Erowid
 
 
Plants - Drugs Mind - Spirit Freedom - Law Arts - Culture Library  
Is it important to you that the world have accurate information about drugs?
Please donate to support Erowid Center's vision!
cover image
The Antipodes of the Mind
Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience
Rating :
rating
Author(s) :
Benny Shanon
Pages :
475
Pub Date :
2002
Edition(s) at Erowid :
2002(hb,1st ed,vg)
Publisher :
Oxford University Press
ISBN :
0199252920
BACK COVER #
This is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca and analyses them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research reported in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author's extensive experiences with the brew and on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, and travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) / EDITOR(S) #
Benny Shanon is Professor of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.