expand as ethnobotanists make new discoveries (including perhaps kuśa/darbha grass, used throughout Vedic ritual). “Vedic and ayahuasca rituals” (chapter 15) compares textual accounts of soma rites with ethnographic accounts of rituals in the Brazilian Santo Daime church, where ayahuasca is the main sacrament; in Clark’s estimation, psychedelic experiences constitute the church’s raison d’être....
The role of some form of breathing meditation in most of the world's great mystical traditions has long been known, but few have seen much evidence for this in early Taoism. By ‘early Taoism’ I mean the formative stages of the tradition, from its mysterious origins to the completion of theHuai-nan-Tzu (139 B.C.). Perhaps scholars have seen so little evidence of meditative practice in early...
Karel Werner (ed.): The Yogi and the Mystic: studies in Indian and comparative mysticism. (Durham Indological Series, no. 1.) xv, 192 pp. London: Curzon Press; Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1989. - Volume 53 Issue 3
The importance of the Soma-plant in Vedic religion has never been underestimated. Among the rituals of the Yajurvedic texts, the soma -sacrifices are among the most elaborate and important, and are described in minute detail in the Brāhmaṇas and Śrauta-sūtras . These later texts nevertheless continue a direct tradition from the Ṛgveda , which can be seen to reflect an earlier stage in the...