This book is alive: it is corrected, expanded and reissued as research and feedback come in. This page lets anyone holding a copy locate their version and follow how the book has changed. Only major revisions are listed — a chapter added or rebuilt, a substantial regulatory update, a factual correction of consequence; minor adjustments (typos, layout) are not detailed.
Figure renumbering. The fifteen molecular plates carried a chemical index inherited from the drafting, uncoupled from the chapter number : the bufotenine formula, in chapter 07, was called « Figure 6.1 », the ibogaine formula, in chapter 12, « Figure 15.1 ». Two distinct plates — LSA and salvinorin A — moreover shared the same number. All now follow the convention Figure {chapter}.{index}, and the duplicate is resolved. No textual cross-reference cited these numbers ; the body of the book is unchanged.
The eight missing « Field notes » are written. The device is now complete : nine boxes, on the chapters where the author has direct observation — Tobacco, Rapé · Hapé, Ayahuasca, Jurema, 5-MeO-DMT, Kambô, Iboga, San Pedro · Huachuma and Psilocybes. Each runs to fifty or seventy words, in the first person, and carries what the chapter cannot : a gesture, an object, a body.
No box recommends, promises or reports a healing narrative, in keeping with the rule of the device. Their absence on the other chapters — Cacao and LSA in particular — signals that the author has no field of his own there, and that absence is itself information.
The edition is realigned on the French master, chapter by chapter. The four missing « State of the evidence » boxes are restored — Kambô, Iboga, San Pedro · Huachuma and LSA — and the « what field experience observes » panel, which had never been carried over, is restored inside the Ayahuasca and Psilocybes boxes, so that the triptych holds throughout. The twenty-six distinct titles of the practitioner section replace the generic label carried until now. The detailed description of Bwiti initiation, which appeared twice in the Iboga chapter, is consolidated into a single place with a cross-reference; three references are restored to Psilocybes, and the opening paragraph of the practitioner section to Kambô.
Two editorial corrections. Chapter Cacao : removal of the Field note box left in marker state. The chapter establishes that the contemporary cacao ceremony is a borrowing without filiation ; a first-person note would have blurred that or duplicated the prose. Its absence is consistent with the rule of the device, where the absence of a box signals that the author has no field of his own on that medicine.
Chapter San Pedro · Huachuma : three passages contradicted one another on the hour of the ceremony. The distinction is now held throughout the chapter — northern Peruvian curanderismo works at night, from nine in the evening until four or five in the morning, around the mesa ; it is the contemporary Andean ceremony that takes place by day, in the open.
The redesigned template extended to all twenty-six monographs. The two sections introduced on six pilot entries — “The work”, describing the practitioner's gesture, and “What one experiences”, reporting phenomenology in attributed form — now appear in every one of the twenty-six entries.
The no-filling rule has been held. Where the field is not documented, the void is declared rather than filled: Sananga has no attributed phenomenology in peer-reviewed literature; Acacia has no established traditional practice; Caffeine has no first-person account gathered in context; and the secrecy of the Ouricuri, in Jurema, is respected by the sources themselves.
Several common attributions are corrected. There is no ethnographic record of Indigenous use of the psychedelic in toad secretion; the Matsés do not appear among the peoples documented for sananga; psychoactive use of Acacia by the first Australians is not established; and cacao, in the contemporary Maya ceremonial inventory, is an offering burned in the Sacred Fire, not an ingested sacrament.
Withdrawal of an unverifiable attribution. The 2022 declaration ascribed to the Comcáac Indigenous Council, hitherto quoted verbatim, could not be sourced. The five passages that depended on it are reformulated on what is established: the absence of ethnographic evidence for ancestral use, and the contemporary claim of ancestrality set against it.
Tone pass — denominators, gradation, intonation. A transversal revision prompted by reader feedback on the tone of the book. Single-occurrence replacements throughout, with no change of structure and no removal of safety information.
The denominator rule. Mentions of mortality or serious incident given without a basis for comparison are requalified or quantified. Chapter Peyote: use of the safety denominator already supplied by the source cited in the bibliography (Bergman, American Journal of Psychiatry, 1971, “Navajo peyote use: its apparent safety”): about one adverse reaction per 70,000 ingestions, a rate the author calls probably overestimated. Chapter Mescaline: the absence of documented acute mortality at ceremonial doses is now stated positively. Chapter Tobacco: the three successive mentions of “several deaths” are unified into a single mention with cross-references, the missing denominator being declared; correction of an internal contradiction — the lethal dose of 30–60 mg of nicotine was asserted without reservation while the Dosages box of the same chapter presents it as contested (Mayer, 2014).
