Erowid
 
 
Plants - Drugs Mind - Spirit Freedom - Law Arts - Culture Library  
Erowid References Database
Sobiecki JF. 
“A review of plants used in divination in southern Africa and their psychoactive effects”. 
Southern African Humanities. 2008 Dec;20:333-351.
Abstract
Numerous indigenous healing traditions around the world employ plants with psychoactive effects to facilitate divination and other spiritual healing rituals. Southern Africa has thus far been considered to have relatively few psychoactive plant species of cultural importance, and little has been published on the subject. This paper reports on 85 species of plants that are used for divination by southern Bantu-speaking people. Of these, 39 species (45 %) have other reported psychoactive uses, and a number have established hallucinogenic activity. These findings indicate that psychoactive plants have an important role in traditional healing practices in southern Africa.



Key Words: divination, psychoactive, shamanism, traditional healing, medicinal plants
Comments and Responses to this Article
#
Submit Comment
[ Cite HTML ]