One Step Beyond - The Sacred Mushroom. A 1961 episode of One Step Beyond investigates whether or not psilocybin mushrooms can give you extra-sensory perception. Part 2, Part 3. [Via Neurophilosophy]
posted on Jul 18, 2008 - View this thread

Gary Snyder, sublime and seminal poet of ecological awareness and activism [YouTube link], Zen appreciation of "ordinary mind" and American speech, shamanistic intimacy with the natural world, and surviving member of the Beat Generation (West Coast posse) at age 78, has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly poetry prize. "Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself," said Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman. "His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation.” Previous recipients of the Lilly prize include Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, and W.S. Merwin. [Previously mentioned here.]
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew. "Can a psychotropic jungle potion cure the existential angst of the McMansion set?" Previously.
posted on Feb 3, 2008 - View this thread

Healing Dick
posted on Nov 10, 2006 - View this thread

Hell and Back: "Deep in the Amazon jungle, writer Kira Salak tests ayahuasca, a shamanistic medicinal ritual, and finds a terrifying—but enlightening—world within." Interesting tale found via this interview with Charles Grob on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics. The legal status of ayahuasca in the US was recently discussed here.
posted on May 26, 2006 - View this thread

Psychedelic Santa Claus. "Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans." [Via J-Walk blog.]
posted on Dec 22, 2003 - View this thread

Tripping on iboga: author Daniel Pinchbeck describes his experience with the psychedelic drug tabernanthe iboga, which is used in the rituals of the Bwiti in West Africa. Ironically, the active chemical in iboga, the indole alkaloid ibogaine, is said to be useful in the treatment of drug addiction (PDF.)
posted on Sep 18, 2003 - View this thread