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Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast

Health & Wellness Podcasts

“Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation” is a new and unique podcast focusing on the hallucinogenic plants and fungi whose impact on world culture and religion – and healing potential - is only now beginning to be appreciated as never before. Unlike other podcasts relating to these issues, “Plants of the Gods” is hosted by renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin, a Harvard and Yale-trained scientist who has been studying the healing plants and shamans of the Amazon rainforest for almost four decades. An award-winning scientist and best selling author, Dr, Plotkin is a spellbinding storyteller who will be speaking from personal experience and will be joined by other leaders in the field.

“Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation” is a new and unique podcast focusing on the hallucinogenic plants and fungi whose impact on world culture and religion – and healing potential - is only now beginning to be appreciated as never before. Unlike other podcasts relating to these issues, “Plants of the Gods” is hosted by renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin, a Harvard and Yale-trained scientist who has been studying the healing plants and shamans of the Amazon rainforest for almost four decades. An award-winning scientist and best selling author, Dr, Plotkin is a spellbinding storyteller who will be speaking from personal experience and will be joined by other leaders in the field.

Location:

United States

Description:

“Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation” is a new and unique podcast focusing on the hallucinogenic plants and fungi whose impact on world culture and religion – and healing potential - is only now beginning to be appreciated as never before. Unlike other podcasts relating to these issues, “Plants of the Gods” is hosted by renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin, a Harvard and Yale-trained scientist who has been studying the healing plants and shamans of the Amazon rainforest for almost four decades. An award-winning scientist and best selling author, Dr, Plotkin is a spellbinding storyteller who will be speaking from personal experience and will be joined by other leaders in the field.

Language:

English

Contact:

2124916164

Episodes

Plants of the Gods: Episode 10. The Life and Times of Richard Evans Schultes

2/3/2021
The Life and Times of Richard Evans Schultes – Schultes was a scholarship student at Harvard College when entered as a Freshman in 1933. An undergraduate term paper on peyote resulted in an opportunity to partake in a traditional ceremony with the Kiowa in Oklahoma, which then led to research in southern Mexico where he produced the first detailed, scientific account of the so-called “magic mushrooms.” Post-graduate research led him to the Colombian Amazon where he produced the first...

Duration:00:36:33

Plants of the Gods: Episode 9. Ergot, LSD and the Birth of Western Religions

1/27/2021
Ergot, LSD and the Birth of Western Religions – Ergot is a fungus that parasitizes rye where - in the Middle Ages - it was sometimes milled into the flour used to make bread. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting folks who ate the bread, ergot is rich in powerful alkaloids that can cause a range of symptoms, from visions to gangrene to death. Some historians have postulated that consumption of ergotized bread may have cause the bizarre behaviors that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials in...

Duration:00:32:00

Plants of the Gods: Episode 8 - Hexing Herbs and the Witches of Medieval Europe

1/20/2021
Hexing Herbs and the Witches of Medieval Europe – The archetypal image of the witch as an old woman riding a broomstick was not a Hollywood creation. In the Middle Ages, “witches” were often skilled herbalists. Some used powerful plants of the Solanaceae family - plants like henbane and mandrake - that are rich in hallucinogenic compounds known as tropane alkaloids that can induce sensations of flying - to achieve altered states. And these plants were then rubbed on broomsticks that were...

Duration:00:39:34

Plants of the Gods: Episode 7 - The Ethnobotany of Warfare

1/13/2021
The Ethnobotany of Warfare – Plants have played a fundamental role in warfare, not just as poisons and medicines but as ships, chariots, weapons and wound bandages. This episode traces this history from the time of primate clobbering each other with sticks to potential new battlefield medicines from plants. Sources: Hughes, J.D. Pan’s Travail. Johns Hopkins Press, 1996. Majno, Guido. The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World. Harvard University Press, 1975. Perlin, J. Forest...

Duration:00:34:49

Plants of the Gods: Episode 6. Opium

1/6/2021
Opium – Perhaps the most ancient of the “Plants of the Gods,” plant remains in Europe clearly indicate that opium was being used by people more than 10,000 years ago. And not only was opium the first effective painkiller, it was also employed as an inspiration by composers and poets. Only in the 19th century did it become widely realized as a highly addictive substance. Some have suggested that this “Plant of the God” might also be termed a “Plant of the Devil.” Sources: Balick, Michael...

Duration:00:42:34

Plants of the Gods: Episode 5. Curare

12/30/2020
Curare – Once known as the “flying death of the Amazon,” curare is a mixture of rainforest plants that indigenous peoples smear on the tips of their arrows or blowdarts to give them a deadly effectiveness. In the hands of western physicians, however, curare has been converted into a life-sustaining medication, a muscle relaxant in abdominal surgery. Sources: Balick, Michael J., and Paul Alan Cox. Plants, People, and Culture the Science of Ethnobotany. CRC Press, 2020. Marks, Geoffrey, and...

Duration:00:44:02

Plants of the Gods: Episode 4. Wine

12/23/2020
Wine – Wine grapes and wine are unquestionably the world’s most valuable medicinal plants: the global annual value of wine is over 300 billion dollars. And the history of wine predates the origin of the human species: primates are known to consume fermented fruit to enter an altered state. This episode traces the use of wine as medicine, from ancient Transcaucasia on the Black Sea 8000 years ago, through classical Greece and Rome to the Holy Land at the period when Judaism, Christianity and...

Duration:00:59:12

Plants of the Gods: Episode 3 - Coca and Cocaine

12/16/2020
Coca – not to be confused with coconuts or with cacao, the source of chocolate - is a large bush or small tree native to northwestern South America. Cocaine extracted from the leaves found favor among personages as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Ulysses S. Grant as it was once used as a component of various tonics, patent medicines and even a popular wine. Coca leaves are still widely used in this corner of South America for a variety of purposes by the indigenous tribes of the...

Duration:00:25:07

Plants of the Gods: Episode 2 - Hallucinogenic Snuffs

12/9/2020
Hallucinogenic snuffs – though most hallucinogens like magic mushrooms or ayahuasca are taken orally, the indigenous peoples of Amazonia have created two different and highly potent snuffs from Amazonian trees which they consume for a variety of healing and divinatory purposes. As with ayahuasca, the author draws on his personal insights and experiences with these plants and these peoples to describe the biocultural importance of these snuffs. Sources: Chagnon, Napoleon A. The Fierce...

Duration:00:36:57

Plants of the Gods: Episode 1 - Ayahuasca

12/2/2020
Ayahuasca – From Argentina to Australia, from Israel to Indonesia, a once-obscure Amazonian vine, admixed with a few other plants is now celebrated – and even venerated – as a plant of power knowledge and healing. Ayahuasca – also known as “the vine of the soul.” Native to the northwest Amazon and employed by indigenous shamans for therapeutic purposes, this plant has played a fundamental role in the ongoing mainstreaming of hallucinogenic plants into western therapeutic practices....

Duration:00:26:02

“Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation”

11/29/2020
“Plants of the Gods” is a new and unique podcast focusing on the hallucinogenic plants and fungi whose impact on world culture and religion – and healing potential - is only now beginning to be appreciated as never before. Unlike other podcasts relating to these issues, “Plants of the Gods” is hosted by renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin, a Harvard and Yale-trained scientist who has been studying the healing plants and shamans of the Amazon rainforest for almost four decades. An...

Duration:00:01:18