Hallucinogens and Shamanism Edited by MICHAEL J. HARNER OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS London Oxford New YorkPreface THE recent surge of interest in hallucinogenic agents in our own culture is beginning to contribute to a greatly increased aware- ness in anthropology of the role of such substances in other soci- eties. Although anthropologists have long been interested in the function of the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) in North American Indian cultures (e.g., Aberle, 1966; La Barre, 1938, 1960), they have generally tended to neglect the ethnological im- portance of other natural hallucinogens, such as the psychotropic mushrooms and certain of the solanaceous plants (species of the potato family), as well as the theoretical importance of the sub- ject as a whole. Thus, some of the most significant contributions have been made not by anthropologists, but by pharmacologists such as Lewin (1964 [orig. 1924]), and botanists such as Schultes (eg., 1940, 1955) and Wasson (eg., 1961, and Wasson and Was- son, 1957).* Undoubtedly one of the major reasons that anthropologists for so long underestimated the importance of hallucinogenic sub- stances in shamanism and religious experience was that very few had partaken themselves of the native psychotropic materials (other than peyote) or had undergone the resulting subjective experiences so critical, perhaps paradoxically, to an empirical un- derstanding of their meaning to the peoples they studied. Most, although not all, of the authors in the present book are an excep- * For brief surveys of hallucinogenic plant use from the viewpoint of botany and pharmacognosy, see Schultes (1963) and Farnsworth (1968). More recently, since the completion of the present work, two books have been published emphasizing an anthropological perspective (Dobkin de Rios, 1972; and Furst, 1972).