Download or read book Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 883 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can drugs be used intelligently and responsibly to expand human consciousness and heighten spirituality? This two-volume work presents objective scientific information and personal stories aiming to answer the question. The first of its kind, this intriguing two-volume set objectively reports on and assesses this modern psycho-social movement in world culture: the constructive medical use of entheogens and related mind-altering substances. Covering the use of substances such as ayahuasca, cannabis, LSD, peyote, and psilocybin, the work seeks to illuminate the topic in a scholarly and scientific fashion so as to lift the typical division between those who are supporters of research and exploration of entheogens and those who are strongly opposed to any such experimentation altogether. The volumes address the history and use of mind-altering drugs in medical research and religious practice in the endeavor to expand and heighten spirituality and the sense of the divine, providing unbiased coverage of the relevant arguments and controversies regarding the subject matter. Chapters include examinations of how psychoactive agents are used to achieve altered states in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism as well as in the rituals of shamanism and other less widely known faiths. This highly readable work will appeal to everyone from high school students to seasoned professors, in both the secular world and in devoted church groups and religious colleges.

Download or read book Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances Insights arguments and controversies written by J. Harold Ellens and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set reports on and assesses a modern psycho-social movement in world culture: the constructive medical use of entheogens and related mind-altering substances.--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Cognitive Sciences and Medieval Studies written by Juliana Dresvina and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the rapid development of the cognitive sciences and their importance to how we contemplate questions about the mind and society, recent research in the humanities has been characterised by a ‘cognitive turn’. For their part, the humanities play an important role in forming popular ideas of the human mind and in analysing the way cognitive, psychological and emotional phenomena are experienced in time and space. This collection aims to inspire medievalists and other scholars within the humanities to engage with the tools and investigative methodologies deriving from cognitive sciences. Contributors explore topics including medieval and modern philosophy of mind, the psychology of religion, the history of psychological medicine and the re-emergence of the body in cognition. What is the value of mapping how neurons fire when engaging with literature and art? How can we understand psychological stress as a historically specific phenomenon? What can medieval mystics teach us about contemplation and cognition?

Download or read book High Culture written by Christopher Partridge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is littered with evidence of humanity's fascination with drugs and the pursuit of altered states. From early Romanticism to late-nineteenth-century occultism and from fin de siècle Paris to contemporary psychedelic shamanism, psychoactive substances have playedcatalyzing people. Yet serious analysis of the religious dimensions of modern drug use is still lacking. the use of drugs and the pursuit of transcendence from the nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with the Romantic fascination with opium, it chronicles the discovery of anesthetics, the psychiatric and religious interest in hashish, the bewitching power of mescaline and hallucinogenic fungi, the more recent uses of LSD, as well as the debates surrounding drugs and religious experience. This fascinating and wide-ranging sociological and cultural history fills a major gap in the study of religion in the modern world and our understanding of the importance of countercultural thought, offering new and timely insights into the controversial relationship between drugs and mystical experience.

Download or read book Listening to Ayahuasca written by Rachel Harris and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When National Geographic Adventure published an article in 2006 about the powerful antidepressant effects of ayahuasca, the piece received a phenomenal reader response. That article struck a chord with psychotherapist Rachel Harris, who had encountered many clients unresponsive to traditional therapy and antidepressant protocols. Used for more than 8,000 years in the Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is a powerful, and illegal, psychedelic that has distressing gastrointestinal side effects. Yet Harris found many willing to try it, so deep was their suffering. Harris here shares her original research (the largest study of ayahuasca use in North America) into its effects on depression, anxiety, and PTSD, along with her own personal experiences. By detailing ayahuasca's risks and benefits, she aims to help those driven to investigate ayahuasca to do so safely and to give their psychological caregivers a template for transformative caring and healing.

