Clark Heinrich has been an ethnobotanist since 1974 and has completed years of study with masters of yoga philosophy and Western mysticism. The coauthor of The Apples of Apollo, Heinrich lives in the coastal mountains of central California.
- From Erowid.org
'Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy'
Magic Mushrooms in Religion and
Alchemy is an illustrated journey into the hidden truth about the use
of psychoactive mushrooms to connect with the divine. Clark Heinrich
provides a strong case that Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric mushroom,
played a significant role in world religions. He shows that this "magic
mushroom" was the mysterious food and drink of the gods, confirming
the role of the fly agaric mushroom in generating religious visions.
He traces its use in Vedic and Puranic religion, illustrating how ancient
cultures used the powerful psychedelic in esoteric rituals meant to
bring them into direct contact with the divine. Heinrich then shows
how the same mushroom symbols found in Hindu scriptures correspond perfectly
to the symbols of ancient Judaism, Christianity, the Grail myths, and
alchemy. He contends that the famed philosophers' stone of the alchemist
was a metaphor for the fly agairc mushroom, and that stories as disparate
as the burning bush of Moses and the raising of Lazarus from the dead
can be easily explained by the use of this strange and powerful mushroom.
Heinrich concludes that in many religious cultures and traditions the
fly agaric mushroom -- and in some cases ergot or psilocybin mushrooms
-- had a fundamental influence in teaching humans about the nature of
God.
Read an excerpt here:
"The only thing more obscure and bizarre than the writings of the alchemists was their artwork, a type of visual riddle called a rebus. They claimed that alchemy's most closely guarded secrets were openly displayed in these drawings and paintings, yet the riddles posed by the pictures have remained unsolved for hundreds of years - until now. Clark Heinrich has discovered the key that unlocks these "open secrets," and will reveal all in this colorful and unusual presentation. You may never look at artwork in the same way again."