Ayahuasca Ceremonies in Brazil * Shamanism * Yagé * Huasca * Caapi
Brazilian Santo Daime Religion * União Do Vegetal * Barquinia * Icaros

The Brazilian Sound

Ayahuasca Books

Amazon Magic: The Life Story
Of Ayahuasquero & Shaman
Don Agustin Rivas-Vasquez
by Jaya Bear

Amazon Magic tells the life story of Don Agustin Rivas Vasquez, an ayahuaquero, a shaman skilled in the use of ayahuasca, a visionary and healing plant medicine. Told in his own words, Amazon Magic describes incidents from his childhood in a small jungle town beside the Amazon River, and his early and present day experiences with the plant medicine ayahuasca. The book recounts his days of being lost in the remote depths of the jungle which resulted in his living a year with an Indian tribe. This book provides a fascinating look into the cultural life of the Peruvian Amazon as seen through the eyes of someone who is an integral part of this life, and provides a rare insight into the forces that helped shape the life of a profound healer who is now highly regarded in many parts of the world.--book description

Ayahuasca Reader

Ayahuasca is a sacred drink of the indigenous peoples of the Upper Amazon and Orinoco basins, and is used for divination, healing, and other cosmogonic/shamanic purposes. The Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters With The Amazon's Sacred Vine is a compilation of texts translated from several languages on the ayahuasca experiences. These accounts including indigenous mythic narratives and testimonies, religious hymns, and narratives related by western travelers, scientists, and writers who came into contact with ayahuasca in a variety of contexts. The Ayahuasca Reader is a seminal, benchmark publication and will be of intense interest to students of Amazonian indigenous culture, Native American spirituality, and metaphysical studies.--an Amazon reviewer

Ayahuasca Visions
by Luis Luna

Along with Schultes' and Raffauf's Vine of the Soul, this is one of the best books on ayahuasca ever written. Luis Eduardo Luna is one of the world's leading authorities on this intriguing subject and Pablo Amaringo is equally knowledgeable. A treasure trove of info and art for anyone interested in art, the Amazon, and shamanism. --an Amazon reviewer

Ayahuasca: The Visionary And Healing
Powers Of The Vine Of The Soul
by Joan Parisi Wilcox

Joan Parisi Wilcox has been initiated into the Q'ero shamanic tradition of the Andes and is the author of Keepers of the Ancient Knowledge: The Mystical World of the Q'ero Indians of Peru. Ayahuasca: The Visionary and Healing Powers of the Vine of the Soul is an autobiographical account of the author's work with ayahuasca, a potent and sacred plant brew of the Amazon region that is known for its extraordinary visionary and healing powers. As she learned from her experience, with the help of ayahuasca we are able to grasp our paradoxical nature, the first step to acceptance of ourselves in both our glorious and dark aspects. Ayahuasca teaches us how to release the illusions we hold about ourselves and makes it possible to integrate our many diverse aspects to acquire our true power. --an Amazon reviewer
 

Forest Of Visions:
Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality,
And The Santo Daime Tradition
by Alex Polari De Alverga

Part biography, part document of spiritual wisdom, Forest of Visions is a fascinating story that satisfies on many levels. Author Alex Polari de Alverga spent years as a political prisoner during military rule in Brazil. Here he recounts his spiritual transformation after release under the tutelage of Padrinho Sebastião Mota de Mela, one of the founders of the Santo Daime religion. Forest of Visions is also a study of the inner workings of the Santo Daime utopian community of 500 in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. The Santo Daime is a Christian-indigenous syncretic religion that centers around the drinking of a sacramental psychedelic tea called Ayahuasca as a shortcut to spiritual revelation and growth. After years of study, the Brazilian government decided that Ayahuasca positively benefited society and church members, and declared it legal. Approximately 50 Santo Daime churches now exist around the world, including in the U.S., Japan, and Holland, with various legal statures. --P. Randall Cohan

The Healing Forest: Medicinal And Toxic
Plants Of The Northwest Amazonia
Richard Evans Schultes & Robert F. Raffauf

The destruction of the Amazon forests continues, and with them an unknown number of plant species and the traditional knowledge of their medicinal uses. Schultes (biology, Harvard U.) and Raffauf (pharmacognosy and medicinal chemistry, Northeastern U.) combine nearly half a century of field research in this least studied part of the Amazonian drainage area to document and describe 1,479 species and variants, representing 596 genera in 145 plant families. Of these, half have had little or no prior investigation of their chemical and pharmacological properties.--book description
 

Return to La Paz: Tales of Travel, Meditation and Ayahuasca
by Thomas Reissmann

Reissmann takes the reader on an exciting journey through the mysterious jungles of Brazil and Peru, through his mystical experiences with ayahuasca as he - and the reader - adventures into the unknown. It was an enchanting journey; one in which I felt I was living vicariously through his own experiences, with a surprise always waiting for me around the corner. Reissmann has a beautiful way of conveying his story by spinning an intricate web of ideas, philosophies, and teachings together. He is an inspiring and talented writer. I immensely enjoyed reading this true tale!--an Amazon reviewer
 

Rio Tigre And Beyond:
The Amazon Jungle Medicine Of Manuel Cordova
by Bruce Lamb

Manuel Cordova-Rios apprenticed with shamans of the Huni Kui people of eastern Peru at the turn of the century. During his lifetime as a healer and physician he utilized this knowledge to its maximum, recording and proving the comprehensive health system of these indigenous people to be one of the most sophisticated in existence.--book description

The Three Halves Of Ino Moxo:
Teachings Of The Wizard Of The Upper Amazon
by Cesar Calvo

Navigating South American humor, floridly poetic prose and extensive sexual metaphor, Symington skillfully translates this Peruvian book, originally published in 1981 as the first part of a trilogy called The Invisible Colors. Folklore, the iconography of the subconscious and cultural history all converge upon the unexplainable in a psychological and physical jungle. Calvo's journeys took place during the 1970s, when he traveled the depths of the Amazon in search of an interview with renowned sorcerer Ino Moxo. --book description
 

Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men,
Their Plants And Rituals In The Columbian Amazon
by Richard Evans Schultes, Robert F. Raffauf

Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing
In The Peruvian Amazon
by Marlene Dobkin De Rios

Wizard Of The Upper Amazon:
The Story Of Manuel Cordova-Rios
by Cordova Rice-Lamb

If you are interested in shamanic subjects & are reading people like John Perkins and Carlos Castaneda, then you will want to read this.... which pre-dates those. This is a story not an essay or direct teaching, but understandings are there for the taking. I come away from this book (read in one day) appreciative but also with a vague wondering if the story is exactly as it seems... did it really happen? does it matter if it really happened? --an Amazon reviewer

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