For thirty years ethnobotanists have bemoaned the fact that Phantastica has been impossible to find now this landmark of psychedelic research is once again available.Phantastica: A Classic Survey on the Use and Abuse of Mind-Altering Plants by Louis Lewin, M.D. Lewin traveled extensively and acquired an astounding variety of knowledge, and this is reflected in the book, which provides detailed information on all major drugs of the time, including opium, cocaine, heroin, cannabis, peyote, alcohol, kava, coffee, tea, cocoa, and, of course, tobacco. Lewin, a world-renowned pharmacologist and toxicologist, was fascinated by both, and Phantastica was the first book to bring scientific insights to a survey of the use of drugs around the world. Until Lewin, books on the use of drugs were purely works of anthropology, concerned with how people used these plants rather than how the plants produced their famous effects. 'The publication of Louis Lewin's Phantastica in 1924 began an era of ethnobotany that is still flowering today. It was a thick book, dense with matter and, in manner, a model of all that literary style should not be.'įrom the back cover of the Park Street Press edition: The price was not high I paid and carried home the unpromising-looking treasure. 'The Other Day I discovered, dusty and neglected on one of the upper shelves of the local bookshop, a ponderous work by a German pharmacologist. Here is the cover of the French edition, with a preface by Jean Thuillier and a Rorschach-like inkblot on the cover.Īldous Huxley wrote on the book in ' A Treatise on drugs': The text is an early attempt at a categorisation of psychoactive drugs and while, in many respects, it is dated, especially pharmacologically, it still remains an important document both as a resource for historical information and as a fascinating curiosity, which had a huge affect on drug writing in the twentieth century.

Originally published in Germany in 1924 ‘Phantastica’ by Louis Lewin was first published in English in 1931. Walter Benjamin 'read from cover to cover' according to Scott Thompson's essay ' From Rausch to Rebellion: Walter Benjamin on Hashish'.

Phantastica (1924) is a book by Louis Lewin on hallucinogens and entheogens such as peyote and ayahuasca.

Phantastica by Louis Lewin