Definitive look at India's Hindu holy men and their culture. The Sadhus collectively are hundreds of separate and different sects, each with certain beliefs and practices. These mystical holy men practice “enlightenment for the real purpose of life”—the basic concept of Indian culture. They devote themselves full time to exploration of the “Inner Light.” The Sadhus choose a life free of all but a few small possessions and comforts, and no sensual pleasures whatsoever. Many smoke hashish and practice yoga to gain enlightenment. The author systematically photographed these holy men and explains the many different devotional styles—such as standing or keeping their right arm raised for years—as homage to specific gods. Bewildering and relentless—many color photos. DW

Publisher: Inner Traditions
Paperback: 128 pages
Illustrated

McKenna and Co. study psilocybin- and DMT- containing plants and their way of introducing the mind to the little machine elves of consciousness. A botanical trek through a South American river basin to search out a slowly dying breed: mystical Indians and shamans who are the keepers of the knowledge of yage and the strongest, most taboo version of DMT containing the tree resin known as oo-koo-hé. They try to find its relation to human consciousness and language and along the way discover many reasons to preserve the planet. Many personal sorting-outs between brothers and friends are complicated by mushroom consumption and DMT “study.” Mixing the two drugs psilocybin and DMT apparently has some ESP-type effects on the human mind. But this all proves to be just the tip of the iceberg—the DMT experience is as much as one mind can take without the “categories of consciousness being permanently re-written.” When asked if it is a dangerous drug, “the proper answer is that it is only dangerous if you feel threatened by the possibility of death by astonishment.” For great is the amazement that comes from dissolving the boundaries between our world and another dimension! DW

Publisher: HarperCollins
Paperback: 256 pages

The Game of Life is not simply a book: It is an experience. It is an organic computer. Leary uses ancient symbols to get his point across. But when he uses ancient symbols, they are no longer ancient, they are simply intelligence. Aleister Crowley's most dedicated student, Israel Regardie, wrote of Timothy Leary: “Posterity, I am certain, will have a finer appreciation of what he has contributed to the world than we have today.” DW

Publisher: New Falcon
Paperback: 294 pages
Illustrated

A complex and well-presented book on carnivorous plants from around the world and how to propagate, cultivate and care for them.
This book reflects 25 years experience and knowledge-gathering by the authors and includes data on the history, native environment and different trapping devices of the many species discussed in this book. The first part of this book deals with the various types or genera and is grouped by their means of entrapment:
• Dionaea, or Venus Flytrap (traps insects by quickly snapping shut)
• Pitcher plants (traps insects in hollow tube of the leaf)
• Sundew types (covered with sticky hairs to trap insects)
• Butterworts (sticky leaves trap insects)
• Bladderworts (trap door shuts trapping prey, some aquatic)
Later chapters continue with cultivation, pests and diseases, propagation and hybridization. Many color photos and black-and-white drawings of these otherworldly-looking plants and their flowers.
Carnivorous plants are some 136 million years old. The origins of carnivorous plants is not certain, but it is believed that shallow depressions formed in the leaves, trapping rain and insects. The plants benefited from the decomposing insects and the nutrients were absorbed through leaves. Later they developed more elaborate traps to help the plant survive in nutrient-poor soil. Which brings us to the question, what exactly is plant carnivorousness? What characteristics must a plant have to be considered carnivorous? “When this definition is applied, it evokes visions of snarling green jaws snapping at nearby animal life, not so.” Basically it has to attract prey (with odors, colors, etc.), trap prey, secrete digestive enzymes and absorb digested material, and there you have it. DW

Publisher: Timber
Paperback: 206 pages
Illustrated

Technology may be developing a little too quickly for its own good. The environmental consequences of nuclear power, fossil fuel, global warming and acid rain are being demonstrated by scientists, as we go from “technology worship to global concern.” Certain side effects of electricity are also gaining some attention. During the past few years much research has been done on the effects of weak electromagnetic energy fields on cells and organisms. This is the same kind of electromagnetism that comes from many daily-used household items as well as in power lines overhead. This book focuses on the question: Is there an association between electromagnetic fields and human health? It also presents the background needed to understand the different dimensions of this complex question. The answers are still not clear and are being studied and debated continually. Computer monitors, electric blankets and cellular phones, among other devices have become suspect. DW