Correction of an unsupported claim (chapter Ibogaine). The clause holding that the documented deaths “confirm this toxicity as a structural clinical limit, not as an anecdotal accident” settled a question of frequency without any frequency being available: the sources cited (Alper 2012, Schep 2016) supply no denominator. The passage now states the fact, the constancy of the cause, and its largely avoidable character, and declares the gap instead of filling it.
Removal of two competing internal superlatives. Three chapters claimed the highest rank in the book for contraindications; the ranking cancelled itself out. The rank is kept for the chapter Iboga alone, where a mortality is quantified and where the protective measure follows immediately; Ayahuasca and Harmala & β-carbolines are brought back to the scale of their part.
Gradation of contraindications. Formulas of undifferentiated authority (“admits of no exception,” “are imperative”) are replaced by a distinction between what excludes and what can be lifted with a physician. Repetitions of the same alarming fact within a chapter are removed.
Intonation. Rewriting of passages where safety information was stated without subject or verb, or closed without a practicable course of action: every alert now ends on what protects.
Recasting of the chapter Cacao. The chapter is repositioned on a double distinction — sacred without being entheogenic, Mesoamerican ritual without the contemporary “cacao ceremony” descending from it. New opening and framing box. Section Myths & symbols rewritten: the case of Ixcacao, a “cacao goddess” omnipresent in the commercial literature but not attested in the Classic Maya sources, is kept as an explicit example of the mechanism. New subsection An invented tradition (genealogy, borrowing without lineage, economic asymmetry, a note of fairness on the Kaqchikel tostadoras). Pharmacological corrections: phenylethylamine is degraded by the digestive and hepatic monoamine oxidases before any central passage — the same metabolic obstacle that renders DMT inactive by the oral route — and the quantities of anandamide involved are far below any threshold of central effect.
Layout compaction, with content strictly unchanged. The data boxes were set as stacked definition lists, which doubled their height. Two settings replace them, chosen by content: inline for boxes with long values, including all the contraindications, and in two aligned columns for the tabular boxes — pharmacokinetic profiles and dose equivalences — where the values are short and compare vertically. The change is carried by the style sheet alone: every box in the book adopts it without a word of text being modified. The Notes & references sections are likewise set in two columns at a reduced size, with no reference removed.
Enrichment — pharmacological architecture of dosing. Chapter Dose and effect: a non-linear relationship: two sections added. “What has a ceiling, what does not” distinguishes the saturation of perceptual intensity from the continuous growth of the anxious load, on the basis of the Hirschfeld et al. meta-analysis (2023, 765 LSD administrations, 16 studies) — the demonstration bears on LSD, the published data not allowing it to be established for psilocybin. “How long the onset takes” adds a table of the delays to first effects and to the plateau by preparation and route of administration, explicitly given as orders of magnitude, and the re-dosing rule that follows from it: no decision to re-dose before the plateau of the previous intake has been reached. Two references added to this chapter.
New transversal chapter — The second ceiling: what really limits a dose (Transversal reference points, between Dose and effect and Microdosing). This chapter treats the limit that precedes the lethal dose: the physiological functions that give way first (serotonergic interaction, cardiac conduction, breathing, cholinergic system, neuronal excitability, electrolyte balance), with a summary table by substance, and the question of the mass one doses on — the psychoactive effect is dosed in absolute value, the margin of toxicity by weight. A section “What we do not know” explicitly delimits what belongs to coherent hypothesis and not to demonstration.
Factual correction. The chapter Dose and effect announced “at least six distinct ways” whereas seven deformations are described there; now read seven. EN edition.
