By Christian Rätsch
The main entire consultant to the botany, historical past, distribution, and cultivation of all recognized psychoactive plants
• Examines 414 psychoactive crops and similar substances
• Explores how utilizing psychoactive vegetation in a culturally sanctioned context can produce very important insights into the character of reality
• comprises 797 colour photos and 645 black-and-white illustrations
In the traditions of each tradition, vegetation were hugely valued for his or her nourishing, therapeutic, and transformative houses. the main robust plants--those identified to move the human brain into different dimensions of consciousness--have characteristically been considered as sacred. within the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive crops Christian R䴳ch information the botany, historical past, distribution, cultivation, and guidance and dosage of greater than four hundred psychoactive crops. He discusses their ritual and medicinal utilization, cultural artifacts made of those vegetation, and artworks that both signify or were encouraged through them. the writer starts off with 168 of the main famous psychoactives--such as hashish, datura, and papaver--then offers 133 lesser recognized elements in addition to extra crops often called “legal highs,” vegetation identified in basic terms from mythological contexts and literature, and plant items that come with ingredients corresponding to ayahuasca, incense, and soma. The textual content is lavishly illustrated with 797 colour photographs--many of that are from the author’s vast fieldwork round the world--showing the folks, ceremonies, and artwork with regards to the ritual use of the world’s sacred psychoactives.