-Caveat Lector- Shamanism and Drug Propaganda - The Birth of Patriarchy and the Drug War, by Dan Russell (1998) http://www.kalyx.com Anthropologist and Ethnobotanist Pedro Fernandes Leite da Luz, M.A.: "Dan Russell's book, "Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda" starts with questions of basic importance to ethnobotany. Anyone working in this discipline is aware of the profond and ancient relationship between man and plant. Not only in tribal societies, but even in our own industrial society plants still have enormous cultural impact. Ethnobotany has demonstrated the worldwide importance of plants not only in material culture - as the raw material for tools, goods, medicines and foods - but especially as powerful symbols in all the world's folk cosmologies." "Most of the plants which have acquired the status of sacred or divine symbols are psychoative plants, i.e. plants which contain active substances closely related to our own neurotransmitters. In fact it is hard to find a pre-industrial society which hasn't made a sacrament of a psychoative plant. Using studies such as my own among the Maku in the northwest Amazon, ethnobotany can demonstrate the relationship between psychoactive plants and the tribal roots of human religion." "But if the psychoative plants are so deeply rooted in our evolved sense of the sacred, why are they so viciously banned in contemporary industrial cultures? Dan Russell's book answers this question. This important volume show clearly and easily how the cultural evolution of the occident has created the present situation. Starting in the 'golden age' when humankind had free access to the "mysterium tremendum," Russell shows with competence how little by little the state and the church have coopted and banned direct access to traditional sacred states." "Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda" traces the cultural evolution of our species from shamanism to the mass media religions. It is an important book, very well written, a must for anyone interested in psychoactive plants and in the cultural evolution of humankind. It is also a very pleasing volume to read, the kind of book that will keep you holding your breath until the end. I strongly recommend this heavily illustrated, original, yet rigorously empirical historical vision." "I had long believed that the Drug War began in this century with Harry J. Anslinger's Reefer Madness campaign. Jonathan Ott's works pointed out the much earlier roots of this antagonism towards entheogenic plant sacramentalism, perhaps beginning with the destruction of the temple at Eleusis and its 2000 year-old rites. Dan Russell's Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda takes this theory further. Russell looks back to early examples of cultural artifacts, such as murals, pottery, and jewelry. Images of entheogenic plants and shamanic activity dominate these early artifacts. 'The central sacrament of all Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age cultures known is an inebriative herb, a plant totem, which became metaphoric of the communal epiphany.' These images support Russell's contention that plant magic WAS the old time religion." "Russell shows that by the time of the Bronze Age, the images of plant magic begin to give way to images of centralized authority. Images of the priesthood and rulers begin to dominate the cultural imagery from the Sumerian and Egyptian societies. Russell uses these images to illustrate the co-emergence of hostility towards plant sacraments and the early beginnings of patriarchal authority. This shift in cultural imagery is correlated by Russell to the historical movement from egalitarian, matriarchal culture to militaristic, patriarchal culture." "Russell convincingly connects the rise of wealth-managing bureaucracies and growing militarism to the changes in attitudes towards entheogenic sacraments by the use of many illustrations and excerpts of ancient texts. Jane Harrison's Prolegomena To The Study of Greek Religion and Epilegomena To The Study of Greek Religion are used and built upon by Russell. The book ends early in the Christian Era, leaving me hungry for the next volume, which will hopefully take up from the Christian Era to our present time. By exploring "the ancient, unconscious roots of the Drug War" this important work should help us to awake from the centuries-long nightmare of a history in which we fear one of the most common of human behaviors." Doug Aanes "Dope Fiends" DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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