Ketamine: Dreams and Realities 

Ketamine: Dreams and Realities is a non-biased and comprehensive overview of the drug ketamine. It covers everything from its recreational use in the dance community, its use as an adjunct to psychotherapy as an aid in overcoming chemical dependency and alcoholism, to the types of mystical experiences induced by ketamine. This book includes information on the possible benfits and dangers of ketamine use along with an authoratative treatment plan for individuals who become addicted to the drug. It is wealth of information for both laypersons and medical professionals alike.


Psilocybin Mushroom Handbook: Easy Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

This well-illustrated book allows anyone with common sense, a clean kitchen, and a closet shelf to grow bumper crops of mushrooms. Besides step-by-step guides to cultivating four species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms, the book offers a wealth of additional information, including an introduction to mushroom biology, a resource guide for supplies, advice on discreetly integrating psychedelic mushrooms into outdoor gardens, and insights into the traditional use of psilocybins in sacred medicine. Also included are appendices with a summary of all included recipes.


Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant Of Ancient South America

A multidisciplinary study of pre-Columbian South America-centering on the psychoactive plant genus Anadenanthera As cultures formed and evolved in pre-Columbian South America, Anadenanthera became one of the most widely used shamanic inebriants. Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant of Ancient South America is more than a comprehensive reference on shamanic visionary substances; it is a useful tool for archeologists and pre-Columbian art historians. This thorough book examines the ritual and cultural use of Anadenanthera from prehistory to the present, along with its botany, chemistry, pharmacology, anthropology, and archeology. The earliest evidence for the use of psychoactive plants in South America is provided by remains of seeds and pods recovered from archeological sites four millennia old. Various preparations were derived from it with the intent of being a shamanic inebriant. Inhaled through the nose, smoked in pipes or as cigars, and prepared in fermented drinks, Anadenanthera served a central role in the cultural development of indigenous societies in South America. Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant of Ancient South America explores the full spectrum of information gleaned from research, covering numerous archeological sites in the Andean region, as well as discussing Amazonian shamanic rituals and lore. Analyses of the artistic expressions within the decorations of associated ceremonial paraphernalia such as ritual snuffing tubes and snuff trays are included. The text is richly illustrated with photographs and images of decorated ritual implements, and provides a comprehensive bibliography.


Sacred Mushroom of Visions: Teonan���¡catl: A Sourcebook on the Psilocybin Mushroom

Over 30 contributors share their expertise on the chemical, biological, cultural, psychological, and experiential dimensions of psilocybin mushrooms. Describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users. Provides firsthand accounts of the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison and Good Friday studies

Teonan���¡catl was the name given to the visionary mushrooms used in ancient Mesoamerican shamanic ceremonies, mushrooms that contain psilocybin, the psychoactive agent identified by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD. The rediscovery of these visionary mushrooms by the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson ignited a worldwide mushroom culture that inspired the consciousness revolution of the 1960s.

This book describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users--from artists to psychologists--and the healing visionary inspiration they received. It provides firsthand accounts of studies performed in the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison study and the Good Friday study. It describes how the use of the psilocybe mushroom spread from the mountains of Mexico into North America, Asia, and Europe by seekers of consciousness-expanding experiences. It also details how psilocybin has been used since the 1960s in psychotherapy, prisoner rehabilitation, the enhancement of creativity, and the induction of mystical experiences and is being studied as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).


Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic Amazonian plant mixture that has been used for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years by native Indian and mestizo shamans in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador for healing and divination. Many Western-trained physicians and psychologists have acknowledged that this substance can allow access to spiritual dimensions of consciousness, even mystical experiences indistinguishable from classic religious mysticism.

In Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca Ralph Metzner, a pioneer in the study of consciousness, has assembled a group of authoritative contributors who provide an exploration of the chemical, biological, psychological, and experiential dimensions of ayahuasca. He begins with more than 20 firsthand accounts from Westerners who have used ayahuasca and then presents the history, psychology, and chemistry of ayahuasca from leading scholars in the field of psychoactive research. He concludes with his own findings on ayahuasca, including its applications in medicine and psychology, and compares the worldview revealed by ayahuasca visions to that of Western cultures.


The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience

This is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, and analyzes them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research presented in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author\\\'s extensive experiences with the brew and on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, and travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general. 


Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism

Open City editor Pinchbeck\\\'s book debut is a polemic that picks up the threads that Huxley\\\'s The Doors of Perception, Ken Kesey\\\'s Merry Pranksters and counterculture idealism left in the culture. Charting his gradual transformation from a cynical New York litterateur to psychedelic acolyte, Pinchbeck uses elements of travelogue, memoir, \\\"entheobotany\\\" (\\\"the study of god-containing plants\\\") and historical research to ask why these \\\"doorways of the mind\\\" have been unceremoniously sealed, sharing Walter Benjamin\\\'s melancholy about the exasperating nature of consumerism: \\\"We live in a culture where everything tastes good but nothing satisfies.\\\" Pinchbeck travels the earth in search of spiritual awakening through tripping, from Gabon to the Nevada desert. At happenings like the Burning Man festival or a plant conference in the Ecuadorean jungle, Pinchbeck meets \\\"modern shamans\\\" and tells their stories as they intersect with his. In his reporting, he manages to walk a difficult tonal tightrope, balancing his skepticism with a desire to be transformed. He thoughtfully surveys the literature about psychedelic drugs, but the most exhilarating and illuminating sections are the descriptions of drug taking: he calls this visiting the \\\"spirit world,\\\" which is \\\"like a cosmic bureaucracy employing its own PR department, its own off-kilter sense of dream-logic and humor... constantly playing with human limitations, dangling possibilities before our puny grasps at knowledge.\\\" There\\\'s little new drug lore here, but Pinchbeck\\\'s earnest, engaged and winning manner carry the book.


Sex Signs: Every woman\\\'s astrological and psychological guide to love, men, sex, anger and personal power

Sex Signs is the ultimate guide to love for the astrologically minded woman. This dramatic marriage of astrology, psychology, and sexuality, based on countless hours of counseling experience, has provided thousands of readers with penetrating insights into themselves and their relationships. Here every woman can find advice on love, self-esteem, decision making, and the constructive use of anger and personal power. A vast revision of Sex Signs has been undertaken to bring the work in line with millenial attitudes towards relationships and sexuality. But the core that has kept women coming back to Sex Signs for years is unchanged: here is practical guidance for making emotional and sexual relationships work, attaining the liberating and fulfilling lifestyle that is every woman\\\'s right. Before her tragic death in a 1980 plane crash, Judith Bennett was the founder and president of the Life Crisis Counceling Clinic and of the Flexible Careers Counseling Center. A professional astrologer, Bennett spent her life studying love, intimacy, and human sexuality. She lived in Chicago.