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

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In nature worship, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature, such as a water deity, vegetation deity, sky deity, solar deity, fire deity, or any other naturally occurring phenomena such as mountains, trees, or volcanoes. Accepted in panentheism, pantheism, deism, polytheism, animism, totemism, shamanism, and paganism, the deity embodies natural forces and can have various characteristics, such as that of a mother goddess, " Mother Nature", or lord of the animals.

Plants of the Gods | Book by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Plants of the Gods | Book by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert

Dr. Mark Plotkin: This brings up two interesting complementary or competitive theories depending on your perspective. One is the stoned ape theory, which is that these monkeys were going down to the ground (or these proto simians, whatever they were) and eating ripe fruit because the fruit that had fallen was the ripest, and they’re the sweetest, but it also start to ferment, so they were catching a buzz from that. Pat McGovern is known amongst other things for resurrecting some of these ancient potions and these ancient brews, and he pointed me to like a well the “Midas Touch” beer, for example, which he recreated, that that was based on a Phrygian potion, eighth century BC in Gaudium. Shahapet, also called Khshathrapti, Shavod, Shoithrapaiti, Shvaz and Shvod, were usually friendly guardian spirits of Armenian mythology, who typically appeared in the form of serpents. They inhabited houses, forests and graveyards. The Shvaz type was more agriculturally oriented, while the Shvod was a guardian of the home. Vishap a dragon closely associated with water, similar to the Leviathan. It is usually depicted as a winged snake or with a combination of elements from different animals.I am excited to share with you three episodes from Plants of the Gods—the first covering the adventures of the legendary ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schulte‪s‬, the second on ayahuasca, and the thirdon coca and cocaine. These episodes cover a lot of fascinating ground. A third hallucinogenic plant was the most powerful and, as a benevolent “teacher,” a deity in and of itself. Don Juan referred to this plant as mescalito. The plant not only assisted the user in reaching a separate reality but also taught great lessons that would lead to a better ordinary life. The source was peyote, Lophophora williamsii, a cactus species grown in Mexico and the American southwest. The top part of the cactus was cut off, collected, and dried. Later these peyote “buttons” were ritualistically chewed and ingested, a couple of pieces at a time. Don Juan and Carlito participated in several such ceremonies described in the early books.[ 4] And the other thing that shows up in early Christianity are secrets. So just look at Mark 4:11. You know, Jesus talks in parables and tells these weird stories, because there was an exoteric form to the faith and an esoteric version. Like there’s no controversy among Christian scholars that Christianity is born with secrets. You have a Church Father like Tertullian, in the second century, who basically accuses the Gnostic Christians of imitating the pagan mysteries, there’s this five-year preparation process, they’re trying to get these folks all excited about this great initiation. They’re rising, the anxiety, anticipation. He’s basically making fun of them for in fact, imitating the pagan mysteries. And if you want to Google Dr. Martin Luther King, you can Google the influence of the mystery religions on Christianity, an essay that even Dr. Martin Luther King himself wrote in 1950, about this notion of the continuity from that pagan, pre Christian world to what would become early Christianity in the decades and centuries after Jesus before became this big institution in the fourth century. So, you know, the thing that unites them is experience this notion of secrets, magical practices, folks getting together to consume divine flesh and blood. There’s a lot of parallels there! In ergot poisoning the active principles are again indole alkaloids derivatives — that is, ergotamine and ergotoxine — that cause severe vasoconstriction responsible for ergotism and gangrene. Other psychotropic lysergic acid amides are responsible for the convulsions, delirium, and madness. Amazingly, these psychotropic derivatives are similar to those found in Mexican morning glories and bind weeds previously mentioned.[ 11] Amanor, "The bearer of new fruits" (the god of the new year, Navasard). May or may not have been the same god as Vanatur.

Plants of The Gods - Their Sacred, Healing, and - Scribd Plants of The Gods - Their Sacred, Healing, and - Scribd

The dried leaves are then placed in a hollowed out tree trunk, which serves as a mortar, and pulverized with a sizable wooden club, which serves as a pestle. The rhythmic thumping of the coca being ground to a fine powder echoes through the maloca for hours every night. Meanwhile, other men burn leaves at the cecropia tree, which is added to the coca powder to provide the alkaline substance that facilitates the release of the alkalides.Brian Muraresku: Yeah, I’ll share what I can. Yeah, there’s lots of interest and not just on that campus, but elsewhere. So the funnest part for me has been having these really cool conversations about the meaning of psychedelic studies writ large across all these campuses and in popular discourse. Again, things are very different from where they were even at Hopkins 20 years ago when a lot of this clinical work began. So I’ve had the funnest conversations at Harvard and Yale and Hopkins, and certainly on the west coast. So I’ve mentioned a few of those psychedelic centers already, and where a lot of the focus has been on clinical work, interestingly, at least for me over the past couple years as a humanist, I’m seeing interest in things like divinity studies and ethnobotany that you and I both love, and the social sciences and the things that William James was talking about at this weird intersection between philosophy, psychology, comparative religion.