This book is a panorama of texts translated from nearly a dozen languages on the ayahuasca experience, including indigenous mythic narratives and testimonies, religious hymns, as well as stories related by western travellers, scientists and writers who have had contact with ayahuasca in different contexts. In addition to contributions from Wade Davis, Dennis McKenna and Richard Spruce, this new edition includes essays from Graham Hancock, Jeremy Narby, Susana Bustos, Michael Winkelman and a new section on ayahuasca art. This backlist classic, also, includes contributions from leaders of the global ayahuasca movement, making this the most up-to-date collection of authoritative writings on the subject ever published, an essential reference for anthropology, ethnobotany and Latin American literature studies.

About the Author
Luis Eduardo Luna, born in Florenciain 1947, in the Colombian Amazon region, is co-editor with Steven F. White of the Ayahuasca Reader. He received his PhD from the Institute of Comparative Religion at Stockholm University. A Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, he is also the author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon and, with Pablo Amaringo, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, a project that grew from their work to establish the internationally recognized USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of Painting in Pucallpa, Peru. From 1994 to 1998 he was a Professor in Anthropology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianopolis, Brazil. He retired from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki in 2011. He is the Director of Wasiwaska, Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art and Consciousness, based in Florianopolis, southern Brazil. Steven F. White, born in Abington, Pennsylvania in 1955, is co-editor with Luis Eduardo Luna of the Ayahuasca Reader. He received a BA in English from Williams College as well as MA and PhD degrees in Spanish from the University of Oregon. He received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation and was the recipient of two Fulbright fellowships. He has lived and worked in many Latin American countries, an opportunity that enabled him to edit bilingual anthologies of poetry from Nicaragua, Chile and Brazil. Recent books have focused on ecology and include El mundo mas que humano en la poesia de Pablo Antonio Cuadra: un estudio ecocritico, Arando el aire: la ecologia en la poesia y la musica de Nicaragua and El consumo de lo que somos: muestra de poesia ecologica hispanica contemporanea. He also co-translated Federico Garcia Lorca's Poet in New York and The Angel of Rain by Gaston Baquero. His published poetry includes Escanciador de pocimas, Bajo la palabra de las plantas (poesia selecta: 1979-2009) and Sworn to the Plants: Selected Poems (1976-2016). He has been teaching at St. Lawrence University since 1987 and is one of the co-founders of its Caribbean and Latin American Studies program.

Reviews

"Given the plethora of publications on ayahuasca, it is sometimes difficult to know which are the worthiest. That being said, the Ayahuasca Reader is a classic." -Mark Plotkin, PhD, ethnobotanist and director of Amazon Conservation Team

"The second edition of Ayahuasca Reader confirms that it is an invaluable resource and a must-read for anybody interested in ayahuasca." -Jeremy Narby, PhD, Amazonian Project Director, Nouvelle Planete

"Gripping myths, rituals, and initiation rites; heavens, hells, and other worlds; healing, therapy, and spiritual growth. With all this as well as the chemistry and biology of this very special brew, this book is everything a 'Reader' should be: broad, comprehensive, and enticing." -Susan Blackmore, psychologist and memeticist

Book Information
ISBN 9780907791591
Author Luis Eduardo Luna
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Synergetic Press Inc.,U.S.
Publisher Synergetic Press Inc.,U.S.
Weight(grams) 1g