Shamanism and Paganism

Banned after promising research in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, the use of psychedelics as therapeutic catalysts is now being rediscovered at prestigious medical schools, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU and UCLA.

In the Amazon, shamans do not talk in terms of hallucinogens but of tools for communicating with other life-forms. Ayahuasca, for example, is first and foremost a means of breaking down the barrier that separates humans from other species, allowing us to communicate with them.

Thousands of years ago the immortals, known as the Shining Ones, shipwrecked on the Chinese coast. Passing their shamanic practices - such as ecstatic flight and how to find power animals and spirit guides - on to the indigenous people, they, also, taught them the wisdom of the Medicine Wheel.

Toward the end of his fifties, Christopher Gray took, for the first time in years, a 100-microgram acid trip. So extraordinary, and to his surprise so enjoyable, were the effects that he began to take the same dose in the same way - quietly and on his own - once every two to three weeks.

· Explores the shamanic use of healing songs, psychoactive plants and vision quests at the heart of the Odyssey and the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien · Examines odysseus's encounters with plant divinities, altered consciousness, animal shapeshifting and sacred topography - all concepts vital to shamanism · Reveals how the Odyssey emerged precisely at the rupture ...