New World species and their cultural 
roles. The lexicon is ordered alpha- 
betically by genus name, and all have 
fine color illustrations, mostly hand- 
drawn but a few photographic, to fa- 
cilitate identification in the field. A 
word of caution (which the publishers 
might have displayed more promi- 
nently): although most hallucinogenic 
plants are neither habit forming nor 
have lasting detrimental effects on the 
body, a few can be dangerous if in- 
gested ( Datura , for example, and some 
members of the Leguminosae, such 
as Sophora secundiflora of the “Red 
Bean Cult” of the Southern Plains 
Indians). Also, neophytes may find it 
difficult to distinguish some entheo- 
genic mushroom species from highly 
toxic ones. 
The lexicon is followed by a brief 
discussion of users of hallucinogenic 
flora and a convenient fifteen-page 
overview of plant use and effects, fa- 
cilitating the confirmation or contra- 
diction of claims made for a particular 
species. The section dealing with the 
fourteen major hallucinogenic plants 
properly leads off with a discussion 
of Amanita muscaria, whose use by 
shamans of the Eurasian forest belt 
may predate the early peopling of the 
Americas by hunters migrating from 
northeastern Asia, who may have ar- 
rived here prepared for a search of 
the environment for species with simi- 
lar psychic effects. 
In other chapters, the book deals 
with the “hexing herbs,” particularly 
henbane, mandrake, and belladonna, 
which became famous in Europe in 
the Middle Ages; with Cannabis, a 
hardy multipurpose genus of Asian 
origin introduced into the Americas 
after the conquest and long exploited 
not only for its psychotropic properties 
but for its economic, nutritional, and 
medicinal values (most recently in the 
treatment of glaucoma and of the ex- 
treme nausea that accompanies che- 
motherapy); and with the curious er- 
got ( Claviceps purpurea), a fungal 
blight of Old World rye grasses re- 
sponsible for many of the bizarre epi- 
demics of hallucinations and poison- 
ings, often fatal, that swept Europe 
in the Middle Ages and, less certainly, 
for the sublime ecstatic experience 
known as the Eleusinian mysteries of 
ancient Greece. 
Among the many other plants cov- 
ered in subsequent chapters is peyote, 
which has a natural range restricted 
:o north-central Mexico and the Rio 
Trande valley of Texas, but whose 
use as a sacrament by some 250,000 
Indian adherents of the Native Ameri- 
can Church, from the Mexican border 
to the Canadian Plains, makes it the 
most widely used entheogen of all. 
Schultes’s career as the ranking au- 
thority on New World hallucinogens 
began, in fact, with peyote. His in- 
troduction to the ethnobotany of hal- 
lucinogens dates back to 1936, when, 
as a senior in biology at Harvard, he 
accompanied Weston La Barre, then 
a doctoral candidate in anthropology 
at Yale, to the Kiowa Reservation in 
Oklahoma to study the nature and 
culture of peyote. The peyote chapter 
draws heavily on accounts and illus- 
trations of its use among the Huichol 
Indians of Mexico and by Native 
American members of the so-called 
peyote church. 
A final chapter deals with some re- 
cent medical applications of halluci- 
nogens, particularly LSD in the psy- 
chotherapeutic treatment of terminal 
cancer patients, to free them from the 
fear of death and, to some degree, ! 
from the perception (although not the 
reality) of pain. This chapter presum- 
ably had some contributions from Joan 
Halifax, a medical anthropologist with 
direct experience in such treatment, 
who researched and wrote many of 
the captions and also participated in 
the conception and design of the book. 
With respect to captions, the deity 
depicted with the stylized morning 
glory plant in the Tepantitla mural 
on pages 160-61 is, of course, not 
an “Aztec Mother Goddess,” but a 
mother goddess of the people of Te- 
otihuacan, inasmuch as the mural 
dates from the early to mid-first mil- 
lennium a.d., the height of the great 
Teotihuacan civilization. The Aztecs 
did not arrive in the Valley of Mexico 
until the thirteenth century' a.d., cen- 
turies after Teotihuacan had been 
abandoned and had fallen into ruin. 
Finally, notwithstanding the unques- 
tioned authority of Schultes and Hof- 
mann, one misses footnotes; the iden- 
tification of sources other than their 
own research would not have de- 
tracted from this handsome and valu- 
able, if (understandably) expensive, 
addition to the literature. For the sake 
of my students, I hope for an early 
paperback version. 
Peter T. Furst is professor of anthro- 
pology at the State University of New 
York at Albany and author of the 
books Flesh of the Gods and Hal- 
lucinogens and Culture. 
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