OPEN Foundation

Books

Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing

ShamanismWhat does the brain do during “soul journeys”? How do shamans alter consciousness and why is this important for healing? Are shamans different from other kinds of healers? Is there a connection between the rituals performed by chimpanzees and traditional shamanistic practices? All of these questions-and many more-are answered in Shamanism, Second Edition: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing. This text contains crosscultural examinations of the nature of shamanism, biological perspectives on alterations of consciousness, mechanisms of shamanistic healing, as well as the evolutionary origins of shamanism. It presents the shamanic paradigm within a biopsychosocial framework for explaining successful human evolution through group rituals. In the final chapter,”the author compares shamanistic rituals with chimpanzee displays to identify homologies that point to the ritual dynamics of our ancient hominid ancestors.

Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing, door Michael J. Winkelman, Praeger, 309 pagina’s.

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The Pharmacology of LSD: A critical review

PharmacologyLSDLSD has a controversial and extraordinary reputation, due to the special effects it can induce on human consciousness. Its experimental use lead to some groundbreaking discoveries about the brain and the deeper layers of the human psyche. After its application in neuroscience, and as a tool within psychotherapy, it was increasingly used by laymen for producing euphoria and religious experiences. Today, there is a resurgence of interest in LSD, including its possible uses in psychotherapy and for the treatment of some headache disorders. This book represents the first ever comprehensive review of the psychological and pharmacological effects of LSD. It draws on data from more than 3000 experimental and clinical studies. The Pharmacology of LSD provides a unique and valuable resource for anyone interested in better understanding this controversial hallucinogenic drug – including brain scientists, psychopharmacologists, addiction researchers, and psychiatrists.

The Pharmacology of LSD: A critical review, door Annelie Hintzen & Torsten Passie, Oxford University Press, 150 pagina’s.

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LSD: The highway to mental health

HighwaytomentalhealthThe book describes the work of Dr. Milan Hausner at his clinic at Sadska, near Prague, where as Medical Director of the psychiatric clinic he supervised over 3,000 LSD therapeutic sessions from 1954 to 1980. As Grof says on a back cover blurb, “He has amassed information that is invaluable for the theory and practice of psychotherapy.”

Hausner attributes emotional disorders to the patients’ lack of understanding of hidden thought processes which occur from a combination of disfunctional social learning processes and faulty parenting. His method of bringing these thought processes to consciousness is a system he calls Pathogenic Confrontation Model within a system of Multigroup Community Therapy. In order to reset patients’ irrational attachments to faulty ideas and emotions, psychotherapy confronts patients’ own past illness-producing experiences and replaces their dysfunctional reactions during the more congenial atmosphere of the therapeutic relationship between patient and therapist.

After 10 chapters of theory and description of Hausner’s model, Highway presents 11 chapters of case histories and back-matter enrichments. Enriched with excerpts from transcripts of sessions, these chapters focus on depression, schizophrenia, double bind, archetypes, sexuality, and other presenting problems.

As well as filling in the gap about treatment that continued in Czechoslovakia,  LSD: The Highway to Mental Health presents its psycholytic methods of treating inpatients, a way to use group processes, and social learning as adjuncts on the way to mental health. As in addition to a place in university, medical school, and city libraries, Highway deserves a place in the library of anyone doing LSD-based therapy or investigating it, on the shelves of psychedelic book collectors, and of historians of the 60s and of the history of psychotherapy.

LSD: The Highway to Mental Health, door Milan Hausner, vertaald door Erna Segal, ASC Books, 300 pagina’s, ascbooks.com.

The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene de Rios

riosA look inside almost half a century of pioneering research in the Amazon and Peru by a noted anthropologist studying hallucinogens, including ayahuasca – Reveals how ayahuasca successfully treats psychological and emotional disorders – Examines adolescent drug use from a cross-cultural perspective – Discusses the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the Amazon Ayahuasca is an alkaloid-rich psychoactive concoction indigenous to South America that has been employed by shamans for millennia as a spirit drug for divinatory and healing purposes. Although the late Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes was credited in the early 1950s as being the first to document the use of ayahuasca, other researchers, such as the distinguished anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios, were responsible for furthering his findings and uncovering the curative capabilities of this amazing compound. “The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene Dobkin de Rios” presents the accumulated experience of de Rios’s 45 years of pioneering field studies in the area of hallucinogens in Peru and the Amazon. Her investigation into ayahuasca–which she undertook in collaboration with more than a dozen traditional Mestizo folk curanderos, shamans, and fellow ethnobotanists–focuses on the use of this revolutionary plant in the treatment of recalcitrant psychological and emotional disorders. She also shares some of her theories that prove that the ancient Maya used psychedelic plants as part of their religious rituals, thereby demonstrating the impact of plant psychedelics on human prehistory. In addition, Dobkin de Rios examines altered states of consciousness derived from the use of biofeedback and hypnosis and discusses her current work on the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the Amazon.

The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene Dobkin de Rios: 45 Years with Shamans, Ayahuasqueros, and Ethnobotanists, by Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Park Street Press, 216 pages.