Enrichment — contemporary practices (Psilocybes and Salvia divinorum chapters). Psilocybes chapter: added three subsections under “Contemporary practices” — psilocybin honey (“blue honey”), presented as a practice of taste rather than a demonstrated pharmacological enhancement (the oxidation of psilocin degrades the active molecule, it does not concentrate it); mushroom infusions and tea; and cacao / Syrian rue / LSA combinations, which develop the “psilohuasca” cross-reference already present in the chapter The body's terrain — metabolism, variability, interactions — MAOI potentiation (Peganum harmala, cf. chapter Harmala & β-carbolines), a documented clinical case of hypertensive crisis (psilocybin + MAOI + stimulant), and a caution on experimental stacking with LSA (cf. chapter LSA), undocumented in the literature. Salvia divinorum chapter: detail on how the traditional Mazatec ritual unfolds (dosing in leaf pairs, duration); a section on Salvia “tea,” flagging that this preparation contradicts the pharmacokinetics already established in this chapter (salvinorin A inactivated by the oral route) and should be held to be of uncertain efficacy; a deeper look at reinforced extracts and vaporization. Cross-check performed for the Iboga chapter: the source consulted (a general-audience specialized blog, non-academic) adds nothing that this chapter does not already document with greater rigor (no figures, no cited study) — no change made. EN edition.
Restructuring of the closing diptych — merged into the opening Transversal reference points. The “Closing transversal reference points” part, introduced the day before, disappears: it held only two chapters and created excessive fragmentation of the structure (an isolated chapter sandwiched between two atlas monographs). Its two chapters — “What the earth gives, what we take back” (ecological sustainability) and “What tradition found, what the market encloses” (pharmaceutical appropriation) — join the opening “Transversal reference points” part, right after “How long does it stay in the blood?” and before “Distinguish, know, respect.” Their prose was revised accordingly: retrospective phrasing (“this book has already named,” “the reader has already encountered”) became neutral or prospective, these two chapters now preceding the atlas instead of following it.
“Accompanying plants” (Tobacco, Rapé·Hapé, Sananga) is moved before Part I “Visionary tryptamines,” with a revised opening paragraph announcing that these plants will be revisited in Volume II in their concrete ceremonial use. Table of contents, revision history, and section sequencing updated accordingly; monograph numbering unchanged (this part remains unnumbered, as before). EN edition.
New closing transversal reference point, second panel. Added the chapter “What the earth gives, what we take back” (ecological sustainability of sacred medicines), placed just before “What tradition found, what the market encloses” within the same “Closing transversal reference points” part, now forming the intended diptych: the living thing that gets extracted, then the law that closes over it. Connects Peyote, Iboga, and Jaguar, already treated in the atlas, to Western demand pressure on slow-growing resources, and documents two angles new to this book: the unstructured harvest of the ayahuasca vine for export (Peru, Brazil) and the forest footprint of Cambodian safrole in MDMA synthesis. Sources verified (Cactus Conservation Institute, UNODC, Chacruna Institute/kahpi.net, Mongabay Brasil/Agência Pública 2026). One point is flagged as an open hypothesis rather than a fact: a possible export pressure on jurema, for which no source has been found to date. Table of contents, revision history, and the part's opening paragraph updated accordingly. EN edition.
New closing transversal reference point. Added the chapter “What tradition found, what the market encloses” (pharmaceutical appropriation of sacred medicines), in a new “Closing transversal reference points” part placed after Part VII and before “Accompanying plants.” Connects Iboga, Jaguar/5-MeO-DMT, MDMA, and Psilocybes, already treated in the atlas, to the dynamic of patent capture (deuterated forms, pure enantiomers, “non-hallucinogenic” analogs) rather than capture of the molecule itself. Sources verified (Lilly press release, USPTO, Georgetown Journal of International Law, Psychedelic Alpha Q3 2026). Table of contents and part counters updated. EN edition.
Clinical pipeline update (Q3 2026). LSD chapter: MindMed becomes Definium Therapeutics (January 2026) and MM-120 ODT becomes DT120 ODT; integrated the positive result of the Emerge phase 3 trial in major depression (June 22, 2026 — 8.1 placebo-adjusted MADRS points at six weeks after a single 100 µg dose), the first positive phase 3 of a lysergamide compound. MDMA chapter: Lykos Therapeutics, restructured, becomes Resilient Pharmaceuticals and resubmits its dossier at the end of 2025 (review potentially accelerated by Executive Order 14401). Psilocybes chapter: added two related programs — luvésilocine (RE104) from Reunion Neuroscience for postpartum depression (positive phase 2 RECONNECT, FDA Breakthrough Therapy February 23, 2026, phase 3 announced) and bretisilocin (GM-2505), a 5-HT2A agonist acquired by AbbVie in 2025 (up to $1.2 billion). 5-MeO-DMT chapter: Beckley Psytech merges with atai to form AtaiBeckley; announcement, July 16, 2026, of its acquisition by Eli Lilly (up to $3.8 billion, not yet closed at the time of writing). Factual correction to the glossary: MDMA remains Schedule I (“until 2024” wording removed). Sources: Psychedelic Drug Development Bullseye Charts, Psychedelic Alpha, Q3 2026; Definium Therapeutics, Reunion Neuroscience, AbbVie, and Gilgamesh press releases; Fierce Biotech, Psychiatric Times. EN edition.
