What do beer and alcohol have to do with gnosis and shamanism? Everything. In fact, they are a major part of understanding the ancient mysteries and religions – like the ancient and heavily psychoactive beer made by the Catholic brewers – Gruit, and the aqua vitae.
And were the German and other beer purity laws, the Reinheitsgebot, created to keep the beer pure? Or were they laws created by the protestants to keep psychoactive plants out?
Did the white man bring alcohol to the New World? Or were shamans brewing for centuries?
In this episode I interview Stephen Buhner, who is, in my opinion, one of the world’s leading experts in this field. Buhner is author of, amongst many other books, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation.
Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth poet and the award-winning author of ten books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, has been his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.
Stephen's work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman's Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectures yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind
necessary for successful habitation of Earth.
He is a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society - especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.
His most recent works are
The Secret Teachings of Plants:
The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature
(Bear and Company, 2004)
Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and Prevention of Lyme Borrelosis and its related Co-infections
(Raven Press, June 2005)
http://www.gaianstudies.org