Publisher: New Star
Paperback: 207 pages

This enormous work represents nearly half a century of field research in the Northwest Amazon encompassing parts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. While the Northwest region represents only a small part of the entire Amazonian drainage area, it is in many respects the most complex and varied part of the forest; it has also been the least studied. The authors, with backgrounds in ethnobotany and phytochemistry, have included and described nearly 1,500 species and variants, representing 596 genera in 145 plant families. Of these, half have had little or no real investigation of their chemical and pharmacological properties. The Amazon represents a storehouse of as much as 16 percent of the plant species existing on Earth today. The native peoples of the area have retained their knowledge of the medicines and poisons derived from this diverse flora. The authors emphasize the importance of ethnobotanical conservation, and call attention to the fact that from these plants might come new chemical compounds of value to modern medicine and industry. It is their hope that this work will not only alert future generations of phytochemists to the potential of the Amazon as a source of new medicinal, toxic or other useful compounds, but in so doing will also assist in the conservation of the folklore record of the Indian peoples in this richly endowed region, which is so important to the welfare of mankind. DW

Publisher: Timber
Hardback: 484 pages
Illustrated

A unique, definitive and breathtaking five-year photographic record of London’s Torture Garden—the world’s largest and probably most famous fetish club. This deluxe book explores and celebrates the boundaries of the body and human sexuality with an extraordinary collection of images by the scene’s two leading photographers, Jeremy Cadaver and Alan Sivroni. Includes 350 original photographs with over 50 color plates. Featured are some of the most decadent people on this or any other planet. One person opens a wine bottle with a corkscrew going through his nose, then hangs an electric iron from his penis and nipples with a bungee cord, while on another page, a women showers the crowd with fiery sparks from an electric grinder buried in her crotch! DW

Publisher: Creation
Paperback: 160 pages
Illustrated

A most disturbing and depressing photographic essay about the Khmer Rouge, who were in power under Pol Pot in Cambodia for over three years. After seizing power in ‘75 they started “cleaning house” and taking prisoners. Photographs of each prisoner before interrogation, torture and ultimately the execution of some 14,000 people. Believing, it seems, that they were destroying traitors who were infecting the Communist Party. The photos and documentation were apparently meant to be used by officials as an example of their “progress” against the enemies of the revolution.Only seven of the people pictured survived. One survivor named Nath tells his grim story of torture and starvation in a Cambodian prison. S-21 is the innteragation facility at Tuol Sleng Prison, the Cambodian equivalent of Auschwitz. One day Nath was “appointed” to cut rattan in the forest. He said goodbye to his family and not knowing his fate, left and was taken to Tuol Sleng. But he was an honest man and didn’t know why he was arrested. At the prison, torture and forced confessions were the order of the day, although the people confessing were usually innocent of the crime they confessed to, Pol Pot and Duch (the chief of the prison) being the guilty ones with paranoid delusions. Vietnamese troops finally overthrow their regime. Nath escaped with his life and managed to find his wife but learned his children had died of disease and starvation. Later that same year the Museum of Genocide was created on the grounds of the former prison were these photos were taken, bleak reminders of that inhumane cruelty. One look and one can sense the impending doom; one look and one is inside S-21. DW

Publisher: Twin Palms
Hardback: 124 pages
Illustrated

With a foreword by none other than Dick Dale. Crammed with black-and-white photos of 45 rpm record labels and LP covers circa 1961 to 1965, and lots of posters too. Discover bands with names like: Bobsled and the Toboggans, Surf Bunnies, Eddie and the Showmen, Goldfinger Girls, the Daiquiris, etc. Lists hundreds of bands with a paragraph or so about the outstanding ones (marked by a little surfboard icon). Index alone is 50 pages. DW

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 286 pages
Illustrated

A visit to New York’s creepy, actual underground where the “mole people” live. Underground New York is riddled with abandoned subways and tunnels, so many that the city has lost track of them all and has no real documentation of their existence. There, under the city, is where the “mole people” live—some in complete communities with appointed “mayors,” schools and children who have never seen the sun.
The author, a young Columbia University student, becomes obsessed with writing about these elusive people. She befriends a few “mole people” and goes underground with their help to learn more. There she meets a tunnel dweller they call “Satan,” and barbecues some fresh rat meat (“track rabbits”) with another. She also comes across a gang of drug-dealer hit men but manages to get away unharmed by offering to tell their story in her book—a close call. She also brings to the attention of many what the city describes as a “few homeless” living underground and finds the actual numbers to be in the thousands. She helps a few, but others threaten her life and things get scary for her aboveground. DW

Publisher: Chicago Review
Paperback: 280 pages
Illustrated