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| Author | Daniel Pinchbeck |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Psychedelics, Shamanism |
| Publisher | Broadway Books |
Publication date | 2002 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 336 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-7679-0742-2 |
Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism is a 2002 book written by American writer Daniel Pinchbeck, founding editor of the literary journal Open City.
Published in 2002, Breaking Open the Head covers, in Pinchbeck's words, the cultural history of psychedelic use, philosophical and critical perspectives on shamanism, and his personal transformation from a cynical New York litterateur to psychedelic acolyte.
Pinchbeck details his initiation with the Bwiti and their use of iboga. [1] The account remains personal with Pinchbeck crediting the experience with an insight into his reliance on alcohol.
Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive beverage, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in the Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies, divination, and healing a variety of psychosomatic complaints.
Terence Kemp McKenna was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, ethnomycology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the "Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture".
Entheogens are psychoactive substances, including psychedelic drugs, used in sacred contexts in religion for inducing spiritual development throughout history.
N,N-Dipropyltryptamine (DPT) is a psychedelic entheogen belonging to the tryptamine family. Use as a designer drug has been documented by law enforcement officials since as early as 1968. However, potential therapeutic use was not investigated until the 1970s. It is found either as a crystalline hydrochloride salt or as an oily or crystalline base. It has not been found to occur endogenously. It is a close structural homologue of dimethyltryptamine and diethyltryptamine.
Bwiti is a spiritual discipline of the forest-dwelling Punu people and Mitsogo peoples of Gabon and by the Fang people of Gabon. Modern Bwiti incorporates animism, ancestor worship, and in some cases, Christianity, into a syncretistic belief system.
Psychonautics refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research group in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.
The Inuit angakkuq is an intellectual and spiritual figure in Inuit culture who corresponds to a medicine man. Other cultures, including Alaska Natives, have traditionally had similar spiritual mediators, although the Alaska Native religion has many forms and variants.
Dennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is the brother of well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna and is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.
Neoshamanism, refers to new forms of shamanism, where it usually means shamanism practiced by Western people as a type of New Age spirituality, without a connection to traditional shamanic societies. It is sometimes also used for modern shamanic rituals and practices which, although they have some connection to the traditional societies in which they originated, have been adapted somehow to modern circumstances. This can include "shamanic" rituals performed as an exhibition, either on stage or for shamanic tourism, as well as modern derivations of traditional systems that incorporate new technology and worldviews.
Daniel Pinchbeck is an American author. His books include Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, and Notes from the Edge Times. He is a co-founder of the web magazine Reality Sandwich and of the website Evolver.net, and edited the North Atlantic Books publishing imprint Evolver Editions. He was featured in the 2010 documentary 2012: Time for Change, directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He is the founder of the think tank Center for Planetary Culture, which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki.
Ibogaine is a psychoactive indole alkaloid obtained either by extraction from plants in the family Apocynaceae such as Tabernanthe iboga, Voacanga africana, and Tabernaemontana undulata or by semi-synthesis from the precursor compound voacangine, another plant alkaloid. The total synthesis of ibogaine was described in 1956. Structural elucidation by X-ray crystallography was completed in 1960.
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples.
Urban shamanism distinguishes traditional shamanism found in indigenous societies from Western adaptations that draw on contemporary and modern roots. Urban shamanism is practiced primarily by people who do not originate in a traditional indigenous society and who create unique methods that do not follow or claim authenticity in any prior tradition. Urban shamanism traces its beginnings to efforts by Westerners to come to terms with psychoactive plant experiences using their own modern frames of cultural reference influenced by, but outside of, the indigenous rites in which plant medicine is traditionally based. The related terms digital shamanism and digital psychedelia are schools of thought born out of the convergence of technological changes, art movements, and Eastern philosophies during the late 20th century. They parallel and are often associated with technopaganism. In practice, the digital psychedelic process is the fusion of the biological and technological to seek self-knowledge.
Plastic shamans, or plastic medicine people, is a pejorative colloquialism applied to individuals who attempt to pass themselves off as shamans, holy people, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who have no genuine connection to the traditions or cultures they claim to represent. In some cases, the "plastic shaman" may have some genuine cultural connection, but is seen to be exploiting that knowledge for ego, power, or money.
Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender" and Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described later by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM) is a transdenominational church and nonprofit organization dedicated to the realization of a shared 1985 vision of the American artists Alex and Allyson Grey to build a contemporary public chapel as "a sanctuary for spiritual renewal through contemplation of transformative art".
The stoned ape theory is a controversial theory first proposed by American ethnobotanist and mystic Terence McKenna in his 1992 book Food of the Gods. The theory claims that the transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens and the cognitive revolution was caused by the addition of psilocybin mushrooms, specifically the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis, into the human diet around 100,000 years ago. Using evidence largely based on studies from Roland L. Fischer et al. from the 1960s and 1970s, he attributed much of the mental strides made by humans during the cognitive revolution to the effects of psilocybin intake found by Fischer.
Michael James Harner was an American anthropologist, educator and author. His 1980 book, The Way of the Shaman: a Guide to Power and Healing, has been foundational in the development and popularization of core shamanism as a New Age path of personal development for adherents of neoshamanism. He also founded the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.
Sebastião Mota de Melo, also recognized as Padrinho Sebastião, was a significant religious figure in Brazil, notable for establishing the religious organization CEFLURIS, a prominent branch of Santo Daime.
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