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View Full Version : Anyone ever read 'Breaking Open the Head'?



sw5eternity
01-03-2006, 03:24 AM
It's a book by Daniel Pinchbeck, and it goes over many of the various ethneogenic properties of various plants, and different shamanistic uses of them. Kind of interesting, but I had to take a lot of salt near the end, I just don't believe you can take Shamanism as far as it did. It also focused a lot on the Giboti (sp?) tribes' use of the iboga plant, a lot of which I had no idea.

Of all the things I read though, I remember at one point the author was talking with a friend who had decided to pursue Shamanism, and he said he decided to because he kept having dreams about taking Amanitas (Fly Agarics) and it changing his life. So he does, he eats three complete mushrooms, and has this hallucination of three gian talking Amanitas who ask him, "Why did you eat us?" He responds "Because I wanted to follow my dream." They talk amongst themselves, and respond "But are, you ready to follow this path?" (Or something of that matter) and he responds positively and so on.

The interesting thing though, is that this shaman guy, talks of another friend who also ate three Amanitas, but his story went a little different.

This friend at them, then had the same hallucination of three giant talking Amanitas, and they ask him the same question, 'Why did you eat us?" The friend, though, responds, "Because I wanted to get high." The Shrooms answer promptly, "Well, if you did it again, we'll kill you."

For those that have really tripped before, is that not the scariest thing you have ever heard?

So, yeah, cool book, anyone read it?