Strange Drugs

and the Educated Frenchman

By: Matthew Lynch

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Drugs have always been with us for good or ill. The use of opium and hemp based products (not to mention ethanol) in Eurasian societies dates back to greatest antiquity. The composers of the Vedas found inspiration in the consumption of the mysterious and clearly psychedelic beverage called Soma. In western Africa Iboga is used up to the present day to in shamanic ceremonies aimed at contacting the ancestors and the gods. But it was the New World which proved to have some of the most powerful mind altering substances. The conquistadors discovered the virtues of the coca plant upon arriving in Peru, and that particular plant continues to have powerful social and economic ramifications on a global scale. Meanwhile peyote, morning glory, and ayahuasca [or yage], those formidable visionary plants whose use the missionaries sought to suppress, have only become more fascinating to those members of Western society who have thought their way through materialism and are seeking a way to connect to that transcendent something that can be sensed but not encountered. Some have found that with the proper intent, guidance, and healthy mental framework they could pierce the veil of the senses and touch that richer world just beyond. It can be the doorway leading out of Plato's cave of shadows, a bridge to the collective unconscious, a conduit to the higher orders in Neoplatonism, and a shortcut to understanding the mysticism of the east as well as that of the Gospels. Or it can be the gates of hell--drugs have caused a multitude of disasters when sold at random for profit. This book is a glimpse into the discovery and exploration of plant based drugs by french scholars, artists and explorers whose assessments of their subjects range from naive enthusiasm to fearful contempt. And of course there are several who were seeking to advertise the latest and greatest panacea from the other side of the globe--some things never change.