A collection of essays weaves together the process metaphysics of A. N. Whitehead, the philosophy and phenomenology of psychedelic experience, and the ontological worldview of panpsychism. The book is thematically united, presenting a worldview of universal sentience that culminates in a final chapter. It offers significant depth while maintaining accessibility for such abstruse subject matter.
A 15th-century Timurid manuscript illustrating the Prophet Mohammed's mi'raj (ascent through the seven heavens) depicts the creature Burāq with features resembling the psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria (fly agaric), used by Siberian shamans for spirit journeys. The author explores how this resemblance might have arisen, given that any implication Mohammed used a drug for his spiritual ascent would be unacceptable in orthodox Islam. The text explicitly states there is no suggestion Mohammed's journey was drug-induced.
Elisa Guerra Doce's book argues that contemporary debates about psychoactive substances can be informed by the wide variety of botanical substances used across human history and prehistory. Doce notes the difficulty in determining whether substances are strictly psychedelic versus psychoactive but argues that the context leads to the conclusion that uses were entheogenic. Using ethnographic analogies from the Americas, Near and Middle East, India, China, and the Classical world, Doce reviews evidence for psychoactive plant use in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age of Europe.