Cactus of Mystery
Page 37
13. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2000).
14. Ibid.
15. Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle: La Mescaline (Schoenhofs Foreign Books, 1991).
16. Furst, Flesh of the Gods.
17. See Rainer W. Bussmann and Douglas Sharon, Plantas de los Cuatrovientos (Plants of the Four Winds: The Magic and Medicinal Flora of Peru) (Peru, 2007).
18. Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
19. Daniel Pinchbeck, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway, 2003).
20. In his summary of the literature as part of a research proposal he shared with me for his study of the psychic potentials of San Pedro. Personal communication.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. In Bonnie Glass-Coffin, Gift of Life. “Subconscience” does not exist as a word of course but it is appropriate to the spirit of this quotation. It implies a combination of “subconscious,” that God is within us and part of our deeper selves, and “sub-conscience”; that is, that our sense of God exists at a fundamental level beneath human conscience, as a sort of moral barometer or innate guide to right and wrong to which good and bad health may also be connected.
Chapter 1
1. Ross Heaven, The Journey to You (New York: Bantam, 2001), for more on the archaic nature of shamanism and the artifacts and cave art that prove its long-standing historical roots.
2. Ibid., for a full discussion of the holographic universe concept and how it relates to shamanism.
3. John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, annotated edition (New York: State University of New York Press, 2008).
4. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
5. For an interesting independent documentary on curanderismo in northwest Peru, which features Julia Calderon, visit http://mesaworks.com/resources/youtubevideos.html (Munay Productions). Current as of July 21, 2011.
6. Robert T. Trotter and Juan Antonio Chavira, Curanderismo: Mexican American Folk Healing (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1997).
7. Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, “Varieties of Amazonian Shamanism. Shamans and Shamanisms: On the Threshold of the Next Millennium,” Diogenes (Summer 1992, no. 158).
8. Elena Avila, Woman Who Glows in the Dark: A Curandera Reveals Traditional Aztec Secrets of Physical and Spiritual Health (New York: Tarcher, 2000).
9. Eduardo Calderon, Richard Cowan, Douglas Sharon, and F. Kaye Sharon, Eduardo El Curandero: The Words of a Peruvian Healer (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1982).
10. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).
Chapter 2
1. There is more information on the mesa and its layout in my book, Ross Heaven, The Hummingbird’s Journey to God: Perspectives on San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision (New York: O Books, 2009).
2. There is more information on pusanga and an interview with an Amazonian perfumero in the book by Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism: Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2006).
3. For those interested in seeing one of these “obviously powerful” mesas there is a photograph of Navarro standing before his altar with one of his swords held aloft in front of him in Heaven and Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism.
4. Ibid.
5. (Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munay-ki. March 11, 2010). I did write to Dr. Villoldo’s office for a comment on the munay ki after reading Orellana’s observations of them. At the time of going to press no reply has been received.
Chapter 5
1. Graham Hancock, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (New York: Arrow Books, 2006).
2. Steven Rubenstein, Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
3. For more on this plant see Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2006).
4. Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Ratsch, Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers (Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1996).
5. Available at www.takiwasi.com/docs/ard_ing/about_the_ikaro_or_shamanic_song.pdf, accessed June 27, 2012.
6. Available at http://csp.org/nicholas/A16.html, accessed June 27, 2011.
7. Bonnie Glass-Coffin, “Shamanism and San Pedro through Time: Some Notes on the Archeology, History, and Continued Use of an Entheogen in Northern Peru,” Anthropology of Consciousness, vol. 21, issue 1, Spring 2010, 58–82.
8. Susana Bustos, “The Healing Power of the Curanderos’ Songs or ‘Icaros.’ A Phenomenological Study” (Ph.D. diss., Spring 2004).
Chapter 8
1. Ross Heaven, The Hummingbird’s Journey to God: Perspectives on San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision (Brooklyn: O Books, 2009).
2. Benny Shanon, The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule; A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2000).
Chapter 9
1. For more information on dietas and other plants that may be part of them see Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing,Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2006).
Chapter 12
1. Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2006), 92.
2. Jeremy Narby, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998), 104.
3. Matthew Magee, Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakúti Mesa (Kearney, Neb.: Morris Publishing, 2005), 39.
4. Terence McKenna, The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 37.
5. Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 52.
6. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Princeton University Press, 1973), 99.
7. Terence McKenna, True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 69.
8. Gibran, Prophet, 92.
9. Ibid., 11.
10. Ibid., 55.
11. Magee, Peruvian Shamanism, 18.
12. Gibran, Prophet, 82.
Chapter 13
1. Available in full at www.maps.org/media/strassman-spring03.html. Accessed June 27, 2012.
2. Stanley Krippner, “Mescaline, Psilocybin, and Creative Artists,” available at www.psychedelic-library.org/artist.htm. Accessed June 27, 2012. The article is an excerpt from “The Psychedelic State, The Hypnotic Trance, and the Creative Act,” a paper published in Altered States of Consciousness, edited by Charles T. Tart (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1962).
3. See www.isaacabrams.com/altindex.html for details of the artist and examples of his work. Accessed June 27 2012.
4. Strassman Rick, DMT: The Spirit Molecule; A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Rochester: Vt.: Park Street Press, 2000).
Chapter 14
1. Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2006).
2. Douglas G. Sharon, Wizard of the Four Winds: A Shaman’s Story (New York: The Free Press, 1978).
3. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Willard R. Trask, trans. (P
rinceton, N.J.: Bollingen Foundation, 1974).
