For more than forty years, Steve Beyer has been motivated by the alter states of consciousness provided by visionary and entheogenic plants. He is an independent researcher in ethnobotany, shamanism, ethno-medicine, hallucinogenic plants and fungi. Steve Beyer has doctorate degrees in Religious Studies and Psychology and will be presenting at the Multidisciplinary Associations for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Psychedelic Science 2013 conference primarily as an Anthropologist.
Steve Beyer’s current interest centers on the indigenous ceremonial use of the sacred plants–ayahuasca tea and other psychoactive and healing plants in the Amazon; peyote in ceremonies of the Native American Church; wachuma in Peruvian Mesa rituals; and mushrooms and plants in other Meso-American healing ceremonies.
The focus of much of the Psychedelic Science 2013 conference will look at what the sacred plants can do for us:
“Heal our wounds, cure our addictions, expand our minds. We have been taught to think of the sacred plants as being useful prepackaged collocations of active molecules. But in indigenous cultures, shamans heal because they are in a personal and mutual relationship with the healing spirits. When we use the sacred plants, our encounters with the world of the spirits are not visits to the therapist–instead they create a relationship that entails obligations.” –Steve Beyer
For more from Steve Beyer, don’t miss the Psychedelic Science conference 2013–you can also get down with his knowledge dropping about ayahuasca in his book below, or–even better–to get a taste of Steve Beyer’s writing for free, there are three .pdf files available, thanks to Steve and academia.edu, linked below:
- Toward a Multidisciplinary Approach to Ayahuasca Studies
- What Do the Spirits Want from Us?
- Ayahuasca and the Grotesque Body
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Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon by Stephan V. Beyer
Steve Beyer has spend much time in-field in the Amazon–if you are looking for a deep understanding of the Ayahuasca Shaman’s world, this book is the bridge that will serve to connect, as much as is possible, indigenous traditions of the Amazon to the western mind. Ayahuasca tea anyone? Provides context to the experiences you are sure to encounter on an ayahuasca journey. Comprehensive. Thick. Footnoted. If you had one homework assignment before heading to the Amazon to experience the ayahuasca brew, reading Singing to the Plants is it.
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