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Chronicles the first modern ethnomycological and historically
documented look at certain species of fungi and their past and
present use as a source of healing, both body and mind as in
ancient primitive archaic rituals; and also as an aphrodisiac.
Modern day use of these fungi originating from seven personal
documented exchanges of communication between author John Allen and
Sasha Shulgin, and Jochen Gartz that describe--in detail and
photographs--the effects of both the ludible use of psilocybian
fungi throughout the ages to produce intense sexual euphoric
unions. Other families of fungi that produce similar effects but
contain different chemicals can result in timeless hours of pure
orgasmic pleasure. The aphrodisiac effects of mushrooms were first
reported around the time of the conquest of Nueva Espana. Francisco
Flores, Diego Duran and Bernardo de Sahagun described mushrooms
used by Aztecs priests and their followers to produce "provoked
lust". In the mid-20th Century several noted scholars, like R.
Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Weston LaBarre, Maria Sabina,
Florence Cowan, Eunice Pike, Tim Leary, Richard Alpert and Aldous
Huxley reported experiencing erotic euphoric effects and observing
erotic sensuality in others while they were under the influence
psilocybine. Many claimed they had found the perfect sexual
aphrodisiac. In some of these modern anecdotal materials we have
been taught that the majority of Mazatec Indian shamans,
curanderas, brujos, sabios/sabias, and their Indian participants of
mushroom vigils and Velada's, all refrain from sexual activity 4
days before and 4 days after a mushroom ceremony. To do so, as many
of the medicine men and woman all seem to agree on, is that it,
"would bring about a lasting madness." Yet some Indians have been
reported to regularly participate in sexual activities while on
mushrooms as well as on peyote. In the Florentine Codex, Sahagun, a
devout catholic, said that the mushrooms "aun provocan a lujuria,"
i.e., that they "even provoke lust." Wasson believed that Sahagun
may have been responsible for adding these words, and wondered why
they were inserted. He inquired if they were meant to either excite
the sixteenth century readers seeking always the Fountain of Youth
and new aphrodisiacs, or to incite his pious readers against the
mushrooms? Allen shares with the reader, a chronicle embellished
from notes in his personal files and memories of his experiences
with sacred mushrooms and sexual erotica. He features
pre---historical evidence of such sexual activities between humans,
animals, sex and mushrooms, and phallic symbolism, rites of spring
and fertility festivals.
Filled with beautiful color photographs, "Divine Mushrooms and
Fungi" is a must-have for anyone who wants to step into the magic
mushroom field of ethnomycology. With detailed information on how
to distinguish magic mushrooms from potentially dangerous
lookalikes, this guide also features a detailed history of the
ritual use of magic mushrooms among pre-Columbian inhabitants of
the New World and the evolution of the use of psychedelic fungi
from sacred rituals to today's recreational use. Common epithets
used for naming mushrooms around the world are accompanied by
photographs and descriptions of both magic mushrooms and their
poisonous lookalikes. An ideal companion for mushroom-gathering
forays, "Divine Mushrooms and Fungi" provides readers with the
sacred knowledge that can lead to a visionary experience.
Evocative poems from an aesthetic and intellectual sensibility that
is constantly in a state of perpetual movement.
A haunting, post-structuralist view of romance and the existential
"Dasein."
This study investigates the US Army after the end of the Cold War,
specifically how the "Victory Disease" resulting from winning the
Cold War caused complacency in the US Army which eventually led to
the development of a flawed operational concept. This operational
concept and its effects on the US Army are examined with respect to
recent developments in US Army doctrine, weapons procurement, and
force structure. The US Army is compared to the Israeli Army
between 1967 and 1973 to draw very interesting and close parallels
concerning how the victory disease affected the Israeli Army after
its victory over the Arab allies in 1967 and how complacency in the
post-1967 Israeli Army also led to a flawed operational concept,
which, in turn, resulted in vulnerabilities that Israel's enemies
were able to capitalize on at the onset of the 1973 Arab-Israeli
War. This study explains how fundamental shifts in how armies
prepare for future conflicts can cause vulnerabilities that an
enemy can exploit.
In this tightly argued work, Dr. Wallen draws out the similarities
and connections which exist between T.S. Eliot and several writers
of the nineteen-thirties. Given the influence, novelty and (in the
early years of the decade at least) notoriety of Eliot's poetry
throughout this period, it is natural to expect his influence to
be, in some ways, very direct and observable. The author chooses to
single out five poets and one novelist of the period for special
and detailed attention. This is due to his belief that Eliot's
creative influence on the nineteen-thirties can be best
demonstrated in all its complexity by reference to a number of
specific writers. In other words, the connections between Eliot and
these six writers typifies the nature of Eliot's influence on the
decade as a whole. This influence moves from virtual plagiarism in
Ronald Bottrall's case to a smart but derivative stylishness in the
works of Auden and Spender-and finally through to a more
intelligent and indirect debt in the case of William Empson and
Evelyn Waugh.
