Phantastica

Phantastica: Die Betäubenden und Erregenden Genussmittel für Ärzte und Nichtärzte
Author	Louis Lewin (1850–1929)
Translator	P. H. A. Wirth
Language	German
Subject	Psychoactive drugs
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	George Stilke
Publication date	1924
Publication place	Berlin, Germany
Published in English	1931
OCLC	12951162
Website	www.google.com/books/edition/Phantastica/YmF9NjnE8NQC

Phantastica: Die Betäubenden und Erregenden Genussmittel für Ärzte und Nichtärzte, also known as Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulant Substances for Physicians and Laypeople, is a classic 1924 book about psychoactive drugs by the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin (1850–1929).^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

In the book, Lewin extensively reviews psychoactive drugs and classifies them into five main categories, including "euphorica" (euphoriants), "phantastica" (hallucinogens), "inebriantia" (depressants), "hypnotica" (hypnotics), and "excitantia" (stimulants).^[2]^[1]^[6]^[4]

It covers the "euphorica" opium and morphine, codeine and other opioids, and coca and cocaine; the "phantastica" peyote and mescaline, cannabis, fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), nightshade deliriants, Banisteriopsis caapi and ayahuasca, Gelsemium sempervirens (yellow jessamine), and loco herbs (locoweed; Fabaceae species); the "inebriantia" alcohol, chloroform, ether, petroleum benzine, and nitrous oxide; the "hypnotica" chloral, barbital (Veronal), paraldehyde, sulfonmethane (Sulphonal), potassium bromide, kava kava, and kanna; and the "excitantia" camphor, betel, khat, caffeine and coffee, tea, kola nut, maté, Ilex cassine, pasta guarana, cocoa, tobacco, parica, arsenic, and mercury.^[4]

The book has been translated into multiple other languages and reprinted many times.^[4] It was translated into English by P. H. A. Wirth in 1931.^[1]^[7]^[4] Phantastica is regarded as Lewin's magnum opus.^[8] Aldous Huxley read the English translation soon after it was released and the book had a considerable impact on him, leading to his 1931 A Treatise on Drugs essay and his eventual experimentation with psychedelic drugs like mescaline and LSD as well as associated books like The Doors of Perception (1954).^[1]^[7]^[9]

