ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a much neededaccessible exploration into the role of psychoactive sacraments -entheogens - in religion, mythology, and history, and also includes mosttreatments of the subject focus on modern scientific research,psychotherapy, are auto-bibliographic accounts, or are agenda-driven orotherwise naive and myopic.A great mystery of altered states ofconsciousness and species development is expanding with newarcheological and anthropological discoveries. Religious story telling(myth) is a timeless journey. Surprisingly it’s not about truth. It’sabout finding one’s self in the midst of the discovery of the “Other.”It is the story of what is separate and unknown that createsself-consciousness. Our entire life consists ultimately in the discoveryof the “Other,” which gives meaning to the discovery of the self. Thearts and language are the fossil remnants scattered on our path.ENTHEOGENS,MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS discusses the influence of psychoactivesubstances on consciousness, human evolution and mystical experiences.It explores how religion, mythology, art and culture stem fromentheogenic consciousness and why it's important to us today."Entheogens,or psychoactive sacraments, have a long, storied history that hasplayed an essential role in the evolution of consciousness, mythology,culture, religion, art - and even history and politics. ENTHEOGENS, MYTHAND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS outlines this suppressed - yet seminal -undercurrent of history, giving examples of the role of entheogens fromthe primal shamanic religions through, the historical religions,esoteric mystical traditions including the Mystery Religions, alchemyand Freemasonry, and into contemporary expressions.Authors Ruckand Hoffman draw upon decades of research and personal experience indiscussing the best documented examples of historically importantentheogenic evidences, various ongoing threads of research andspeculation to muse upon the 'meaning' of it all..."Our hominidancestors experienced a spiritual wakening at the very dawn ofconsciousness that set them apart from the other creatures of ourplanet. It was a journey to another realm induced by a special food thatbelonged to the gods. This was a plant that was animate with the spiritof deity. It was an entheogen. It was the visionary vehicle for thetrip of the first shaman.The story was told over and over againuntil it achieved the perfect form of a myth. The realm was imagined as atopographical place, the outer limit of the cosmos, the fiery empyrean,or its geocentric opposite, our own planet Gaia. Myths multiplied overtime, but they always preserved this primordial truth.Thesemyths provide a road map, a scenario, if you can read them, for whoevertoday wants to follow. However, it is not an easy journey, and it isalso fraught with many dangers, of getting lost, of finding no return.Access to the entheogens is now largely prohibited or strictly licensed.The restrictions constitute an infringement of cognitive freedom,limiting the further evolution of human potential into productivecreative imagination and experiences that lie beyond the normal, thetraditional province of shamans, who can understand the speech of plantsand animals, change shape at will, and journey, both physically and inthe spirit, to distant exotic realms.In addition, religions havestaked out territorial claims to this realm of spiritual consciousness.They have colonized it, identified it with their god, often reservingthe access for their own elite. Similarly, trade in drugs, bothmedicinal and illegal, has colonized the etheogens, making them onlychemicals, rationally depriving them of their spirit.ENTHEOGENS,MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a guide for the curious that provides ahistorical overview of the role that entheogens have played in thedevelopment of our unique supremacy as a species and offers alsopathways and advice for reconnecting with the primordial sources ofnature’s power.ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESSinvestigates the role entheogens have played in the evolution ofhumankind’s attempt to define reality in a context of metaphysical ortheological dimensions. Although other botanical intoxicants will beconsidered (cannabis, daphne, opium, Syrian rue, datura, mandrake),none, with the possible exception of mandrake, seem to have lentthemselves so readily to metaphoric personifications, which make thisthe subject for a course on mythology. The source of humankind’sfascination and repulsion for fungi, indeed, leads to a fundamentalconsideration of the psychological nature of mankind’s fascination orawareness of what in the categorization of religions is termed animismand rituals of ecstatic shamanism. In addition, the linking of bread andwine as sacramental foods is due to parallel concepts of controlledfungal growth as a simulacrum of the cosmos itself. The goal is not somuch to acquire factual knowledge of this vast subject, but to open uppathways for reflection upon the basic nature of human existence andconsciousness.The narrative is the awesome history of discoveryand the findings of ancient rituals that meld into twentieth-centurycontroversy and criticism of psychedelics. The future of humanity andthe direction of twenty-first century brain science is challenged aswell as our sense of social convention.Entheogens have beendeemed be prohibited controlled substances and as such is aninfringement of cognitive freedom. Whatever the danger of potentialabuse, the substance is not the fault, but the user. The hammer is notguilty, but the carpenter who misuses it because of deficient training.In order to exonerate the executioner in Classical antiquity, the axewas brought to trial and found guilty. The prohibition has drasticallyretarded the investigation into the therapeutic potential of proscribeddrugs, including their efficacy in curing addiction. Some of thesesubstances also offer the potential for accessing levels of cognitionand consciousness beyond the ordinary, the traditional provenance ofmystics and shamans, like bilocation, clairvoyance, and zoomorphism.