4. Grant Eckert, www.self-help-healing-arts-journal.com/art-benefits-brain.html. Accessed July 19, 2011.
5. Ibid.
6. Ross Heaven, The Hummingbird’s Journey to God: Perspectives on San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision (Brooklyn: O Books, 2009).
7. Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell (London: HarperCollins, 1977).
8. Sangeetha Nayak, Barbara L. Wheeler, Samuel C. Shiflett, and Sandra Agostinelli, “Effect of Music Therapy on Mood and Social Interaction among Individuals with Acute Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke,” Rehabilitation Psychology 45 (3), August 2000, 274–83.
9. Suzanne B. Hanser and Larry W. Thompson, “Effects of a Music Therapy Strategy on Depressed Older Adults,” Journal of Gerontology 49 (6), November 1994, 265–69.
10. Barbara L. Wheeler, Samuel C. Shiflett, and Sangeetha Nayak, “Effects of a Number of Sessions and Group or Individual Music Therapy on the Mood and Behavior of People Who Have Had Strokes or Traumatic Brain Injuries” Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 12 (2), 2003, 139–51.
11. Soo Ji Kim and Ilojoo Koh, “The Effects of Music on Pain Perception of Stroke Patients during Upper Extremity Joint Exercises,” Journal of Music Therapy 42 (1) 2005, 81–92.
12. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD006577/frame.html. Current as of July 20, 2011.
13. John Hughes, Yaman Daaboul, John J. Fino, and Gordon L. Shaw, “The Mozart Effect on Epileptiform Activity,” Clinical Electroencephalography 29 (3), 1998, 109–19.
Chapter 17
1. In Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1970).
2. See Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2006).
3. Eduardo Calderon, Richard Cowan, Douglas Sharon, and Kaye F. Sharon, Eduardo El Curandero: The Words of a Peruvian Healer (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1982).
4. For more on Arevelo see Heaven and Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism.
5. For more on the Doctrine of Signatures see Heaven and Charing, Plant Spirit Shamanism.
6. For evidence of this see the research summarized in Ross Heaven, The Journey to You: A Shaman’s Path to Empowerment (New York: Bantam, 2001), and Ross Heaven, Spirit in the City: The Search for the Sacred in Everyday Life (Bantam, 2003).
Conclusions
1. www.thefreedictionary.com/grace. Accessed June 27, 2012.
2. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008).
3. www.newadvent.org/cathen/06689x.htm. Accessed June 27, 2012.
4. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule; A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2000).
5. Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
6. www.newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm. Accessed June 27, 2012.
About the Author
Ross Heaven, the author of several books on shamanism and healing, runs workshops on these themes in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Peru, including plant medicine retreats with San Pedro, ayahuasca, and other plant teachers and healers, and journeys to Peru to work with indigenous ayahuasca and San Pedro shamans.
He has a website at www.thefourgates.org, where you can read more about these as well as forthcoming books and other items of interest. He also provides a monthly newsletter update by e-mail, which you can receive free of charge via e-mail at ross@thefourgates.org.
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Founded in 1975, Inner Traditions is a leading publisher of books on indigenous cultures, perennial philosophy, visionary art, spiritual traditions of the East and West, sexuality, holistic health and healing, self-development, as well as recordings of ethnic music and accompaniments for meditation.
In July 2000, Bear & Company joined with Inner Traditions and moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where it was founded in 1980, to Rochester, Vermont. Together Inner Traditions • Bear & Company have eleven imprints: Inner Traditions, Bear & Company, Healing Arts Press, Destiny Books, Park Street Press, Bindu Books, Bear Cub Books, Destiny Recordings, Destiny Audio Editions, Inner Traditions en Español, and Inner Traditions India.
For more information or to browse through our more than one thousand titles in print, visit www.InnerTraditions.com.
BOOKS OF RELATED INTEREST
Plant Spirit Shamanism
Traditional Techniques for Heing the Soul
by Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing
Shamanic Quest for the Spirit of Salvia
The Divinatory, Visionary, and Healing Powers of the Sage of the Seers
by Ross Heaven
Plants of the Gods
Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers
by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Rätsch
The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants
Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications
by Christian Rätsch
DMT: The Spirit Molecule
A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
by Rick Strassman, M.D.
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide
Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys
by James Fadiman, Ph.D.
The Secret Teachings of Plants
The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature
by Stephen Harrod Buhner
The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol
Medicine Teachings for Modern Times
by Tom Soloway Pinkson, Ph.D.
INNER TRADITIONS • BEAR & COMPANY
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Copyright © 2013 by Ross Heaven
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Note to the Reader: The information provided in this book is for educational, historical, and cultural interest only and should not be construed as advocacy for the use of San Pedro and other hallucinogens. Neither the author nor the publisher assume any responsibility for physical, psychological, legal, or other consequences arising from these substances.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heaven, Ross.
Cactus of mystery : the shamanic powers of the Peruvian San Pedro cactus / Ross Heaven ; with contributions by Eve Bruce, David Luke, Morgan Maher, and others.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
print ISBN: 978-1-59477-491-1
ebook ISBN: 978-1-59477-513-0
1. Shamanism—Peru. 2. Hallucinogenic plants—Peru. 3. Cactus—Religious aspects—Peru. 4. Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience—Peru. I. Bruce, Eve, 1954–II. Luke, David (David P.) III. Maher, Morgan. IV. Title.
BF1623.P5H425 2013
204'.2—dc23
2012022320
All photographs by Ross Heaven unless otherwise noted
To send correspondence to the author of this book, mail a first-class letter to the author c/o Inner Traditions • Bear & Company, One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767, and we will forward the communication or visit the author’s website at www.thefourgates.org.
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Ross Heaven, Cactus of Mystery