Peyote and Other Psychoactive Cacti [Paperback]

Adam Gottlieb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1997

All-new editions of four popular guides to altering consciousness
-- These underground classics from the 1970s have been rewritten and repackaged with new illustrations and photos, and designed for easy reading

Focuses on obtaining seeds, cloning, grafting, growing cacti, and extracting maximum output of mescaline and other alkaloids.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Peyote has been used ceremonially by the native peoples of the Americas as a spiritual medicine for close to 3,000 years.

Peyote and Other Psychoactive Cacti is a concise and readable guide to the art of cultivating peyote, San Pedro, and the numerous other entheogenic cacti. In light of the possible extinction of wild peyote, this book is a timely resource for those who feel a responsibility to preserve this sacred medicine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When harvesting Peyote, many people uproot the entire plant. This is unnecessary and wasteful. The roots contain no mescaline. Some of these plants have taken a long time to reach their size. A cactus three inches in diameter may be more than twenty years old. To collect peyote properly, the button must be cleanly decapitated slightly above ground level. When the roots are left intact, new buds will form where the old one was removed. These will eventually develop into full-size buttons, which may be harvested as before. If the new heads are not allowed to reach full size and flower, however, no seedling will be produced and eventually the roots will expire. Faulty harvesting methods have seriously depleted populations of this cactus. (Finding and Picking Peyote)

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Ronin Publishing; 2nd edition (July 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 091417195X
• ISBN-13: 978-0914171959
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #936,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants > Cacti & Succulents

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PeYoTe, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Peyote and Other Psychoactive Cacti (Paperback)

This book provides good information layed out in an easy to read format on the cultivation, consumption, legality, and history of peyote and other similar cacti. It also gives a breakdown of the alkaloids in peyote and gives detailed methods for mescaline extraction (you know...for resaerch purposes). It also includes pictures and descriptions of other cacti containing alkaloids similar to peyote. The only shortcoming I find in this book is the lack of any research reports on the harmful effects of peyote, but that could be because there has been very little research done on it. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in peyote for any purpose.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so impressed, October 10, 2005

By 

Growmyco "Mycogrow" (midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peyote and Other Psychoactive Cacti (Paperback)

This book is ok, if you want to learn about native use and things like that. It has good descriptions of lots of rare entheogenic cacti. If all you want to know how to do, is cultivate Lophophora and Tichocerous, the internet has better information.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better to buy Anderson's Book, May 18, 2006

By 

Man - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peyote and Other Psychoactive Cacti (Paperback)

I recently bought this book after purchasing a few Lophophora specimens, and was somewhat dissappointed. Much of the information is sparse or inaccurate, and overall you come away having learned little. It is vague in describing the effects and chemistry of the plant, and minimal effort is made to try and describe different species and varieties.

A much better book to buy would be "Peyote: The Divine Cactus", by Edward F. Anderson. It gives a detailed ethnographic history of peyote, describing the modern ceremonies of the Navajo, Plains, Huichol, and many other Indian Tribes. He studies its effects on humans in detail, its chemistry, legal aspects of peyote, and (most importantly!) the botany of Peyote, giving a comprehensive view of the species as well as its different taxonomic varieties (eg. L. williamsi, L. diffusa, L. jourdania, L. fricii, L. decipiens, etc.). Much of the information contained within cannot be found on the internet.

Although most of Gottlieb's material is dealt with in Anderson's book, nevertheless the practical information on grafting and mescaline extration is much more detailed in Gottlieb's (probably because of the different target audiences :-)

All in all, still good to have as an accompaniment.