Download or read book Spirit Tech written by Wesley J. Wildman, Ph.D and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring a Foreword by Mikey Siegel, founder of Consciousness Hacking. Technology can now control the spiritual experience. This is a journey through the high-tech aids for psychological growth that are changing our world, while exploring the safety, authenticity and ethics of this new world. We already rely on technology to manage our health, sleep, relationships, and finances, so it’s no surprise that we’re turning to technological aids for the spiritual journey. From apps that help us pray or meditate, to cybernauts seeking the fast track to nirvana through magnetic brain stimulation, we are on the brink of the most transformative revolution in the practice of religion: an era in which we harness the power of “spirit tech” to deepen our experience of the divine. Spirit tech products are rapidly improving in sophistication and power, and ordinary people need a trustworthy guide. Through their own research and insiders’ access to the top innovators and early adopters, Wesley J. Wildman and Kate J. Stockly take you deep inside an evolving world: - Find out how increasingly popular “wearables” work on your brain, promising a shortcut to transformative meditative states. - Meet the inventor of the “God Helmet” who developed a tool to increase psychic skills, and overcome fear, sadness, and anger. - Visit churches that use ayahuasca as their sacrament and explore the booming industry of psychedelic tourism. - Journey to a mansion in the heart of Silicon Valley where a group of scientists and entrepreneurs are working feverishly to bring brain-based spirit tech applications to the masses. - Discover a research team who achieved brain-to-brain communication between individuals thousands of miles apart, harnessing neurofeedback techniques to sync and share emotions among group members. Spirit Tech offers readers a compelling glimpse into the future and is the definitive guide to the fascinating world of new innovations for personal transformation, spiritual growth, and pushing the boundaries of human nature.

Download or read book Rituals and Practices in World Religions written by David Bryce Yaden and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book codifies, describes, and contextualizes group rituals and individual practices from world religious traditions. At the interface of religious studies, psychology, and medicine, it elucidates the cultural richness of practices and rituals from numerous world religions. The book begins by discussing the role that religious rituals and practices may play in the well-being of humans and the multi-dimensional cultural and psychological complexity of religious rituals and practices. It then discusses rituals and practices within a number of religions, including Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, Sikh, Hindu, Confucian, and other traditions. There is a need for a more inclusive collection of religious rituals and practices, as some practices are making headlines in contemporary society. Mindfulness is one of the fastest-growing psychological interventions in healthcare and Yoga is now practiced by tens of millions of people in the U.S.A. These practices have been examined in thousands of academic publications spanning neuroscience, psychology, medicine, sociology, and religious studies. While Mindfulness and Yoga have recently received widespread scientific and cultural attention, many rituals and practices from world religious traditions have remained underexplored in scholarly, scientific, and clinical contexts. This book brings more diverse rituals and practices into this academic discourse while providing a reference guide for clinicians and students of the topic.

Download or read book Addictions Counseling Today written by Kevin G. Alderson and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 1315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) Counselling Book Award Enlightening and practical, Addictions Counseling Today invites students into the heart of addictive thinking, offering first-person accounts of what it is like to experience different addictions. The text covers the range of addictions from alcohol, drug abuse, and nicotine to various process addictions, including sex, internet, gaming, social media, and gambling. Also included are the various theories and models of addiction, with a unique chapter on the neuroscience of addiction. Focusing on the new DSM-V classifications for addiction with an emphasis on CACREP and treatment, this provocative, contemporary text is an essential reference for both students and practitioners wanting to gain a deeper understanding of those with addiction. Online Resources Free PowerPoint® slides with video for instructors are available with this text.

Download or read book Psychedelic Sociality Pharmacological and Extrapharmacological Perspectives written by Leor Roseman and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-08-25 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Immortality Key written by Brian C. Muraresku and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

Download or read book Spiritual Growth with Entheogens written by Thomas B. Roberts and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals entheogens as catalysts for spiritual development and direct encounters with the sacred • With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Frances Vaughan, and many others • Includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants • Explores protocols for ceremonial use of psychedelics and the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change Modern organized religion is based predominantly on secondary religious experience--we read about others’ extraordinary direct spiritual encounters in the distant past and have faith that God is out there. Yet what if powerful sacraments existed to help us directly experience the sacred? What if there were ways to seek out the meaning of being human and our place in the universe, to see the sacred in the world that surrounds us? In this book, more than 25 spiritual leaders, scientists, and psychedelic visionaries examine how we can return to the primary spiritual encounters at the basis of all religions through the guided use of entheogens. With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Frances Vaughan, Myron Stolaroff, and many others, this book explores protocols for ceremonial use of psychedelics, the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change, psychoactive sacraments in the Bible, myths surrounding the use of LSD, and the transformative ayahuasca rituals of Santo Daime. It also includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants. Dispelling fears of inauthentic spirituality, addiction, and ill-prepared encounters with the holy, this book reveals the potential of entheogens as catalysts for spiritual development, a path through which faith can directly encounter God’s power, and the beginning of a new religious era based on personal spiritual experience.

