Saturday 5 July 2014

DRAGIBUS magazine


While I surf the Web regularly and enjoy all the various articles, info and posts related to visionary plants and compounds, states of consciousness and psychedelic culture, in some way I miss the printed magazines and periodicals available until few years ago - e.g. "Psychedelic Monographs & Essays", "Psychedelic Illuminations" or "The Entheogen Review...
So I was excited finding out that a new printed magazine is currently on sale: it's Dragibus, a quarterly magazine dedicated to "plant medicine and mysticism". Dragibus is printed in high-quality paper, with a colorful "laminated" cover and  packed with stunning high-definition color photos of entheogenic botanicals and related artifacts (their "Photo Gallery" section is a joy for any entheobotany enthusiast's eyes...) that in some way compensate the rather limited number of pages (on average 28/32 pagg.)
Together with some errors in botanical nomenclature - e.g. Anadenanthera misspelled Anedenanthera on Vol. 2 issue 2 or Banisteriopsis misspelled Bannisteriopsis on issue 3, the limited amount of written text (pages) it's the only drawback of this publication; if I was the publisher I would sacrifice a little of color pages (and probably even the luxury cover and paper) and increase the pages to a minimum of 40, to appeal the potential readers more. If all that would become anyway too costly, I would probably rethink the mag schedule and printed just three issues yearly, maybe also retouching the price (personally I would be glad to spend a little more for a more 'substantial' magazine...)
But these are just few little, personal suggestions to be sure that this mag will be around for a reasonably long time... Dragibus is evidently a well cared "labor of love", made by visionary plants lovers for visionary plant lovers and I really appreciate their evident care to differentiate the content of their articles in a rather "crowded" field and deepen certain topics, abundantly but often also superficially treated on the Web. So on the most recent issue - Spring 2014 - you can find a really interesting and exhaustive article on the "Entheogens in Africa"  (iboga, voacanga and other lesser-known African entheobotanicals),  a somewhat disturbing but fascinating article on the "mummy", an obscure medicinal and "magic" preparation made with 'mummy powder', bitumen, the aromatic (?) exudation of the mummy, spices and/or psychoactive plants like mandrake or opium and a review of certain "forgotten" vines of shamanic interest in the Amazon...
All in all a spicy, tasty cup of mind-moving tea for all the real ethnobotanical enthusiasts and drug geeks...
Nowadays a printed magazine on entheogens seems to be a rarity (I can think just about  to PsypressUK and Erowid Extracts besides Dragibus) so I strongly invite all the interested people to make a visit to Dragibus website and support this "unique of a kind" and well done magazine making a subscription. If  Dragibus will increase the number of  its pages in the near future becoming a more sizeable  periodical while keeping the same high level articles, it depends entirely on the number its readers. ((To enlarge the base of possible readers, a free copy of Dragibus is  currently sent together with the latest issue of Erowid Extracts to all Erowid members.)My own helping hand will not miss...Let's read and support DRAGIBUS !!
You can subscribe to the print format for $ 30 (USA) and $ 40 (International)
You can also order single copies in print or digital format (PDF).
Visit and subscribe to DRAGIBUS
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