Comprehensive, accurate, practical information about using
mind drugs. Includes history, uses, problems, and alternatives
for drugs in general, and specific chapters on stimulants,
depressants, psychedelics, marijuana, and other drugs (PCP,
ketamine, nightshades, etc.) Describes drugs in each class,
gives benefits, risks, suggestions, and precautions. Glossary
and index. Highly recommended.
Psychedelic plant poetry. Entheogens as personal allies.
Feeling comfortable with natural poisons. Practical tips on
psychotropic plants as house guests. Beautiful stuff. Volume I
includes: tobaccos, alcohols, absinthe, opium, kava, Salvia
divinorum, Cannabis, nitrous. Highly recommended.
First a personal story of altered states, encountering rude
entities within the mind-space (your mileage may vary). Then a
practical guide to the home cultivation and kitchen chemistry
of entheogens: morning glories, cactus, DMT for ayahuasca and
smoking, mushrooms, and others. Recommended, but has a few
technical errors.
Best practical, advanced book on taking psychedelics.
Introduction, then LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline cacti,
Ecstasy, 2C-B, DMT, Harmalas, Ketamine; some others. Unique,
pioneering discussion of drug combinations, good and bad.
Author's psychedelic reality, CydelikSpace. Many reports from
the frontier. Highly recommended.
Definitive handbook for growing all mushroom species, by
the master. Mushroom life cycle; sterile technique; agar,
grain, wood, and compost culture; casing and fruiting
technique; plus specifics on many species (including
Psilocybe's) and problem solving. Extensive and impressive.
Appendicies, bibliography, index. Recommended.
Focused directions for Stropharia (Psilocybe) cubensis
cultivation and use. Spores to agar, to grain, casing, and
fruiting. Preface (and blessing) by Terence McKenna, text by
Dennis McKenna and Jeremy Bigwood. Best introduction to the
process. Nice illustrations. Recommended.
Most comprehensive field guide ever for mushrooms with
psilocybin! Covers nearly 100 species, both dung and wood
growers,and shows similar species to avoid. Great color
photos! Also useful to mycologists, scholars, and physicians.
Recommended.
Continues where Mushroom Cultivator left off. Mushroom
natural history, culturing methods, permaculture, grain and
sawdust spawn, gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, design of grow
rooms and farms, color plates, resource directory,
bibliography, index. Details about visionary wood-chip
species, such as P. cyanescens and azurescens.
Good, short book adds some material to ones above.
Step-by-step guides to making media and culturing. Field notes
on North American Psilocybe species. Illustrated.
History of LSD. CIA and MK-ULTRA; Leary, Alpert, and
Metzner at Harvard and Millbrook (but see Millbrook, below);
Kesey and Merry Pranksters; Haight-Ashbury, Diggers, and
Summer of Love; Beatles and Lucy in the Sky; counterculture
and peace group relations to psychedelics. More coverage about
politics and movements than Storming Heaven. Great notes,
bibliography, and index.
Great report on LSD use today from researchers. Says it's
mostly used by upper-class college and late high school youth
to escape boredom and challenge themselves, and causes few
long-term problems. Good introduction to effects of LSD, and
its distribution. Excellent chapter on the relatively rare
adverse effects, and one on legal status. Well researched and
referenced.
Written for the psychotherapist who may be interested in
the clinical use of LSD. Includes history, basic effects, the
psycholytic and psychedelic therapies, adverse effects and
contraindications, the course of therapy, indications for use,
therapeutic mechanisms, and other uses such as training and
self-actualization. Many case studies. Good section on helping
users with "bad trips" or other problems.
Recommended.
Recent book postulates several synthesis routes to LSD in
detail, including plant sources for lysergic amides and making
watched precursors. Also covers production of TMA-2 from
calamus root, other notes on making phenethylamines from
essential oils, and legal notes. (Not tested, also does not
teach advanced organic chemistry techniques needed to do any
of this.)
Excellent latest fully updated book on MDMA; what it does,
ways to use it, how therapists use it, possible dangers,
suggestions for new users. Good book for practical advice; not
just the basics, but how people use it to improve
relationships, for personal growth, for trance dancing, and
more. Every section provides deep, detailed, yet clear
coverage of some complex areas, from neurotoxcity to shamanic
dances to effects with other materials. Nice color photos.
Extensive, annotated bibliography by Shulgin. Internet sites.
Index. Sales support MAPS. Highly recommended.
Reviews the scientific literature on Ayahuasca in depth,
discusses its human pharmacology, and describes its use of
various plants containing beta-carbolines and tryptamines.
Certain Amazonian species are traditional, but others will
work. Ott reports on potions using many temperate-zone
species. Well researched and presented.
Stunning art book, with 49 color plates by Pablo Amaringo,
painter and vegetalista (plant shaman). Each is incredibly
detailed, and the text explains many spirit, plant, animal,
and other images. Also details numerous aspects of these
healers, their plant allies and culture. Quite breathtaking.
Extensive, excellent, many faceted study of Huichol Indian
development, culture, art, spirit, mythology, and other
topics. These eighteen papers from around the world, both
scholarly and sensitive, include material from decades of
anthropology and directly from Huichols. Schaefer relates the
meaning of peyote to Huichols, and describes their temple and
its solar geometry. Also Huichol medicine, minority use of a
Solanaceae plant, deer-maize-peyote trinity, wolf power, land
of the dead, and current political and ecological challenges.
Glossary, bibliography, index. Recommended.
Best introduction to the Peyote plant itself. Use in Mexico
by the Huichol; use in the United States; Native American
Peyote rituals (including Navajo variations); the Peyote
user's experience; some medical uses; pharmacology (with doses
and toxicity); chemistry of mescaline and other alkaloids
(with structures of 57); botany (with cultivation); legal
status; good bibliography and index. Recommended.
Very good on ethnobotany (cultural use) of Peyote.
Scholarly history of ritual and other uses by many peoples;
Huichol, Tarahumari, Apache, and Kiowa-Comanche. Interesting
appendices: Peyote and the Mescal Bean, Christian Elements in
the Peyote Cult, others. Also Peyote botany and chemistry, and
summarizes many other studies.
Great history of Native American Church. Background on
Peyote and use in 19th century. Start and spread of Peyotism,
1885 to 1918. Later 20th century developments. Appendices
describe variations in ritual in great detail, and one
church's canon. Large bibliography. Very readable.
Recent book postulates several synthesis routes to LSD in
detail, including plant sources for lysergic amides and making
watched precursors. Also covers production of TMA-2 from
calamus root, other notes on making phenethylamines from
essential oils, and legal notes.
Some general organic lab techniques, various copied
synthesis routes for making hallucinogens and other drugs,
buying and making precursors, lab setup, resources. Legal
notes are out of date. Interesting; not as easy or as simple
as it sounds here.
