Hallucinogenic Plants – A Golden Guide by Richard Evans Schultes

Hallucinogenic Plants was a part of a serie of books and field guides published in the seventies under the name Golden Guides. Hallucinogenic plants were written by Richard Evans Schultes – a founder of modern ethnobotany. The book is a good intro to psychedelics that has been much further explored since it was published, but I have chosen to post it here because of it’s usability, rich illustrations (by Elmer W. Smith) and the fact that Richard Evans Schultes wrote it.

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Psychedelic Shamanism – The Cultivation, Preparation and Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants by Jim DeKorne

Psychedelic Shamanism  The Cultivation, Preparation and Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants 1994 by Jim DeKorne (Full Edition). From the foreword:

“Shamanism goes far beyond a primarily self-concerned transcendence of ordinary reality. It is transcendence for a broader purpose, the helping of humankind. The enlightenment of shamanism is the ability to light up what others perceive as darkness, and thereby to see and to journey on behalf of a humanity that is perilously close to losing its spiritual connectedness with all its relatives, the plants and animals of this good Earth.  We are tearing the earth to pieces, we are spewing out toxins – and the entire planet is reacting. Psychedelics are going to play a major role in helping people to become aware of what is really happening.”

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Techniques of Modern Shamanism Vol 1-3 by Phil Hine

Techniques of Modern Shamanism is a collection of practical exercises, the aim of which is to enhance awareness of the world around us. The first part of this ebook deals with basic sensory exercises, while the second half deals with trance states, and some of the basic group dynamics involved in helping other people into them. These works requires that we learn to extend our perceptions from the ordinary, to see the extra-ordinary which lies within it. Many of the techniques require group exploration, since it is impossible to grow in total isolation from others. The books covers a range of subjects from the shaman’s tools to discussions of concepts such as ‘Urban Shamanism’.

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Psychedelic Information Theory – Shamanism in the age of Reason by James L. Kent

Psychedelic Information Theory (PIT) is the study of nonlinear information creation in the human imagination, particularly in states of dreaming, psychosis, and hallucination. PIT seeks to model the functional output of human perception in order to extrapolate the limits and complexity of information arising in human altered states of consciousness.

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The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is a key work in the never psychedelic non-fiction genre. It has inspired millions of readers and the book gave name to the band The Doors. From the book:

“I took my pill at eleven. An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers-a full-blown Belie of Portugal rose, shell pink with a hint at every petal’s base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-colored carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris. Fortuitous and provisional, the little nosegay broke all the rules of traditional good taste. At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colors. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation-the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.”

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Psychedelic Prayers after the Tao Te Ching by Timothy Leary

Psychedelic Prayers after the Tao Te Ching by Timothy Leary is a collection of prayers meant for protection and guidance during psychedelic experiences like LSD-sessions.

“…But that crucial non−game terror−reverence aweful moment comes…There comes a time when the ecstatic cry is called for. At that time, you must be ready to pray. To go beyond yourself. To contact energy beyond your game. At that time you must be ready to pray. When you have lost the need to pray…. Your are a dead man in a world of dead symbols. Pray for life. Pray for life.”

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The Psychedelic Experience

The Psychedelic Experience - A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead By Timothy Leary is a manual for navigating psychedelic experiences based on ancient Tibetan instructions as found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This book was among the first and most substantial Timothy Leary published after his engagement in a program of experiments with LSD and other psychedelic drugs at Harvard University. Sensational national publicity, unfairly concentrating on student interest in the drugs, led to the suspension of the experiments.

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The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation

The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation or, the Method of Realizing Nirvana Through Knowing the Mind is the last of four books in the The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation PDF EbookTibetan series, where The Tibetan Book of the Dead, is the first book of the series which describes Buddhist philosophy, psychology and metaphysics. The second book in the series is called Tibets Greatest Yogi Milarepa and is the story of a great yogi who puts into practice most of what we learn from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is through the story of Milarepa that we learn more about The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In the story of Milarepa the yogi studies the Seven Books of Wisdom of the Great Path as taught to him by his gurus. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, the third book in the series, is an expansion that explains those wisdoms and describes the yoga that is used to achieve them. The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation is a three act book which ties together everything learned from the other three books. Essentially the start of the book develops a clearer understanding of the metaphysics associated with the first three books in the form of a general introduction. The book then lays out the premise for a type of yoga practice called the Supreme Path or Mahayana, that was created to serve as an instant enlightenment yoga. The middle section of the book is devoted to the guru Padma-Sambhava who brought this yoga to Buddhists in the eighth century. The latter part of the book expounds on that yoga in a full translation.

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The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead – or the Bardo Thodol is the English translation of the famous Tibetan death text, The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State. Bardo Thodol means “liberation by hearing on the after death plane”, it was originally written in the Tibetan and is meant to be a guide for those who have died as they transition from their former life to a new destination. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has been traditionally attributed to Padma-Sambhava, an Indian mystic who was said to have introduced Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century.

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