References

1 2 3 4 Harvey, Graham; Wallis, Robert J. (2015). Historical Dictionary of Shamanism. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series (2 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 187. ISBN 9781442257986. Louis Lewin published the first systematic study of the pharmacology of peyote in 1886, and included it among the "Phantastica" (rather than the "Inebriantia," "Exitantia," "Euphorica," or "Hypnotica") in his encyclopedic classification of drugs and psychoactives (Phantastica, 1924). The first English translation of Lewin's book (1931) was almost im-mediately read by Aldous Huxley and had a considerable impact on him, resulting in years of experimentation in altered states of consciousness as a form of mysticism.
1 2 Carneiro, Henrique S. (2022). "Plant Drugs and Shamanism in the Americas". In Gootenberg, Paul (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Global Drug History. Oxford University Press. pp. 56–72. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190842642.013.4. ISBN 9780190842642. Mescaline, the first modern hallucinogen to be isolated, was initially obtained from the Mexican peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) by Arthur Heffter in 1896. Around the same time, the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin began the task of classifying and mapping various psychoactive plants around the world, including the Polynesian kava (Piper methysticum), areca (Areca catechu), and betel (Piper betle), all of which came from South and Southeast Asia. In 1924 he published Phantastica, a study that proposed a classification of dozens of drugs into five categories: euphorica, phantastica, inebriantia, hypnotica, and excitantia. 6
↑ Miller, Richard J. (2013). Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs (illustrated, reprint ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199957989. In fact, this connection had been made much earlier by the pioneering pharmacologist Louis Lewin (1850–1929). Lewin was really the first person to study entheogenic drugs in the modern sense. His book Phantastica (his term for hallucinogenic or mind altering drugs), published in 1924, was really the first modern book of its type to discuss the mechanisms of action of entheogenic drugs on the brain.5 [...]
1 2 3 4 5 Lewin, Louis (1998) [1924]. Phantastica: A Classic Survey on the Use and Abuse of Mind-Altering Plants. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. ISBN 9780892817832.
↑ Jay, Mike (18 June 2019). Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-23107-6. Lewin never publicly acknowledged Heffter's achievement. The magisterial survey of psychoactive drugs he produced at the end of his career, Phantastica (1924), relates that 'my first investigations of the plant proved that it contained alkaloid substances, especially a crystallized alkaloid called by me anhalonine'.53 Heffter goes unmentioned. Lewin continued to refer to peyote as Anhalonium lewinii, the tribute of which he had been so proud, even though it had by then been shown to be identical with Anhalonium williamsii; by 1900 the scientific community had standardised its Linnaean name to Lophophora williamsii (the new genus name, created in 1894, meaning 'crest-bearing' and referring to the species' hairy tufts).
↑ Mangini M (9 March 2021). "A Short, Strange Trip: LSD Politics, Publicity, and Mythology—from Discovery to Criminalization". In Grob CS, Grigsby J (eds.). Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens. Guilford Publications. pp. 68–94. ISBN 978-1-4625-4544-5. Fifty years before Albert Hofmann's discovery of the psychoactive properties of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), there was already European interest in the pharmacological properties of psychoactive plants, and the isolation and characterization of their chemical constituents. Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, published the first methodical analysis of the peyote cactus and established the presence of plant alkaloids in peyote samples in 1888. In his book Phantastica, Lewin (1924/1998) took on the task of classifying drugs and plants in accordance with their psychological effects. The classifications were Inebriantia (inebriants), Exitantia (stimulants), Euphorica (euphoriants), Hypnotica (tranquilizers), and Phantastica (hallucinogens).
1 2 Poller, Jake (2019). Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality. Brill. p. 280. ISBN 9789004406902. [Aldous Huxley's] essay was inspired by his reading of Phantastica (1924; English translation 1931) by Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, after whom peyote was designated Anhalonium lewinii. Lewin had first encountered peyote in 1886 and produced a report of its psychoactive effects two years later.103 [...]
↑ Ulrich RF, Patten BM (1991). "The rise, decline, and fall of LSD". Perspect Biol Med. 34 (4): 561–578. doi:10.1353/pbm.1991.0062. PMID 1923697. Public attention shifted to more immediate concerns with the outbreak of World War I, and after the war most research in this area was limited to Germany. Ernest Spath synthesized the psychoactive alkaloid of peyote—mescaline—in 1919 [8]; and in 1924 Lewin published his magnum opus Phantastica, which categorized the world's known psychotropic plants into five categories. Nevertheless, it was not until Hofmann's serendipitous discovery of LSD that widespread scientific attention was given to the consciousness-altering properties of psychoactive drugs and the door was opened to a new era of neurobiochemistry.
↑ Dickins, Robert (2022). "Power and the Sublime in Aldous Huxley's Drug Aesthetics". In Hauskeller, Christine; Sjöstedt-Hughes, Peter (eds.). Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 61–76. ISBN 9781350231627. 4 Aldous Huxley's Drug Aesthetics The question of drugs was a growing preoccupation for Aldous Huxley during the last thirty years of his life. As early as 1931, he wrote 'A Treatise on Drugs, having read the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin's survey of psychoactive substances Phantastica (1924). [...]

External links

[HarveyWallis2015-1] 1 2 3 4 Harvey, Graham; Wallis, Robert J. (2015). Historical Dictionary of Shamanism. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series (2 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 187. ISBN 9781442257986. Louis Lewin published the first systematic study of the pharmacology of peyote in 1886, and included it among the "Phantastica" (rather than the "Inebriantia," "Exitantia," "Euphorica," or "Hypnotica") in his encyclopedic classification of drugs and psychoactives (Phantastica, 1924). The first English translation of Lewin's book (1931) was almost im-mediately read by Aldous Huxley and had a considerable impact on him, resulting in years of experimentation in altered states of consciousness as a form of mysticism.

