23 leading experts reveal the ways that psychoactive plants allow nature's 'voice' to speak to humans and what this communication means for our future--Provided by publisher. ENTHEOGENS / SHAMANISM Humans have long considered psychoactive plants as teachers. This book seeks to inform Westerners about these powerful plants and about the shamans who know how to use them. Their words are clear and simple and often based on personal experience. The result is an accessible book packed with knowledge. --Jeremy Narby, author of The Cosmic Serpent Visionary plants have long served indigenous peoples and their shamans as enhancers of perception, thinking, and healing. These plants can also be important guides to the reality of the natural world and how we can live harmoniously in it. In Visionary Plant Consciousness, editor J. P. Harpignies has gathered presentations from the Bioneers annual conference of environmental and social visionaries that explore how plant consciousness affects the human condition. Twenty-three leading ethnobotanists, anthropologists, medical researchers, and cultural and religious figures such as Terence McKenna, Andrew Weil, Wade Davis, Michael Pollan, Alex Grey, Jeremy Narby, Katsi Cook, John Mohawk, and Kat Harrison, among others, present their understandings of the nature of psychoactive plants and their significant connection to humans. What they reveal is that these plants may help us access the profound intelligence in nature--the mind of nature--that we must learn to understand in order to survive our ecologically destructive way of life. J. P. HARPIGNIES is associate producer of the national Bioneers conference (www.bioneers.org) and coproducer and founder of the Eco-Metropolis conference (www.ecometropolis.org) in New York City. He is the author of Political Ecosystems and Double Helix Hubris and the associate editor of Ecological Medicine and Nature's Operating Instructions. Foreword ix Jeremy Narby Preface xi Kenny Ausubel Introduction 1(11) J. P. Harpignies Part One THE WESTERN MIND'S ENCOUNTER WITH INDIGENOUS WORLDVIEWS AND VISIONARY PLANTS A Young Anthropologist Finds Far More than He Bargained for in the Peruvian Amazon 12(12) Jeremy Narby Shamans Through Time: Tricksters, Healers, Voodoo Priests, and Anthropologists 24(15) Jeremy Narby Francis Huxley John Mohawk Culture, Anthropology, and Sacred Plants 39(17) Wade Davis Part Two PSYCHEDELICS, SCIENCE, AND WAYS OF KNOWING Psychedelic Empowerment and the Environmental Crisis: Re-awakening Our Connection to the Gaian Mind 56(7) Terence McKenna Plant Messengers: Science, Culture, and Visionary Plants 63(12) Dennis McKenna Terence McKenna Wade Davis The World Spirit Awaits Its Portrait: True Tales from One of the Planet's Great Visionary Artists 75(13) Alex Grey Part Three SACRED PLANTS AND HUMAN CULTURES The Garden and the Wild---Plants and Humans: Who's Domesticating Whom? 88(11) Michael Pollan Wade Davis Women, Plants, and Culture 99(6) Kathleen Harrison Visionary Plants Across Cultures 105(16) Edison Saraiva Kathleen Harrison Dennis McKenna Charles Grob Andrew Weil Marcellus Bear Heart Williams Florencio Siquera de Carvalho An Ethnobotanist and a Mycologist Discuss the Rewards and Risks of Sacramental Plant Use in a Modern Context 121(12) Kathleen Harrison Paul Stamets Plant Spirit 133(13) Kathleen Harrison Jane Straight Dale Pendell Paul Stamets A North American Indigenous Look at Sacred Plant Use 146(14) Katsi Cook Part Four BRAZIL'S MODERN, ENTHEOGEN-BASED RELIGIONS The New, Syncretic, Ayahuasca-based Religions 160(10) Luis Eduardo Luna The Extraordinary Case of the United States Versus the Uniao do Vegetal Church 170(18) Jeffrey Bronfman Epilogue: The Madness of the War on Drugs---A Tragically Flawed Policy's Ecological & Social Harms 188(13) Michael Stewartt Ethan Nadelmann Contributors 201