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

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But after the ceremony, Spruce ventured into the forest to collect the vine and flower, which was necessary for making a precise identification. Botanists cannot take a piece of a vine and typically identify it. Indigenous peoples can take a piece of the vine and not only identify the name of the vine, they’ll tell you the use of the vine, they’ll tell you where it grows, they’ll tell you what soil type it likes. They’ll tell you when it flowers, what pollinates it, and what the seeds look like. Plants of the Gods” is a term referring to the religious meaning members of many primitive cultures worldwide attribute to plants containing hallucinogenic or mind-altering substances. The plants are customarily considered sacred and consumed in religious rituals in an attempt to reach and communicate with gods or revered ancestors. They are frequently used in healing rites. Occasionally, they are used for purely recreational purposes, this being their main use in the modern societies of both industrialized and underdeveloped nations. However, it must be noted that the hallucinogenic or psychedelic experiences, recreational, are not always euphoric. Now Schultes often said that the difference between an ethnobotanist and an anthropologist was the shaman leans forward, and she or he offers you the brew containing ayahuasca or the snuff tubes containing yopo with the hallucinogenic snuff, or the magic mushrooms that the anthropologist typically says, “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I would lose my objectivity. How would I take notes?” Whereas when the shaman passes it to the ethnobotanist, she or he looks at the shaman and says, “Yee ha!” Albert Hofmann (1906-2008), the father of LSD, was a world-renowned scientist, member of the Nobel Prize Committee, Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, and member of the International Society of Plant Research and of the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He was a leader in pharmaceutical-chemical research and the author of several books, including LSD: My Problem Child.

“Plants of the Gods” and their hallucinogenic powers in

How these people discovered this complex chemistry is really beyond me, but this is yet another mystery of these plants of the gods. In these coca chewing tribes, people use an alkaline substance to extract the alkaloid. In the case of the Kogi, since they live on the edge of the Caribbean sea, it’s seashells. In fact, seashells are sacred to the Kogis, and they’re always trekking down them out into the sea to collect these seashells. Amongst the Kogis, seashells are a form of commerce, or a form of money almost, or a very important part of their sacred offerings. Approximately 20 minutes after the initial dose, the subject usually experiences the onset of dizziness, and nausea often preceding a purge, either vomiting or defecation, which the shamans insist is part of the process, that you must clean your body of toxic substances. And shamans insists that many of the ills that afflict Western society are because we do not expel toxic substances like they do, using a variety of plants, often ayahuasca, but not only ayahuasca — there’s shamanic cultures that don’t use ayahuasca — purge themselves intentionally to cleanse themselves of toxins that the body accumulates over time. It contains an incredible amount of rigorous and fascinating information in a highly accessible, beautiful, and compelling format." From the Publisher Marris, Emma. “The Anthropologist and His Old Friend, Who Became a Jaguar.” Culture, National Geographic, 4 May 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160518-manu-park-peru-matsigenka-tribe-death-jaguar.Today's episode features world-renowned mycologist Giuliana Furci. Giuliana is the founder of the Fungi Foundation, the first NGO in the world solely dedicated to Fungi. This two-part discussion between Giuliana and Dr. Plotkin covers everything from her experiences in the field of mycology, influential mycologists and their work, and even a new species of fungi named after fellow mycologist Paul Stamets. Join us today for part one of this captivating interview.

Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucin…

When the scientist works and respects indigenous culture and wisdom, she or he typically develops a scientific name based on the indigenous name, to honor their knowledge and that’s why it’s called Banisteriopsis caapi. The vine is also known as yage. Y-A-G-E. It is predominantly known by this name in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. And it’s also known in Huasca and other parts of Brazil, where it’s become a staple of these new religions. If you want to truly begin to understand shamanic cultures and shamanic healing, and the plant of the gods, and the fungi of the gods, and the magic frogs of the gods, you need to experience the ceremony as the shaman as the indigenous people see it. Now as an ethnobotanist, I’ve been through probably 80 or 90 ayahuasca ceremonies. Always in a ritual context, always led by a shaman, because these are plants of power and knowledge and danger as well. I discovered the tome, Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers,[ 11] while researching and ascertaining the veracity of certain stories contained in an immensely celebrated series of books from the sixties and seventies by Carlos Castaneda, an anthropology student and PhD candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles.[ 4] I wanted to verify the existence and corroborate the action of the powerful hallucinogenic plants mentioned in that popular series and that were consumed by Don Juan, the teacher, and Carlos Castaneda (“Carlito”), his younger apprentice.

Narby, Jeremy, and Rafael Chanchari Pizuri. Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge. New World Library, 2021.