The Herb Dangerous series is comprised of four distinct works by four different authors. They are collected here under one cover, along with a 65-page introduction by Israel Regardie, who was one of Crowley’s best students and widely considered to be one of the twentieth century’s most important occult authors. [...] I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the relationship between psychoactives and the mystical or religious experience… [ read more ]

This book is particularly memorable for its many wonderful accounts of animal intoxication. Despite the title, most of the cases that Samorini recounts do not involve psychedelics, though he does describe some greedy goats refusing to share Psilocybe mushrooms. Like Jonathan Ott in Pharmacophilia, Samorini contends that intoxication is natural. It is an instinctual drive commonly found in many animal species, and not the debased artifact of corrupt human society that it is commonly believed to be. [ read more ]