Full Description
Exploring psychedelic spiritual practices and afterlife beliefs among the Mississippi mound cultures
• Examines the Path of Souls or Trail of Ghosts, a Native American model for the after-death journey
• Demonstrates how psychoactive plants were used to evoke the liminal state between life and death in initiatory rites and spirit journeys
• Explores the symbology of the large earthwork mounds erected by the Indigenous people of the Mississippi Valley and how they connect to the Path of Souls
The use of hallucinogenic substances like peyote and desert tobacco has long played a significant role in the spiritual practices and traditions of Native Americans. While the majority of those practices are well documented, the relationship between entheogens and Native Americans of the Southeast has gone largely unexplored.
Examining the role of psychoactive plants in afterlife traditions, sacred rituals, and spirit journeying by shamans of the Mississippian mound cultures, P. D. Newman explores in depth the Native American death journey known as the "Trail of Ghosts" or "Path of Souls." He demonstrates how practices such as fasting and trancework when used with psychedelic plants like jimsonweed, black nightshade, morning glory, and amanita and psilocybin mushrooms could evoke the liminal state between life and death in initiatory rites and spirit journeys for shamans and chiefs. He explores the earthwork and platform mounds built by Indigenous cultures of the Mississippi Valley, showing how they quite likely served as early models for the Path of Souls. He also explores similarities between the Ghost Trail afterlife journey and the well-known Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead.
Contents
Foreword by Christine VanPool
PREFACE
Finding the Path of Souls
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Meet the MIIS-sissippians
ONE
Native American Intoxicants
TWO
A Cavern of Sacred Visions
THREE
A Finger Pointing at the Cahokia Moon
FOUR
A Lodge of Spirits at Spiro
FIVE
Lost Marbles at Etowah
SIX
The Necropolis of Moundville
SEVEN
Magic Plants and Shamanism in the MIIS
EIGHT
The Missihuasca Hypothesis
Closing Remarks
APPENDIX
The Legend of Miskwedo
by Keewaydinoquay Pakawakuk Peschel
Notes
Bibliography
Index