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Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments

51qUsAI+YsL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_Psychedelic substances present in nature have been used by humans across hundreds of years to produce mind-altering changes in thought, mood, and perception―changes we do not experience otherwise except rarely in dreams, religious exaltation, or psychosis. U.S. scientists were studying the practical and therapeutic uses for hallucinogens, including LSD and mescaline, in the 1950s and 1960s supplied by large manufacturers including Sandoz. But the government took steps to ban all human consumption of hallucinogens, and thus the research. By the 1970s, all human testing was stopped. Medical concerns were not the issue, the ban was motivated by social concerns, not the least of which were created by legendary researcher Timothy Leary, a psychologist who advocated free use of hallucinogens by all who desired. Nationwide, however, a cadre of scholars and researchers has persisted in pushing the federal government to again allow human testing and the moratorium has been lifted. The FDA has begun approving hallucinogenic research using human subjects. In these groundbreaking volumes, top researchers explain the testing and research underway to use―under the guidance of a trained provider―psychedelic substances for better physical and mental health.

Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][2 delen], door Thomas B. Roberts & Michael J. Winkelman, Praeger Perspectives reeks, Praeger, 728 pagina’s.

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The Secret Chief Revealed

secretchiefThe Secret Chief Revealed reveals for the first time, the identity of pioneering psychedelic therapist Leo Zeff, which was kept secret in the original The Secret Chief. The book contains the same text as the original with 32 pages of added material including epilogues written by Leo’s children and patients, and a new introduction by Myron Stolaroff.

The Secret Chief Revealed, door Myron J. Stolaroff, MAPS, 176 pagina’s.

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The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience

antipodesThis is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, and analyses them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research presented in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author’s extensive experiences with the brew and on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, and travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general.

Benny Shanon is Professor at the Department of Psychology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holder of the Mandel Chair in Cognition.

The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience, by Benny Shanon, Oxford University Press, 496 pages.

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LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine

LSDPsychotherapyThe sensationalism surrounding the widespread use of LSD in the late 60s and the subsequent legislative overkill virtually ended psychotherapeutic LSD research. Much of what had been learned over thirty years of scientific medical study was so distorted or suppressed that no objective overview was available to the general reader – except for this book. LSD Psychotherapy is a complete account of a remarkable chapter in the ever-continuing inquiry into our transpersonal nature and origins. The controlled studies described in this book reveal exciting and challenging data about the nature of human consciousness, perception, and reality itself. Drawing on this work Dr. Stanislav Grof outlines a new cartography of the human mind, one which accounts for experiences such as shamanic trance, near-death experiences and altered states of consciousness. This vision is also the foundation for Dr. Grof’s revolutionary new Holotropic Breathwork™ techniques. This book is also a visual feast, with numerous color drawings and paintings created by research participants (see featured artist Sherana Harriette Frances’ book Drawing It Out: Befriending the Unconscious). Many of these depict archetypal images from the collective human consciousness, which form a powerful addition to the text. LSD Psychotherapy is a valuable source of information for those who are involved with LSD in any way, as parents, teachers, researchers, legislators, or students of the human psyche. The approach to healing described in this book is inspired by the eternal desire of humankind for wholeness and an enduring grasp of reality.

LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine, door Stanislav Grof, MAPS, 352 pagina’s.

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DMT: The Spirit Molecule – A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

spirit moleculeFrom 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain. In Strassman’s volunteers, it consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences. Many reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences, aliens, angels, and spirits. Nearly all felt that the sessions were among the most profound experiences of their lives.

Strassman’s research connects DMT with the pineal gland, considered by Hindus to be the site of the seventh chakra and by René Descartes to be the seat of the soul. DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the bold case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul’s movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexual transcendence. Strassman also believes that “alien abduction experiences” are brought on by accidental releases of DMT. If used wisely, DMT could trigger a period of remarkable progress in the scientific exploration of the most mystical regions of the human mind and soul.

Rick Strassman, M.D., is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule, by Rick Strassman, Inner Traditions Bear and Company, 384 pages.
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The Healing Journey: new approaches to consciousness

“In this remarkable boohealingjourneyk, Chilean-American psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo takes us on a scientific adventure through his groundbreaking research into new experiential methods of psychotherapy facilitated by psychedelic substances. The Healing Journey reveals these consciousness-expanding compounds to be fascinating therapeutic tools that are now—40 years after the original publication—gaining wider recognition in Western clinical and academic circles.

This book takes an in-depth look at the spiritual and psychotherapeutic potential of the amphetamine derivatives MDA and MMDA, harmaline (the active compound in ayahuasca), and ibogaine. To distinguish them from classical psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin, Naranjo coins the terms “emotion-enhancers” and “fantasy-enhancers” for these substances.
This book is a must-read for all serious students of consciousness and the human psyche, and for those with a personal or professional desire to explore revolutionary innovations in psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, experimental psychiatry, or the psychology of religion. The exceptional clarity of Naranjo’s book also makes it an important resource for any intelligent layperson seeking information to guide them in their own search for spiritual growth and self-exploration.”
–Stanislav Grof, author of LSD Psychotherapy
The Healing Journey: New Approaches to Consciousness, door Claudio Naranjo, Pantheon Books, 235 pagina’s.
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7 May - Psychedelics, Nature & Mental Health with Sam Gandy

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