I was wondering what was the ancient Hindu or yoga book that talks about using drugs/herbs to reach enlightenment.

Then I thought it would be great to have a thread where people post book titles written before the 1900's that talk, or allude to the use of psychedelics. Or poetry and literature were the imagery is so vivid and grandiose that it reminds you of a psychedelic trip.

Whenever I find some I will post them..

Any gems?

thanks

Great idea for a thread. Are you familiar with ayahuasca? Many wisdom traditions have been passed done orally. Are you familiar with the Soma plant? which could have been a number of plant medicines. Check out Aztec and Mayan cultures.

I also direct you to Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna.

Here is the Vedic reference to soma:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv08048.htm

What do you mean "the Vedic reference"? Soma is referenced in almost every single hymn in the Rig Veda, and 114 of the hymns in book 9 are specifically focused on Soma.

the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yex, thank you for your input.

Entheogenerator, thanks for the clarification.



Can you give an example for RWE? I am interested.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, or more commonly known as Don Quixote by Cervantes.

Not only is Don Quixote widely considered the first modern novel, buteven though it was first published in 1605 and 1615 (it's actually two volumes) it is still considered by many, many people to be the best book ever written. So those reasons alone make it a book I would recommend that every single person who can read, should read at least once. But I digress...

But on a more relevant note, Don Quixote spends pretty much the entire novel in a hallucinatory world brought about by spending far too many days in a blisteringly hot shed reading far too many trashy novels about knights and their exploits of bravery and honor. The one scene that almost everyone knows about; that being Quixote's envisioning windmills as giants and charging them on horseback with a lance is just a couple chapters into the first book. The 1000 or so pages after that just keep the hallucination going deeper and deeper.

It may not be about drugs or even mention drug use, but it is a very seriously trippy novel to say the least.

fractaloctopus, excellent point with Don Quixote.

MysticYogi, this is Emerson:
-self-reliance: http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm
-nature: http://oregonstate.edu/i...son/nature-contents.html
-poems: http://www.transcendenta...ts.com/emerson_poems.htm

Also, from my country, a guy called Mihai Eminescu, lots of work on cosmology
- http://amitabhose.net/Article.asp?ID=6

Sweet. I will check it out. I am familiar with Self-Reliance. Good call on the others.