Ayahuasca As Liquid Divinity

Using the work of Bruno Latour, this book reimagines ayahuasca as liquid divinity, asking fundamental ontological questions that shift the focus from ayahuasca experiences to ayahuasca-based ritual practices that aim at cultivating relationships with more-than-human powers, described by Latour as "beings of transformation and religion."

This book engages the perspective of public reason and the position of religious believers through a mutual confrontation of Rawlsian political liberalism and Gandhian ideas. By teasing out concords and discords between Rawls and Gandhi, Jeff Shawn Jose innovatively advances the debate about the role of religion in the public sphere.

The time has come for nondualism. As a fundamentally unifying concept, nondualism may seem out of place in an age of rising nationalism and bitter deglobalization, but our current debates over tribalism and universalism all grant nondualism an informative relevance. Nondualism rejects both separation and identity, thereby encouraging unity-in-difference. Yet “nondualism” as a word occupies a large semantic field. Nondual theists advocate the unity of humankind and God, while nondual atheists advocate the inseparability of all persons, without reference to a divinity. Ecological nondualism asserts that we are in nature and nature is in us, while monistic nondualists assert that only God exists and all difference is illusion. Edited by Jon Paul Sydnor and Anthony Watson, and guided by scholars from different religions and specializations, Nondualism: An Interreligious Exploration explores the semantic field that nondualism occupies. The collection elicits the expansive potential of the concept, clarifies agreement and disagreement, and considers current applications. In every case, nondualism is universal in its relevance yet always distinctive in its contribution.

This book engages historically and theologically with the Hindu and Jewish traditions, covering conceptions of the divine, religious heroes, women, devotional literature, theodicy, land, and nationalist claims on it, and social differentiation and oppression. Scholarly considerations are enriched with actual conversations between Hindus and Jews.

The Santo Daime is a syncretic religion that arose in the Amazon region of Brazil in the middle of the twentieth century and now has churches throughout the world. Its spiritual practice is based around the sacramental use of ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew consumed only within regular ceremonies. In Liquid Light, G. William Barnard—an initiate of the religion and a scholar of religious studies—considers the religious practice and transformative inner experiences of the Santo Daime community. Immersing readers in his own journeys into nonordinary states of consciousness, Barnard provides a vivid as well as introspective depiction of the dramatic ritual and visionary worlds that a practitioner of this tradition encounters. He combines striking first-person accounts of the ritual life of the Santo Daime with accessible examinations of the psychological and philosophical significance of mystical states and mediumship. Bridging insider and outsider perspectives on religious experience, Barnard demonstrates how the Santo Daime offers its practitioners a transformative and profoundly illuminating spiritual path. Liquid Light also reflects on the broader implications of psychedelics, arguing that entheogenic religions can shed light on a wide range of key philosophical questions concerning consciousness, selfhood, and reality.

This is a study of the phenomenology of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. The author's research is based both on extensive firsthand experiences with Ayahuasca, and on interviews conducted with a large number of informants.

Inspiring teachings centered on navigating our world’s collective challenges with indigenous wisdom and the power of psychedelics • With contributions from Christopher Bache, Zoe Helene, Dennis McKenna, Martina Hoffmann, The Dank Duchess, Jamie Wheal, Grandmother Maria Alice, and others • Explores the immense healing intelligence of nature, the wisdom of ancient Indigenous prophecies and shamanic practices, the importance of the Divine Feminine for environmental regeneration, and the crucial role of psychedelic and entheogenic plants in initiating transformations of consciousness Exploring the way forward for humanity in the face of unprecedented crisis, more than 25 contributors show how the wisdom of Indigenous peoples and the power of psychedelics can help us enact the radical shift in consciousness necessary to navigate the collapse of the old world order and the birth of a new consciousness. We hear from psychedelic visionaries Christopher Bache, Zoe Helene, Wade Davis, Chris Kilham, Laurel Sugden, and others on the promise of psychedelic medicines for spiritual and healing work. We learn about Indigenous stories to support our transformation from Native American leader Solana Booth, ancestral memory from Grandmother Maria Alice Campos Freire, cannabis’s role in world building from Minelli Eustàcio-Costa, the ritual roots of talking plants from Michael Stuart Ani, and alchemy across the arc of time from shaman Ya’Acov Darling Khan. We also hear from cannabis grower The Dank Duchess; Tyson Yunkaporta, Australian Aboriginal artist and scholar; visionary artist Martina Hoffmann; activist Duane Elgin; Kohenet Rachel Kann, ordained Jewish priestess and ceremonialist; and several other wise leaders for our time. Throughout these profound essays we are reminded of the immense healing intelligence of our plant allies, of the wisdom of shamanic practices, of the importance of the Divine Feminine for environmental regeneration, and of the crucial role of entheogenic plants in initiating transformations of consciousness and healing our world’s collective disconnection from Spirit.

The AYAHUASCA READER is a four-part celebration of a sacred plant which grows in the Amazon rainforest and which, throughout the rainforest history, has been instrumental in allowing medicine men (and others) to leave their bodies behind and travel with their souls. Their experiences and the invaluable information they return with are so impressive that many anthropologists have felt the inclination to question them about these "trips" and the mythologies of their ancestors regarding them. Hence, part one of the AYAHUASCA READER consists of information divulged in such interviews. Part two consists of essays by (or about) the scientists themselves upon experiencing Ayahuasca in ceremonial settings. Part three discusses the use of Ayahuasca as a present day religious sacrament, and finally, in part four, well known celebrities from the literary world discuss their experience of Ayahuasca. All of this renders the AYAHUASCA READER the most comprehensive collection ever written on the subject, with essays translated from nearly a dozen languages. The many contributors include Françoise Barbira Freedman, Wade Davis, Philippe Descola, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Langdon, Peter Matthiessen, Dennis McKenna, W.S.Merwin, Richard Spruce, Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Mario Vargas Llosa, and more. As the myths within confirm, Ayahuasca has been a means "of reconnecting with the invisible layers of the cosmos" for millennia. Not surprisingly, the myths make for very fascinating reading in and of themselves, and certainly no study of world mythology is complete with them. The additional scientific, religious and literary points of view, then, are all wonderful bonuses. There is a lot at work here: As if the various stories from these disparate groups were not enough, there are depictions of the artwork of the indigenous peoples, photographs of a few of the Ayahuasca practitioners (including Ginsberg), a copy of a Brazilian watercolor depicting Ayahuasca, a copy of an oil painting depicting visions induced by the plant, and much more. From the religion section there are hymns a plenty, and from the literary section, as much eloquent prose and spirited poetry as a reader is likely to find in any literary anthology.