ANTH 100A Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Sierra Madre Occidental, Richard Evans Schultes, Psilocin
Document Summary
On earth, there are some 400,000 species of plants feeding on the light of the sun. Of these, only a few thousand yield food and medicines, and only a mere hundred or so yield compounds that transport the mind to distant realms of ethereal wonder. These psychoactive plants have sometimes been called hallucinogens, a misnomer, for these plants do not induce true hallucinations. The term psychedelic, meaning mind manifesting", is also imprecise. Perhaps the best term is entheogen, derived from the greek entheos, which means the. Indeed the subjective effects and sensations of taking these plants are so unearthly, the visions so startling, that most acquired a sacred place in indigenous cultures. In rare cases they were worshipped as gods incarnate. The rig veda, for example, makes reference to a magical intoxicant, soma, the use of which dates back at least 4000 years. There is some evidence that this sacrament may have been.
