Sublime

Aesthetic assumptions and styles are indices of the level and kind of understanding and awareness that a society sanctions. Each plant relationship will tend to accentuate some concerns and diminish others.

we cannot even be certain whether science, the epistemic tool upon which we have come to depend most heavily, is up to this task.

Certainly it gave encouragement to heterodox forces—Shivites in the case of Hinduism and Sufis in the case of Islam—who made no secret of their reliance on cannabis as a source of religious inspiration that was particularly feminine in emphasis.

distilled alcohol changed the sacred art of the brewer and the vintner into a profane economic engine for the consumption of human hopes.

Low doses of most drugs that affect the central nervous system are felt by the organism as artificial stimulation or energy, which can be directed outward in the form of physical activity in order both to express the energy and to quench it.

if we wish to see change in the world we need to start rewriting our cultural script, to begin constructing transformational new narratives that appeal to our noblest selves and encourage us to keep our more selfish desires in check. As Terrence McKenna put it, ‘if you’re not the hero of your own novel, then what kind of novel is it? You need to do

Opium was prescribed and perhaps overprescribed during the final days of the Roman Empire.

the entire landscape of our dreams, like the shifting tapestry of an ayahuasca vision, is actually a living intelligence that we can communicate with.