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Recent Reviews
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McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underground
by Misha Glenny
Publisher:
Knopf 
Year:
2008 
Reviewed by Jonathan Taylor
1/31/2011

After examining the role of drugs in the success of various criminal groups, Glenny voices his strong support for legalization, characterizing prohibition as a major contributor to the existence of enormous networks of organized criminal activity around the globe. In particular, Glenny describes how the chaos that has long enveloped Colombia results directly from the utterly flawed logic of the war on drugs, with devastating effects on an agricultural-commodity-producing nation. He also provides evidence that the future of the large-scale trade in illegal drugs lies in synthetics. [ read more ]

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The Hummingbird's Journey to God: Perspectives on San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision
by Ross Heaven
Publisher:
O Books 
Year:
2009 
Reviewed by David Arnson
1/12/2011

The author tracks the experiences of twelve people, including himself, who have had the San Pedro experience. Carefully researched, this book is as much on spirituality and psychology as it is on the history and science of the enigmatic San Pedro cactus. The fact that this book works on so many different levels makes it a true pleasure to read and reread. [ read more ]

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The Herb Dangerous: The Psychology of Hashish
by David Hoye (ed.)
Publisher:
Level Press 
Year:
1974 
Reviewed by Erik Davis
1/12/2011

This fascinating and illuminating essay was one of four articles devoted to “The Herb Dangerous” that ran in the first volume of The Equinox, a review devoted to “Scientific Illuminism” that was edited by the notorious Aleister Crowley early in the 20th century. Arguing that hashish helps “roll away the stone” from the deeper dimensions of both ceremonial magic and Buddhist meditation, Crowley identifies three main effects of the drug. [ read more ]

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Psychedelic Shamanism
by Jim DeKorne
Publisher:
Loompanics Unlimited 
Year:
1994 
Reviewed by Erik Davis
1/12/2011

Despite some issues with the nitty-gritty details, DeKorne’s book belongs alongside Terence McKenna’s i>True Hallucinations and D.M. Turner’s The Essential Psychedelic Guide as one of the best books to emerge from the psychedelic florescence of the early 1990s. [ read more ]

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Pharmako/Gnosis
by Dale Pendell
Publisher:
Mercury House 
Year:
2006 
Reviewed by Erik Davis
1/12/2011

By the time the poet, plant alchemist, and sometimes computer programmer Dale Pendell published his mammoth three-volume Pharmako trilogy this last decade, the world had seen at least a century of texts attempting to squeeze spiritual insight and religious correlates out of psychoactive experience. Pendell, however, managed to write a work of erudition and imagination that was not only strikingly original, but also wise. Whipper-snappers would do well to study the content of these great books, along with their form—a patchwork of citations and lore and lyric flights that express the multidimensional quality of psychoactives themselves. [ read more ]