Structural reorganization of the atlas. “Distinguish, know, respect” moves to just before the atlas (after the transversal reference points), as its threshold. The “Amazonian master plants” part (tobacco, rapé·hapé, sananga) is moved to the end of the atlas and renamed “Accompanying plants” (support plants of ceremonial work), followed by “Other master plants & medicines worth knowing” — the former “Complementary panorama,” which disappears as an annex. Monographs are renumbered in reading order (Iboga 11, Ibogaine 12, … Cacao 23); the two closing sections are unnumbered. Cross-references harmonized to name-based (stable); table of contents and part counters recomputed. Geographic-labeling check (Africa): origin notes added for boldo do Brasil (Plectranthus barbatus) and espada de São Jorge (Sansevieria trifasciata). EN edition.
Reorganization — transversal reference points & harmonization. The transversal chapters “Dose and effect,” “Microdosing,” “The Molecule Is Perishable” and “How long does it stay in the blood?” move from the end-matter annexes to a new part “Transversal reference points” placed before the atlas. Table of contents and internal cross-references updated. Chapter headers revised: the number/label becomes a discreet kicker, no longer a heading at the same level as the chapter title. The LSA molecule returned to black (harmonized with the other, monochrome structures). EN edition.
New annex — microdosing. Added the annex “Microdosing: promise, proof, and prudence,” placed after “Dose and effect: a non-linear relationship”. It opens with a subsection “How much, and what for? — Microdose, psycholytic, psychedelic” situating microdosing among the three regimes of use (comparative table; Sandison/Leuner, Osmond/Hoffer/Grof, Griffiths 2011 landmarks), then treats microdosing for itself: cultural rise (Fadiman 2011), named protocols (Fadiman, Stamets stack) and dose imprecision, psychoplastogens (Ly & Olson 2018), the evidence controversy (Szigeti 2021 versus Polito & Liknaitzky 2024) and methodological traps, long-term safety — 5-HT2B valvular risk of the classic psychedelics (Tagen 2023, Rouaud 2024) and iboga’s rhythmic load —, claimed indications and the cluster-headache case (Sewell 2006). Descriptive stance, no usage advice.
Enrichment — ibogaine cardiac safety (chapter Ibogaine). Integration of recent data (Brunt review, Addiction, 2026; Knuijver cohort, 2022) without duplicating the existing text: pathological QTc thresholds (≥ 450 ms men / ≥ 460 ms women), refutation of the “pre-existing cardiac morbidity required” premise (fatal events at therapeutic doses in subjects without history), incidence of QTc prolongation in a monitored cohort, effective-dose / safe-dose tension (EC50 ≈ 10× below the therapeutic peak), respective roles of parent ibogaine and noribogaine (hysteresis), limited efficacy of interventions once the torsade is under way and the magnesium-sulfate prophylactic avenue, addition of the oxa-iboga analogue. Recompilation to follow.
New annex — molecule conservation. Added the annex “The Molecule Is Perishable” (preparation and storage temperatures, shelf life, and resistance over time of the active principles), placed after “Dose and effect: a non-linear relationship”. Covers tryptamines, β-carbolines, mescaline, ibogaine, LSD, salvinorin A, cannabinoids, and muscimol; four technical boxes (protecting group, blueing, β-carboline interconversion, limits of re-cooking), a summary table, and a “What science does not yet say” section. Primary sources cited; gaps flagged for 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin.