Download or read book Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can drugs be used intelligently and responsibly to expand human consciousness and heighten spirituality? This two-volume work presents objective scientific information and personal stories aiming to answer the question. The first of its kind, this intriguing two-volume set objectively reports on and assesses this modern psycho-social movement in world culture: the constructive medical use of entheogens and related mind-altering substances. Covering the use of substances such as ayahuasca, cannabis, LSD, peyote, and psilocybin, the work seeks to illuminate the topic in a scholarly and scientific fashion so as to lift the typical division between those who are supporters of research and exploration of entheogens and those who are strongly opposed to any such experimentation altogether. The volumes address the history and use of mind-altering drugs in medical research and religious practice in the endeavor to expand and heighten spirituality and the sense of the divine, providing unbiased coverage of the relevant arguments and controversies regarding the subject matter. Chapters include examinations of how psychoactive agents are used to achieve altered states in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism as well as in the rituals of shamanism and other less widely known faiths. This highly readable work will appeal to everyone from high school students to seasoned professors, in both the secular world and in devoted church groups and religious colleges.

Download or read book LSD My Problem Child written by Albert Hofmann and published by Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. This book was released on 2017-09-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of LSD told by a concerned yet hopeful father, organic chemist Albert Hofmann, Ph.D. He traces LSD's path from a promising psychiatric research medicine to a recreational drug sparking hysteria and prohibition. In LSD: My Problem Child, we follow Dr. Hofmann's trek across Mexico to discover sacred plants related to LSD, and listen in as he corresponds with other notable figures about his remarkable discovery. Underlying it all is Dr. Hofmann's powerful conclusion that mystical experiences may be our planet's best hope for survival. Whether induced by LSD, meditation, or arising spontaneously, such experiences help us to comprehend "the wonder, the mystery of the divine, in the microcosm of the atom, in the macrocosm of the spiral nebula, in the seeds of plants, in the body and soul of people." More than sixty years after the birth of Albert Hofmann's problem child, his vision of its true potential is more relevant, and more needed, than ever.

Download or read book Cannabis and the Soma Solution written by Chris Bennett and published by Trine Day. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking to identify the plant origins of the early sacramental beverages Soma and Haoma, this study draws a connection between the psychoactive properties of these drinks and the widespread use of cannabis among Indo-Europeans during this time. Exploring the role of these libations as inspiration for the Indian Rig Veda and the Persian Avestan texts, this examination discusses the spread of cannabis use across Europe and Asia, the origins of the Soma and Haoma cults, and the shamanic origins of modern religion.

Download or read book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind written by Julian Jaynes and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000-08-15 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Download or read book Passion of the Western Mind written by Richard Tarnas and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

Download or read book The Psychedelic Gospels written by Jerry B. Brown and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals evidence of visionary plants in Christianity and the life of Jesus found in medieval art and biblical scripture--hidden in plain sight for centuries • Follows the authors’ anthropological adventure discovering sacred mushroom images in European and Middle Eastern churches, including Roslyn Chapel and Chartres • Provides color photos showing how R. Gordon Wasson’s psychedelic theory of religion clearly extends to Christianity and reveals why Wasson suppressed this information due to his secret relationship with the Vatican • Examines the Bible and the Gnostic Gospels to show that visionary plants were the catalyst for Jesus’s awakening to his divinity and immortality Throughout medieval Christianity, religious works of art emerged to illustrate the teachings of the Bible for the largely illiterate population. What, then, is the significance of the psychoactive mushrooms hiding in plain sight in the artwork and icons of many European and Middle-Eastern churches? Does Christianity have a psychedelic history? Providing stunning visual evidence from their anthropological journey throughout Europe and the Middle East, including visits to Roslyn Chapel and Chartres Cathedral, authors Julie and Jerry Brown document the role of visionary plants in Christianity. They retrace the pioneering research of R. Gordon Wasson, the famous “sacred mushroom seeker,” on psychedelics in ancient Greece and India, and among the present-day reindeer herders of Siberia and the Mazatecs of Mexico. Challenging Wasson’s legacy, the authors reveal his secret relationship with the Vatican that led to Wasson’s refusal to pursue his hallucinogen theory into the hallowed halls of Christianity. Examining the Bible and the Gnostic Gospels, the authors provide scriptural support to show that sacred mushrooms were the inspiration for Jesus’ revelation of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he was initiated into these mystical practices in Egypt during the Missing Years. They contend that the Trees of Knowledge and of Immortality in Eden were sacred mushrooms. Uncovering the role played by visionary plants in the origins of Judeo-Christianity, the authors invite us to rethink what we know about the life of Jesus and to consider a controversial theory that challenges us to explore these sacred pathways to the divine.