The present work examines the way in which the travels and journeys
in Arabia and other Muslim lands of Richard Francis Burton, the
nineteenth-century explorer and writer have, since the influential
work of Edward W. Said on Orientalism, been somewhat undervalued by
contemporaries. It aims to offer a re-evaluation of those works and
their contribution to Victorian knowledge. It also offers a
challenge to Said's account of Burton and, particularly in the
second part of the book, looks at the negative ways in which Burton
has been viewed more generally by post-colonial theorists since
Said's influential work. A further aim of the book is to bring
together the viewpoints on Burton of the biographers and
postcolonial critics who appear to have previously worked largely
in isolation from one another. It is the author's belief that such
a union will lead to a mutually beneficial process of
cross-fertilisation that will reveal a more complicated-and also
more accurate-Burton for detailed future consideration and
discussion.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
New Perspectives on Sir Richard Burton by Dr. John Wallen provides
exactly that: a fresh perspective from which to view one of the
leading explorers and writers of the Victorian age. Burton has
frequently been vilified by postcolonial writers as somehow an
archetypal representative of the colonial mentality that reached
out to grab an often unknown world with its all-encompassing
""imperial eyes"". On the other hand, hardly any figure of the
period has proved so enduringly popular with average readers and
enthusiasts of the Victorian age. In this scholarly book, Dr.
Wallen seeks to understand this dichotomy, tracing it back to
Burton's creation of his own popular myth in his life and writings:
a process of self aggrandizement that has been complicated by
Edward Said's more recent ambiguity on the figure of Burton in his
seminal work Orientalism. In this new and improved second edition
of New Perspectives, prominence is given to Burton's own myth
making and his little known activities as a member of the secretive
Victorian men's club known as the ""Cannibal Club"". A Foreword is
provided by Professor Dane Kennedy of George Washington University.
A research monograph on the mid-Victorian rise of Sir Richard
Burton, Orientalism and the phenomenon of the Cannibal Club is
overdue as, although it has been dealt with superficially many
times, there has never been a book length treatment which focuses
clearly on the whole arc of its historical development and its
relevance to the undercutting of the standard view of the
Victorians as almost exclusively prudish and deeply moralistic
about sex and pornography. Furthermore, the importance of the
Cannibal Club extends beyond the subject of sexuality and into the
fields of race and gender. This book length treatment gives the
opportunity to examine the ways in which this secretive men's club
both reflected and helped to create some extreme Victorian ideas
about race, sex and gender which, although a background theme to
the more acceptable moral righteousness of the period, nevertheless
has reverberated with powerful emphasis, even down to the present
day. The result of this has been to create an ambiguous, but
overlapping, secret place where normally "respectable" citizens
might indulge their taste for extreme and elitist views in
"deviant" but socially permitted ways. This is an interest that
grew out of Dr.Wallen's research on Richard Burton who was a
prominent member and leading light of the club. The Cannibal Club
was founded in 1863 and grew out of the split between monogenists
and polygenists in the Ethnological Society which had been formed
in London in 1843. The monogenists, following Darwin's lead,
believed that man, in spite of certain differences, constituted a
single species and they tended towards liberal politics. The
polygenists, on the other hand, believed in a multiple genesis of
man and were a strongly conservative group with racist tendencies.
The victory of the monogenists in the Ethnological Society led
James Hunt and Richard Burton to set up a rival organisation called
"The Anthropological Society of London" with polygenist theories
and a strong belief in the minute collection of data as a means of
proving the differences between races. The Society was a supporter
of such pseudo-scientific practices as phrenology and the
measurement of skull size and shape with craniometers and other
instruments of anatomical measurement. During the American Civil
War, the Anthropological Society was a strong supporter of the
Confederacy and its pro-slavery policies. An off-shoot of the
Anthropological Society was the Cannibal Club which promoted the
beliefs of the Society in a more personal and Dionysian way (as
with most men's clubs of the Victorian period, large quantities of
alcohol were imbibed during the club's meetings). The basic idea
was that a group of intelligent and intellectually advanced English
gentlemen should celebrate their innate superiority over other
racial and social groups through the discussion of topics that were
normally off-bounds in academic circles. The topics for debate
included sex, pornography, religion and race. Prominent members
included Hunt, Burton, Swinburne and Monckton Milnes (Lord
Houghton) . The style and tenor of the club's meetings can be
gauged by the fact that its symbol was a mace carved to resemble an
African head chewing on a thigh bone. Swinburne even wrote a
Cannibal Catechism which was thought of as a kind of club anthem.
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