The Ethnobotanist and the Shaman

The Ethnobotanist and the Shaman
An ethnobotanist by profession and idealist by avocation, Dr. Mark Plotkin has enough credentials and media appearances to boost anybody’s ego. Plotkin is president of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), Research Associate for the Smithsonian Institution’s...

Schultes – The Father of Ethnobotany

Schultes – The Father of Ethnobotany
Director Emeritus of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, died on April 10 at the age of 86. Schultes was born in Boston and obtained his undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degree at Harvard. Widely hailed as the “Father of Ethnobotany,” he...

Traditional Salvia Divinorum Quid Preparation

Traditional Salvia Divinorum Quid Preparation
TRADITIONAL MAZATEC METHOD The two traditional Mazatec methods are quite inefficient in that they require many more leaves than do the other methods, but they are very safe! Traditionally the leaves are taken in a semi-darkened place as part of a healing or religious...

Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew

Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew
-By Gina Piccalo In an affluent corner of Encinitas, just north of San Diego, a young medicine man named Lobo Siete Truenos sits cross-legged on the polished wood floors of a backyard temple. Here in this suburban sanctuary, behind the gates of a faux-Spanish villa,...