[Carneiro2022-2] 1 2 Carneiro, Henrique S. (2022). "Plant Drugs and Shamanism in the Americas". In Gootenberg, Paul (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Global Drug History. Oxford University Press. pp. 56–72. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190842642.013.4. ISBN 9780190842642. Mescaline, the first modern hallucinogen to be isolated, was initially obtained from the Mexican peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) by Arthur Heffter in 1896. Around the same time, the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin began the task of classifying and mapping various psychoactive plants around the world, including the Polynesian kava (Piper methysticum), areca (Areca catechu), and betel (Piper betle), all of which came from South and Southeast Asia. In 1924 he published Phantastica, a study that proposed a classification of dozens of drugs into five categories: euphorica, phantastica, inebriantia, hypnotica, and excitantia. 6

[Miller2013-3] Miller, Richard J. (2013). Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs (illustrated, reprint ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199957989. In fact, this connection had been made much earlier by the pioneering pharmacologist Louis Lewin (1850–1929). Lewin was really the first person to study entheogenic drugs in the modern sense. His book Phantastica (his term for hallucinogenic or mind altering drugs), published in 1924, was really the first modern book of its type to discuss the mechanisms of action of entheogenic drugs on the brain.5 [...]

[Lewin1998-4] 1 2 3 4 5 Lewin, Louis (1998) [1924]. Phantastica: A Classic Survey on the Use and Abuse of Mind-Altering Plants. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. ISBN 9780892817832.

[Jay2019-5] Jay, Mike (18 June 2019). Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-23107-6. Lewin never publicly acknowledged Heffter's achievement. The magisterial survey of psychoactive drugs he produced at the end of his career, Phantastica (1924), relates that 'my first investigations of the plant proved that it contained alkaloid substances, especially a crystallized alkaloid called by me anhalonine'.53 Heffter goes unmentioned. Lewin continued to refer to peyote as Anhalonium lewinii, the tribute of which he had been so proud, even though it had by then been shown to be identical with Anhalonium williamsii; by 1900 the scientific community had standardised its Linnaean name to Lophophora williamsii (the new genus name, created in 1894, meaning 'crest-bearing' and referring to the species' hairy tufts).

[Mangini2021-6] Mangini M (9 March 2021). "A Short, Strange Trip: LSD Politics, Publicity, and Mythology—from Discovery to Criminalization". In Grob CS, Grigsby J (eds.). Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens. Guilford Publications. pp. 68–94. ISBN 978-1-4625-4544-5. Fifty years before Albert Hofmann's discovery of the psychoactive properties of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), there was already European interest in the pharmacological properties of psychoactive plants, and the isolation and characterization of their chemical constituents. Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, published the first methodical analysis of the peyote cactus and established the presence of plant alkaloids in peyote samples in 1888. In his book Phantastica, Lewin (1924/1998) took on the task of classifying drugs and plants in accordance with their psychological effects. The classifications were Inebriantia (inebriants), Exitantia (stimulants), Euphorica (euphoriants), Hypnotica (tranquilizers), and Phantastica (hallucinogens).

[Poller2019-7] 1 2 Poller, Jake (2019). Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality. Brill. p. 280. ISBN 9789004406902. [Aldous Huxley's] essay was inspired by his reading of Phantastica (1924; English translation 1931) by Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, after whom peyote was designated Anhalonium lewinii. Lewin had first encountered peyote in 1886 and produced a report of its psychoactive effects two years later.103 [...]

[UlrichPatten1991-8] Ulrich RF, Patten BM (1991). "The rise, decline, and fall of LSD". Perspect Biol Med. 34 (4): 561–578. doi:10.1353/pbm.1991.0062. PMID 1923697. Public attention shifted to more immediate concerns with the outbreak of World War I, and after the war most research in this area was limited to Germany. Ernest Spath synthesized the psychoactive alkaloid of peyote—mescaline—in 1919 [8]; and in 1924 Lewin published his magnum opus Phantastica, which categorized the world's known psychotropic plants into five categories. Nevertheless, it was not until Hofmann's serendipitous discovery of LSD that widespread scientific attention was given to the consciousness-altering properties of psychoactive drugs and the door was opened to a new era of neurobiochemistry.

[Dickins2022-9] Dickins, Robert (2022). "Power and the Sublime in Aldous Huxley's Drug Aesthetics". In Hauskeller, Christine; Sjöstedt-Hughes, Peter (eds.). Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 61–76. ISBN 9781350231627. 4 Aldous Huxley's Drug Aesthetics The question of drugs was a growing preoccupation for Aldous Huxley during the last thirty years of his life. As early as 1931, he wrote 'A Treatise on Drugs, having read the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin's survey of psychoactive substances Phantastica (1924). [...]

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