An understanding of how to achieve this balance lingers on in the forgotten and trampled cultures of the rain forests and deserts of the Third World, and in the reserves and reservations into which dominator cultures force their aboriginal people. The shamanic gnosis is possibly dying; certainly it is changing. Yet the plant hallucinogens that are

Because our maps of reality are determined by our present circumstances, we tend to lose awareness of the larger patterns of time and space. Only by gaining access to the Transcendent Other can those patterns of time and space and our role in them be glimpsed.

The plants used by the shaman are not intended to stimulate the immune system or the body’s other natural defenses against disease. Rather, the shamanic plants allow the healer to journey into an invisible realm in which the causality of the ordinary world is replaced with the rationale of natural magic. In this realm, language, ideas, and meaning

Not all shamans use intoxication with plants to obtain ecstasy, but all shamanic practice aims to give rise to ecstasy. Drumming, manipulation of breath, ordeals, fasting, theatrical illusions, sexual abstinence—all are time-honored methods for entering into the trance necessary for shamanic work. Yet none of these methods is as effective, as ancie

Eliade showed that, while the particular motifs may vary between cultures and even individuals, shamanism’s general structure is clear: the neophyte shaman undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection, which is understood as a radical transformation into a superhuman condition. Henceforth, the shaman has access to the superhuman plane, is a master o

Shamanism is the practice of the Upper Paleolithic tradition of healing, divination, and theatrical performance based on natural magic developed ten to fifty thousand years ago.

Religion in India stares from world-weary eyes familiar with four millennia of priestcraft.

I learned in India that religion, in all times and places where the luminous flame of the spirit has guttered low, is no more than a hustle.

Substance-induced changes in consciousness dramatically reveal that our mental life has physical foundations. Psychoactive drugs thus challenge the Christian assumption of the inviolability and special ontological status of the soul. Similarly, they challenge the modern idea of the ego and its inviolability and control structures. In short, encount