ENTHEOGENS

Richard Evans Schultes
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Richard Evans Schultes
Born January 12, 1915
Died April 10, 2001
Residence Cambridge, Massachusetts
Citizenship United States
Nationality American
Fields ethnobotany
Institutions Harvard University
Alma mater Harvard University
Doctoral advisor Oakes Ames
Known for studying Native American uses of entheogenic or hallucinogenic plants; ethnobotanical discoveries including source of the dart poison (curare); alerted world to destruction of Amazon rainforest and peoples
Influences Oakes Ames, Richard Spruce
Influenced E.O. Wilson, Andrew Weil
Daniel Goleman, Alan Ginsberg
Alejo Carpentier, William S. Burroughs
Wade Davis, Mark Plotkin, Terence McKenna
Notable awards Gold Medal -Linnean Society of London
Gold Medal - World Wildlife Fund
The Cross of Boyaca Colombia's Highest Honor
For other persons named Richard Evans, see Richard Evans (disambiguation).
Richard Evans Schultes (SHULL-tees) (January 12, 1915 – April 10, 2001) may be considered the father of modern ethnobotany, for his studies of indigenous peoples' (especially the indigenous peoples of the Americas) uses of plants, including especially entheogenic or hallucinogenic plants (particularly in Mexico and the Amazon), for his lifelong collaborations with chemists, and for his charismatic influence as an educator at Harvard University on a number of students and colleagues who went on to write popular books and assume influential positions in museums, botanical gardens, and popular culture.
His book The Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers (1979), co-authored with chemist Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, is considered his greatest popular work: it has never been out of print and was revised into an expanded second edition, based on a German translation by Christian Rätsch (1998), in 2001.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Influences
3 Distinctions
4 Selected works
5 Quotations
6 See also
7 Notes
8 External links
[edit]Biography

A Harvard student himself from 1934 to 1941, Schultes studied with Oakes Ames, orchidologist and Director of the Harvard Botanical Museum, who influenced his student research with the ritual use of peyote cactus among the Kiowa of Oklahoma, as well as his discovery of the lost identity of the Mexican hallucinogenic plants teonanácatl (various mushrooms belonging to the Psilocybe genus) and ololiuqui (a morning glory species) in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The first of many prolonged trips to the Upper Amazon began in 1941 as a Harvard Research Associate, and included a search for wild disease-resistant rubber species in an effort to free the United States from dependence on Southeast Asian rubber plantations which had become unavailable due to Japanese occupation in World War II. The effort to create blight resistant rubber plantations in Central and South America was eventually terminated for political reasons despite protests from rubber companies, including Firestone. No remaining rubber trees collected by Schultes are being cultivated for the production of rubber.
Schultes' botanical fieldwork among Native American communities led him to be one of the first to alert the world about destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the disappearance of its native people. He collected over 30,000 herbarium specimens (including 300 species new to science) and published numerous ethnobotanical discoveries including the source of the dart poison known as curare, now commonly employed as a muscle relaxant during surgery.
Schultes became Curator of Harvard's Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium in 1953, Curator of Economic Botany in 1958, and Professor of Biology in 1970. His ever-popular undergraduate course on Economic Botany was noted for his Victorian demeanor, lectures delivered while wearing a white lab coat, insistence on memorization of systematic botanical names, films depicting native ritual use of plant inebriants, blow pipe demonstrations, and hands-on labs (plant sources of grain, paper, caffeine, dyes, medicines, tropical fruits). His composed and kindly persona combined with expressive eye gestures masked his exotic experience and helped capture the imagination of the many students he inspired.
[edit]Influences

Schultes' personal hero was Richard Spruce, a naturalist who spent seventeen years exploring the Amazon Rainforest.
Schultes, in both his life and his work, has directly influenced notable people as diverse as biologist E.O. Wilson, physician Andrew Weil, psychologist Daniel Goleman, poet Allen Ginsberg, and authors Alejo Carpentier and William S. Burroughs. Tim Plowman, authority on the genus Erythroxylum (coca) and ethnobotanist Wade Davis were his students at Harvard.
[edit]Distinctions

Schultes received numerous awards and decorations including:
Gold Medal from the Linnean Society of London (1992), the most prestigious prize in botany;
Gold Medal from the World Wildlife Fund, considered by some to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Conservation.
[edit]Selected works

Schultes, Richard Evans (1976). Hallucinogenic Plants. illus. Elmer W. Smith. New York: Golden Press. ISBN 0-307-24362-1.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and Albert Hofmann (1979). Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-056089-7.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and Albert Hofmann (1980). The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens (2nd ed. ed.). Springfield, Ill.: Thomas. ISBN 0-398-03863-5.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and William A. Davis, with Hillel Burger (1982). The Glass Flowers at Harvard. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0-525-93250-X.
Schultes, Richard Evans (1988). Where the Gods Reign: Plants and Peoples of the Colombian Amazon. Oracle, Ariz.: Synergetic Press. ISBN 0-907791-13-1.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and Robert F. Raffauf (1990). The Healing Forest: Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia. Portland, Or.: Dioscorides Press. ISBN 0-931146-14-3.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and Robert F. Raffauf (1992). Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia. Oracle, Ariz.: Synergetic Press. ISBN 0-907791-24-7.
Schultes, Richard Evans; and Siri von Reis (eds.) (1995). Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Portland, Or.: Dioscorides Press. ISBN 0-931146-28-3.
[edit]Quotations


This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)
"You are not going back to the States, you are going right down into the Amazon and try to get the Indians to tap wild rubber. The Japanese have taken over all of Southeast Asia—we have no more rubber, which is essential, especially for the heavy military planes."
"You have a feeling of achievement when you discover a new plant, even a plant that has no use." — Richard Evans Schultes
"When he would make a mistake in class, students would shrug it off as the side effect from being intoxicated so many times" — The Lost Amazon
The author of a Los Angeles Times article stated "...a psychedelic trip as an earth shaking experience." In reply Schultes said, "That's funny, Bill, all I saw was colors."
Talking to a visitor of his station in the Amazon Schultes said, "Richard Spruce? He is my hero."
He also said, "I know every tree, every single tree one can see from here to the Jirijirimo."
[edit]See also

Ethnobiology
Psychedelic plants
[edit]Notes

^ Review of the expanded edition
[edit]External links

Audio of Richard Evans Schultes on Hallucinogenic Plants
The Richard E. Schultes Research Award'
New York Times obituary
Harvard Gazette
Harvard Square Library
Davis, Wade (1997). One River: Science, Adventure and Hallucinogenics in the Amazon Basin. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81812-4.
A Tribute to Richard Schultes
American Ethnography -- The appeal of peyote (Lophophora Williamsii) as a medicine
Photo of Richard E. Shultes
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v • d • e
Ethnobiology
Primary subdisciplines
Ethnobotany · Ethnozoology · Ethnoecology

Other subdisciplines
Ethnoentomology · Ethnoherpetology · Ethnolichenology · Ethnomycology · Ethnoornithology
Correlated fields
Cultural ecology · Ecological anthropology · Ethnoarchaeology · Ethnomedicine · Historical ecology · Human ecology · Paleoethnobotany · Zooarchaeology
Notable ethnobiologists
William Balée · Brent Berlin · Harold Conklin · Wade Davis · Roy Ellen · Gary P. Nabhan · Andrew Pawley · Darrell Posey · Richard E. Schultes · Manuel Torres · Nancy Turner
Category · Project