Flesh of the Gods: Ritual Use of Hallucinogens

by Peter T. Furst

The essays in this book demonstrate that hallucinogenic substances have potentials for good and evil, and which is realized depends on who uses them and in what contexts, for what purposes, and under what kinds of control as it does on the chemical properties of the hallucinogen. Chapters include "An Overview of Hallucinogens in the Western Hemisphere", "Tobacco and Shamanistic Ecstasy Among the Warao Indians of Venezuela", "The Cultural context of an Aboriginal Banisteriopsus Caapi", "The San Pedro Cactus in Peruvian Folk Healing", "To Find Our Peyote Among the Huichol Indians of Mexico", "The Divine Mushroom of Immortality", "What Was the Soma of the Aryans?", "Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa A Historical-Ethnographic Survey", "Tabernanthe Naracotic Ecstasis and the Work of the Ancestors", and "Hallucinogens and the Shamanic Origins of Religion"

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, History, Religion, Spirituality, Drugs

304 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Bethnoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uniquely interesting investigation into the way various hallucinogens have been used by native people as part of their spiritual and ritual life. Some of the essays are more illuminating than others, but the chapters concerning different plants utilized, the symbolic art and the strong feelings different cultures have towards fungi particularly interested me. The positive, almost excited tone of the introduction about the potential of hallucinogens is quite refreshing compared to most discussion of drugs written in this century.