The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications

This review will be short and to the point. There is no greater single book on psychoactive plants than this book. Ratsch has done an amazing job. His book is mind-bogglingly thorough and exhaustive. It beats "Pharmacotheon" (Ott), "Plants of the Gods" (Ratch, Hofmann and Schultes) or any other book I have ever seen that attempts to be a complete source of information of psychoactive plants. I have been waiting for a book like this for years. I don't think this book could possibly be out-done for decades. At best, we can only hope to see books that would be something like supplimentary information in comparison to this book. If you want all of the information on psychoactive plants that you can possibly get in one book, this is the one and it is definately worth the admittedly huge price tag. I would not be surprised if this book will be sold for many hundreds of dollars if and when it is sold out. Let's hope it is reprinted for a long, long time.

Save time and research. This book is huge and packed. Has information on just about any natural drug source legal or not. This book is so big and packed full of information it would be hard to ever get tired of thumbing through this book.

This is a big heavy book with tons and tons of great info. Its amazing how many different plants and plant extracts are covered. Not only does it give good general information on the chemical substances that are found in all the various plants but it also gives a nice amount of background information on all the various cultures that have made use of those plants through out the ages. This book is a welcome addition to my personal library. :)

This is an unprecedentedly massive reference work centering on visionary plants. It's an order of magnitude larger than previous comprehensive entheogen reference works such as the High Times Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs, Hofmann's Plants of the Gods, Ott's Pharmacotheon, and Stafford's Psychedelics Encyclopedia.

At over 7 pounds, this book is packed with information! The first 700 pages of it are individual profiles of a wide range of psychoactive plants and fungi--including info on their active constituents, history, usage, and cultivation. The remainder of the book is broken into two sections, one describing major classes of chemicals, and the other focused on plant mixtures and legendary compounds like soma. This is primarily a reference work, but it's more entertaining and comprehensive than Ott's Pharmacotheon. It's only major flaw is failing as an effective identification guide. All of the images are small, about 2" x 2" and relegated to the margins. While peppered with Ratsch's own photos which are unavailable elsewhere, there are few botanical illustrations other than some of the commonly seen historical woodcuts. Ratsch chooses to give us a comprehensive view of the information available rather than leaning towards practical application. Plants like monkshood and Datura are mentioned as dangerous only in passing. Dosage guidelines in general are rather vague. Heimia salicifolia and puffball mushrooms are included based on their rumored effectiveness--along with research that contradicts it. He typically presents all the evidence and leaves it up to the reader to make their own educated decisions. Ratsch does a superb job collating all the data currently available from various sources and adds to it his own research and insights. And unlike most other books on entheogens, he also covers stimulant and sedative plants and even some of the less psychoactive herbals. In spite of it's lack of illustrations, if you buy one reference on psychoactive plants this is the book you'll want.