By the time the poet, plant alchemist, and sometimes computer programmer Dale Pendell published his mammoth three-volume Pharmako trilogy this last decade, the world had seen at least a century of texts attempting to squeeze spiritual insight and religious correlates out of psychoactive experience. Pendell, however, managed to write a work of erudition and imagination that was not only strikingly original, but also wise. Whipper-snappers would do well to study the content of these great books, along with their form--a patchwork of citations and lore and lyric flights that express the multidimensional quality of psychoactives themselves.. . . (more)

The California-based poet and herbalist Dale Pendell has made the place of plant knowledge his home. In three volumes-- Pharmako/Poeia (1994), Pharmako/Dynamis (2002), and now Pharmako/Gnosis (2005)--he has covered the gamut from the stimulants to the sedatives, and with his latest has given us an extensive treatment of the hallucinogens.. . . (more)