In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global culture. Once the terrain of anthropologists, it is now the subject of novels and spiritual memoirs, while ayahuasca shamans perform their healing rituals in Ontario and Wisconsin. Singing to the Plants sets forth just what this shamanism is about--what happens at an ayahuasca healing ceremony, how the apprentice shaman forms a spiritual relationship with the healing plant spirits, how sorcerers inflict the harm that the shaman heals, and the ways that plants are used in healing, love magic, and sorcery.

A compilation of writings on the chemical, biological, psychological, and experiential dimensions of Ayahuasca • Includes 24 firsthand accounts of Ayahuasca experiences and resulting life changes, including contributions from J. C. Callaway, Charles S. Grob, and Dennis J. McKenna • Discusses the medical and psychological applications of Ayahuasca Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic Amazonian plant mixture that has been used for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years by native Indian and mestizo shamans in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador for healing and divination. Many Western-trained physicians and psychologists have acknowledged that this substance can allow access to spiritual dimensions of consciousness, even mystical experiences indistinguishable from classic religious mysticism. In Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca Ralph Metzner, a pioneer in the study of consciousness, has assembled a group of authoritative contributors who provide an exploration of the chemical, biological, psychological, and experiential dimensions of ayahuasca. He begins with more than 20 firsthand accounts from Westerners who have used ayahuasca and then presents the history, psychology, and chemistry of ayahuasca from leading scholars in the field of psychoactive research. He concludes with his own findings on ayahuasca, including its applications in medicine and psychology, and compares the worldview revealed by ayahuasca visions to that of Western cultures.

"The relevance of intellectual property (IP) law has increased dramatically over the last several years. Globalization, digitization, and the rise of post-industrial information-based industries have all contributed to a new prominence of IP law as one of the most important factors in driving innovation and economic development. At the same time, the significant expansion of IP rules has impacted many areas of public policy such as public health, the environment, biodiversity, agriculture, information, in an unprecedented manner. The growing importance of IP law has led to an exponential growth of academic research in this area. This Book offers a comprehensive overview of the methods and approaches that can be used to address and develop scholarly research questions related to IP law. In particular, this Book aims to provide a useful resource that can be used by IP scholars who are interested in expanding their expertise in a specific research method or seek to acquire an understanding of alternative lenses that could be applied to their research. Even though this Book does not claim to include all existing research methodologies, it represents one of the largest and most diverse compilations, which has been carried out to date. In addition, the authors of this Book comprise an equally diverse group of scholars from different jurisdictions, backgrounds, and legal traditions. This diversity, both regarding the topics and the authors, is a fundamental feature of the Book, which seeks to assist IP scholars worldwide in their research journeys." --

Before You is an author's journey through the landscape of the history of the ancient people. This book is the beginning of the dreams, visions, and transformation where the spirits, gods, and man's soul are in the continuing search for the beautiful, good, and true.

A unique fusion of tarot and astrology dedicated to lightworkers and individuals working in service and conscious activism, including tools, contemplative questions, and rituals. Healing Burnout with Astrology & Tarot is a tarot-astrology devotional of sorts for the helpers and healers of this world—including lightworkers, starseeds, intuitives, creatives, teachers, and other changemakers—who seek to manage the realities of burnout while remaining engaged in creating a more just, peaceful, and equitable world. It does so by introducing the decan system within astrology—in which signs are split into three detailed sections, based on degrees—and explaining how to use them for self-care and personal growth. It also introduces the concept of tarot correspondences, which can be used alongside the decan system in a detailed yearlong journey of reflection that meets readers where they are—searching for answers—and guides them to a place of intuition, wisdom, and integration. Full of tools, contemplative questions, rituals, and tarot exercises—in addition to appendices providing at-a-glance information on the decan system in astrology, tarot meanings, signs, planets, and houses—this book will heal, inspire, and sustain burnt-out lightworkers so that they can, once again, engage in joyful advocacy for justice, peace, and liberation.

Promotes awareness of mind/body/spirit connection and provides techniques for healthier living.

After more than 450 years of European intrusions into South America's rainforest, small groups of people across Europe now gather discreetly to participate in Amazonian ceremonies their local governments consider a criminal act. As devotees of a new Brazil-based religion called Santo Daime, they claim that they contact God by way of ayahuasca, a potent psychoactive beverage first developed by native communities in pre-Columbian Amazonia. This bitter, brown liquid is a synergy of plants containing DMT, a mind-altering chemical classified as an illicit "hallucinogen" in most countries. By contrast, Santo Daime members (daimistas) revere ayahuasca as a sacrament, combining it with rituals and theologies borrowed from Christian mysticism, indigenous shamanism, Afro-Brazilian spiritualism, and Western esotericism. The Santo Daime religion was founded in 1930 by an Afro-Brazilian rubber tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra, now known as Mestre (Master) Irineu. Presenting results from more than a year of fieldwork with Santo Daime groups in Europe, Marc G. Blainey contributes new understandings of contemporary Westerners' search for existential well-being on an increasingly interconnected planet. As a thorough exploration of daimistas' beliefs about the therapeutic potentials of ayahuasca, this book takes readers on an ethnographic journey into the deepest recesses of the human psyche.

Sister Jaguars Journey is the fiercely honest story of Sister Judy Bisignanoa Dominican nun who, after spending sixty-eight years looking for God in all the wrong places, finally found the peace and divine connection she was looking for in Ecuadors Amazon rainforest. It all starts with a simple invitation to visit the Achuar community in the Amazon jungle. Here, in this place, with these special people, using the plant medicine ayahuasca, she was propelled onto a new path. Guided by the indigenous wisdom of Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the sacred rituals of the Achuar people, she confronts and lets go of her turbulent, abusive, and angry past, ultimately discovering that her lifes purpose was not to become an American educator, author, and nun but rather, a compassionate human being. In many ways, Sister Jaguars Journey is the story of one nuns transformational passage from self-rejection to self-acceptance and from self-blame to self-love. It is, perhaps, the journey of each of us as we search for peace in this life and beyond. The Achuar call her Hermana OtorangoSister Jaguar, and so will you.

Presents entries A to L of a two-volume encyclopedia discussing religion around the globe, including biographies, concepts and theories, places, social issues, movements, texts, and traditions.