Regulatory & clinical update — 5-MeO-DMT. Added, in the “Legality — in 2026” annex (France profile), the ANSM decision of 12/05/2026 (in force 10/06/2026) classing seven synthetic tryptamine derivatives — including 5-MeO-DMT — on the narcotics list. Update of the clinical development of mebufotenin in chapters 5-MeO-DMT (5-MeO-DMT) and 10 (Jaguar): FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation for BPL-003 (16/10/2025) and entry into phase 3 (ReConnection-1 and ReConnection-2 trials, 2026). Factual correction of the BPL-003 route of administration (intranasal, not sublingual or intramuscular).
Huni Kuin ethnographic corrections & archaeological anchoring. Corrected the genre of the Huni Kuin ceremonial songs: huni meka (songs of the nixi pae, in three registers pae txanima / dautibuya / kayatibu) instead of saiti, a genre kept for the Yawanawá — opening section (“Songs & music”), chapters Ayahuasca and Rapé · Hapé. Native gloss of the name nixi pae (“thread of light”, Tuim Nova Era). Added the archaeological evidence of the Cueva del Chileno (Tiwanaku ritual bundle, 905–1170 CE, harmine-DMT-bufotenin-cocaine residues; Miller et al., PNAS, 2019) to chapters Ayahuasca and Rapé · Hapé. Corrected the tepi / kuripe inversion in chapter Rapé · Hapé (the tepi is administered by a third party, the kuripe serves for self-application — brought into line with the glossary). Main source: Bomfim, Revista Vórtex 13, 2025.
Two transversal annexes & regulatory additions. Added the annexes “Dose and effect: a non-linear relationship” (an illustrated typology of dose-response regimes — supra-linearity, ceiling, threshold, rupture, biphasic, accumulation, tachyphylaxis) and “How long does it stay in the blood?” (blood detection windows, half-lives, blood/urine/hair matrices). Ayahuasca legality additions (Switzerland, France, Brazil) integrated into the relevant entries. Style pass: removal of ordinal enumerations in prose.
Direct contact. Added a WhatsApp QR code (wa.link/vx6wj1) to the “About the author” note, for reaching the author directly.
Editorial enrichments. Added a preface note “Do these experiences tell us anything true?” (Smith-Ruiu / Leterrier). New “Contemporary practices” section in the Tobacco chapter. References completed (Riba 2003/2012, Glick 1996/2000, Bussmann & Sharon 2006/2015, LSA review 2025) and Mayer 2014 added. Nicotine LD50 reworded. Section titles harmonized (“Medical applications”) and a “Myths & symbols” heading added to San Pedro.
Working edition opened. New editorial iteration; no content change relative to v1.5 at this stage. Number incremented to prepare the ground for the next enrichments.
Consolidated edition since first publication. This version gathers all the enrichments made since v1.0. Addition of the LSA chapter (ergine, the principle of the sacred morning glories / Aztec ololiuqui) in Part VII, bringing the atlas to 26 monographs, with the corresponding row in the annex “Legality — in 2026.” Addition of the opening chapter “The body’s terrain — metabolism, variability, interactions” (pharmacokinetics, cytochromes CYP2D6/CYP3A4, metaboliser profiles, phenoconversion, PK/PD interactions, serotonin syndrome, tyramine), illustrated with six worked encounters. Major factual correction in the Iboga chapter: the estimate of ibogaine in Bwiti initiation, previously inconsistent and far above the documented lethal threshold, is brought down to a cautious range (of the order of 1 to 4 g cumulatively, several times the clinical flood dose). Reorganization of Part I: chapters Acacia (06) and Bufotenin (07) swapped, to close the visionary tryptamines and ease the transition to the amphibian medicines. Harmonised internal anchor system and numbering (01–26). Simultaneous publication of all three editions — FR, EN-US (Sacred Medicines), PT-BR (Medicinas Sagradas) — harmonised terminologically after cross-review, and addition of the website link (sacred-medicines.com) on the title page, the back cover, and the author note.
First published edition. A critical atlas of 25 monographs distributed across eight parts (visionary tryptamines, amphibian medicines, iboga complex, phenethylamines & cacti, sacred mushrooms, lysergics & atypicals, methylxanthines, completed by accompanying plants and a panorama of other medicines worth knowing), preceded by an opening part in five chapters (paths without substances, molecular families, container, guides, ethics). Annexes: “Legality — in 2026,” biographical note, technical glossary.