The Living Library
Courses across five learning pathways.
Taught by the world's leading field researchers — scientists, explorers, and knowledge keepers who lived the work.
Featured Course
The Stoned Ape Hypothesis
Psilocybin and the Origins of Consciousness
Did psilocybin mushrooms catalyze the cognitive leap that made us human? Dennis McKenna leads a rigorous inquiry into the evidence — evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and the anthropological record — behind one of the most provocative ideas in the study of the human mind.
The question isn't whether mushrooms changed us. The question is whether we have the courage to examine the evidence honestly.
The Stoned Ape Hypothesis
— Dennis Mckenna, PhD
Did psilocybin mushrooms catalyze the cognitive leap that made us human? Dennis McKenna leads a rigorous inquiry into the evidence — evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and the anthropological record — behind one of the most provocative ideas in the study of the human mind.
People and Plants: Ethnobotany in the 21st Century
— Michael A. Coe, PhD
From the Shipibo-Conibo of the Peruvian Amazon to the quantitative frontiers of modern ethnobotany — Michael Coe traces 125 years of field work, theory, and the urgent question of what happens when the knowledge keepers are gone.
Lilliputian Lore: The Science and Mystery of Hallucinogenic Bolete Mushrooms
— Colin Domnauer, PhD
Long before psilocybin’s rise, communities in Papua New Guinea, Yunnan, and the Philippines described the same tiny‑figure hallucinations after eating the wild bolete Lanmaoa asiatica, a species whose psychoactive chemistry science has yet to explain.
Plant Chemistry
— Dennis McKenna, PhD
The molecular foundation beneath every plant medicine tradition. Dennis McKenna decodes the biochemistry of alkaloids, terpenes, phenolics, and glycosides — and challenges the reductionist assumption that the medicine is simply the molecule.
The Shamanic Art of Healing
— Wade Davis, PhD
Wade Davis — Harvard PhD, Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, author of 24 books — journeys through global healing traditions to ask what shamanism reveals about the nature of consciousness, the living world, and the art of medicine itself.
Ethnobotany: The Wild Joy of Plants
— Claudia J. Ford, PhD
A Fulbright scholar and Distinguished Visiting Professor centers the plant knowledge of Native American and African diaspora communities — recovering the histories that colonialism silenced and reclaiming the spiritual ecology that orthodox botany left behind
When the Ceremony Doesn't End
— Mariya Garnet & Guest Elders
For those navigating what comes after. Mariya Garnet brings together board-certified psychiatrists, Shipibo Elders, and Vegetalistas to explore integration, spiritual emergency, and the complex aftermath of profound plant medicine experiences.
Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine
— Michael Balick, PhD
Nearly four decades of fieldwork across Belize, Micronesia, and Vanuatu — Michael Balick examines how Indigenous plant knowledge is documented, validated, and integrated into contemporary medicine, and why the urgency of that work has never been greater.
Ethnobotany and Neurodegenerative Diseases
— Paul Alan Cox, PhD
IME Magazine's "Hero of Medicine" traces how a mystery disease in Guam — linked to cycad neurotoxins and flying fox consumption — led to L-serine, a simple amino acid now in FDA clinical trials that has slowed ALS progression by 85% in early studies.
Psychedelics and Human Evolution
— Michael Winkelman, PhD
Moving beyond the Stoned Ape debate, Michael Winkelman builds a multi-disciplinary case — primate behavior, archaeology, neuroscience, and the anthropology of shamanism — for how psilocybin shaped the social, cognitive, and spiritual life of our species.
Dragon's Blood: From Rainforest to Pharmacy
— Steven King, PhD
The inside story of how Sangre de Grado — used by Amazonian healers for centuries — became Crofelemer, the first FDA-approved oral botanical drug. A masterclass in ethical bioprospecting, sustainable supply chains, and what it means to bring a plant medicine to the world with integrity.
Reclaiming the Divine Coca Leaf: Science, Spirit, and Stigma
— Steven King, PhD
For 8,000 years the coca leaf was the sacred social fabric of Andean civilization. Steven King separates the plant from the powder — dismantling Freud's original confusion, tracing the War on Drugs, and revealing the frontier botanical medicine now emerging from Mama Coca.
Out of Africa
— Bob Voeks, PhD
How did African plant knowledge survive the Middle Passage and take root in a completely foreign flora? Bob Voeks traces the remarkable resilience of Yoruba botanical traditions through the transatlantic slave trade, the Columbian Exchange, and into the living heart of Afro-Brazilian Candomblé.
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