamado Ramón Medina Silva y de otros indios mexicanos que conoció Castaneda. El libro de Fikes expone los elementos más sensacionalistas de la pseudoetnografía encantadora de Castaneda a la vez que examina quién y qué le ayudó a convertirse en un héroe antropológico y en uno de los padrinos del movimiento New Age. El libro de Fikes inspira respeto por los rituales huicholes de los primeros frutos y por las peregrinaciones del peyote, resume las ceremonias de la Native American Church y repasa los momentos culminantes de los años sesenta, la época turbulenta en la que Castaneda se convirtió en un autor de éxito. Fikes muestra cómo y por qué Aldous Huxley, el Dr. Timothy Leary, Gordon Wasson y varios antropólogos de Los Angeles contribuyeron a crear una audiencia ansiosa por creer que los cuentos chinos de Castaneda eran ciertos. Fikes explica cómo y por qué Castaneda y sus aliados antropólogos de la Universidad de California en Los Angeles hicieron de los huicholes un imán para buscadores de chamanes análogos al maestro de ficción de Castaneda, don Juan, poniendo así en peligro las ancestrales peregrinaciones del peyote de los huicholes. Algunos creyentes en las historias sensacionalistas de Castaneda contribuyeron al trágico fallo del Tribunal Supremo de los Estados Unidos de 1990, que denegaba la libertad religiosa a unos 300.000 miembros de la Native American Church que veneran el peyote. La extensa investigación de Fikes y su experiencia de primera mano con peyote entre los huicholes y en las ceremonias de la Native American Church le cualifican de modo excepcional para desacreditar las absurdas alegaciones de Castaneda sobre chamanes y peyote, entre ellas su afirmación de que el espíritu del peyote ("Mescalito") decretó su aprendizaje con don Juan Matus. El autor del prefacio, Dr. Phil Weigand, es Profesor Investigador del Centro de Estudios Arqueológicos en el Colegio de Michoacán. Ha publicado numerosos libros y artículos académicos sobre los huicholes, cuya historia y cultura empezó a estudiar en 1965 en San Sebastián con su esposa, Acelia Garcia. Los traductores de este libro, Lourdes (Clara) Escario y Juan Samper, son españoles. Lourdes Escario es licenciada en Filología Inglesa y profesora de inglés en un instituto de enseñanza secundaria en Palencia. Juan Samper es veterinario y licenciado en Filosofía. Tanto Juan Samper como Jay Fikes han llevado a cabo peregrinaciones bajo la tutela del mismo chamán huichol Jesús González. Carlos Castaneda's books are accepted as truthful by millions of Spanish speakers, probably because most of them have not read this Spanish translation of Professor Fikes' book, Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties. Dr. Fikes published this book in 1993 in Canada, after completing years of research in Mexico and the United States. Now two Spaniards, Juan Samper and Lourdes Escario, have translated Fikes' book without payment, convinced that it is valuable for everybody. Carlos Castaneda's central claim, to have learned sorcery from an elderly Yaqui Indian named don Juan Matus, is contradicted by Professor Jay Fikes' evidence. Fikes'

Author: Niccolo Caldararo
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031137450
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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There has recently been a renewed interest in both casual use of psychedelics as well as experimental use and attempts to discover therapeutic value. There is an effort to recapture the achievements and failures of past work to guide present use. This book is based around material derived from unpublished scientific research from Dr. Robert Mogar’s laboratory and built upon by forty years of field research by the author. The author Niccolo Caldararo participated in a number of studies of perception, including sensory deprivation and psychotropic drugs, some of recent manufacture or discovery and some of primitive or traditional societies. He places this analysis of the physiological aspects of hallucinations, delusions, visions and dreamsn context through an , as well as cross cultural data on dreams, dreaming and drug use and the social value of hallucinations, dreams and visions. The book reviews ethnographic literature in this area and contributes to a comprehensive evaluation of past work done in this area.

Author: Peter T. Furst
Publisher: San Francisco : Chandler & Sharp
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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"This book is an introduction to some of the hallucinogenic drugs in their cultural and historical context, stressing their important role in religion, ritual, magic and curing".--BOOKJACKET.