The Consciousness Research of Stanislav Grof : A Cosmic Portal Beyond Individuality Richard Yensen & Donna Dryer 1998 I. Introduction Stanislav Grof began his research in Prague, Czechoslovakia, as a psychiatric resident, in the late 1950’s. His initial observations seemed to confirm and offer a laboratory proof for many of the basic tenets of Freudian psychoanalytic thought. At that time his conclusion was politically unsettling because psychoanalysis was repressed in the iron curtain countries. Forty years later the outcome of Grof’s continued research is a theoretical framework for understanding human consciousness. His theory has evolved into a wide-ranging description of the relationship between the individual [...]
Lire la suiteThe Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences: Hypotheses from Evolutionary Psychology Michael J. Winkelman Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2017, 11, article 539, 1-17. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00539 Neuropharmacological effects of psychedelics have profound cognitive, emotional, and social effects that inspired the development of cultures and religions worldwide. Findings that psychedelics objectively and reliably produce mystical experiences press the question of the neuropharmacological mechanisms by which these highly significant experiences are produced by exogenous neurotransmitter analogs. Humans have a long evolutionary relationship with psychedelics, a consequence of psychedelics’ selective effects for human cognitive abilities, exemplified in the information rich visionary experiences. Objective evidence that psychedelics produce classicmystical experiences, coupled [...]
Lire la suiteChemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America Melanie J. Miller, Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Christine Moore, and José M. Capriles PNAS June 4, 2019, 116 (23) 11207-11212; first published May 6, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902174116 Significance Humans have a long history of using natural resources, especially plants, to induce nonordinary states of consciousness. Imbibing substances derived from plants have been linked to ancient and elaborate knowledge systems and rituals. While archaeological evidence of the consumption of psychotropics, such as alcohol or caffeine, dates back thousands of years, evidence of the use of other psychoactive substances has been more [...]
Lire la suiteThe origins of cannabis smoking : Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs Meng Ren, Zihua Tang, Xinhua Wu, Robert Spengler, Hongen Jiang, Yimin Yang, Nicole Boivin Science Advances, 2019, 5 : eaaw1391 (12 June 2019) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw1391 Cannabis is one of the oldest cultivated plants in East Asia, grown for grain and fiber as well as for recreational, medical, and ritual purposes. It is one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today, but little is known about its early psychoactive use or when plants under cultivation evolved the phenotypical trait of increased specialized compound production. [...]
Lire la suitePhytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia Ethan B. Russo, Hong-En Jiang, Xiao Li, Alan Sutton, Andrea Carboni, Francesca del Bianco, Giuseppe Mandolino, David J. Potter, You-Xing Zhao, Subir Bera, Yong-Bing Zhang, En Guo Lu, David K. Ferguson, Francis Hueber, Liang-Cheng Zhao, Chang-Jiang Liu, Yu-Fei Wang and Cheng-Sen Li Journal of Experimental Botany, 2008, Vol. 59, No. 15, pp. 4171–4182, doi:10.1093/jxb/ern260 Abstract The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. A multidisciplinary international [...]
Lire la suiteA Sensory Ecology of Medicinal Plant Therapy in Two Amazonian Societies GLENN H. SHEPARD JR. American Anthropologist, 2004, Vol. 106, Issue 2, pp. 252–266, ISSN 0002-7294 ABSTRACT Sensory anthropology has explored sensation as a fruitful but poorly examined domain of cross-cultural research. Curiously, sensory anthropologists have mostly ignored scientific research into sensation, even that which addresses cross-cultural variation. A comparative study in two Amazonian societies (Matsigenka, Yora [Nahua]) documented the role of the senses in medicinal plant therapy and benefited greatly from theoretical insights gleaned from sensory science. The study reveals a complex interweaving of cultural and ecological factors in medicinal plant selection, with sensation [...]
Lire la suiteApproche anthropologique de la dissociation et de ses dispositifs inducteurs Georges Lapassade DESS Ethnométhodologie et Informatique année universitaire 2004-2005 Résumé du séminaire de Georges Lapassade sur l’anthropologie de la dissociation 40 pp L'anthropologie religieuse, puis l'anthropologie psychologique1 ont contribué fortement au processus historique par lequel la notion de la dissociation, initialement issue de la psychopathologie, a fini par désigner un mécanisme psychobiologique normal et universel (Ludwig 1983). Pour contribuer à cette anthropologie la dissociation, je commencerai par l'étude de certaines pratiques chamaniques examinées du point de vue de la théorie de la conscience dissociée. J'examinerai ensuite la position qui consiste à rejeter cette analyse au motif [...]
Lire la suiteL'éclosion d'une nouvelle discipline scientifique: l'enthéobotanique Vincent WATTIAUX http://liberterre.fr/entheogenes/recherches-modernes/vincentwattiaux.html « Dieu est une substance, une drogue ! » Gottfried BENN En 1967 quand le paléontologue Yves Coppens et son équipe découvrirent en Ethiopie le squelette d’une Australopithèque, ils la baptisèrent Lucie à cause d’une chanson des Beatles diffusée sans cesse à la radio. Cette rengaine, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds faisait directement allusion au LSD, la drogue hallucinogène la plus puissante jamais inventée (1). L’association, Lucie et le LSD, née du hasard ou d’un retour du refoulé collectif (?), aurait valeur d’oracle… En effet, une discipline scientifique flambant neuve, l’enthéobotanique (2) allait poser [...]
Lire la suiteDream over life : Psychedelic terphenyl derivative induce hallucination via cannabinoid receptor 1 F.A. Fauzi, M.S. Goh, S.A.T.T. Johari, F. Hashim, M.F.N. Hassim The International Fundamentum Sciences Symposium 2018 IOP Publishing IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 440 (2018) 012045 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/440/1/012045 Abstract. For ages, natural psychedelic resources have been used by ancient tribes for religious inspiration. In modern medicine, these compounds were prescribed to relieve severe distress and depression on cancer patients. Despite medical benefit, abuse of these compounds have become prevalent in our modern society. These compounds usually interacted withcannabinoid receptor 1 (CNR1) on neuron cell causing hallucination, and on other cell-types. In this [...]
Lire la suiteDeconstructing Ecstasy : The Politics Of MDMA Research Charles S. Grob Addiction Research, 2000, 8, 6, 549-588 http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/16066350008998989 What is Ecstasy? Defined by the New Webster’s Dictionary as a state of intense overpowering emotion, a condition of exultation or mental rapture induced by beauty, music, artistic creation or the contemplation of the divine, ecstasy derives etymologically from the ancient Greek ekstasis, which means flight of the soul from the body. The anthropologist, Mircea Eliade, who explored the roots of religious experience in his book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, has described the function of this intense state of mind among aboriginal peoples. Select individuals [...]
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