One of the most important relationships that human beings have with plants is changing our consciousness – consider the plants that give us coffee, tea, chocolate, and nicotine. Sacred Bliss challenges traditional attitudes about cannabis by tracing its essential role in the spiritual and curative traditions of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas from prehistory to the present day. In highlighting the continued use of cannabis around the globe, Sacred Bliss offers compelling evidence of cannabis as an entheogen used for thousands of years to evoke peak-experiences, or moments of expanded perception or spiritual awareness.
Mark S. Ferrara is a professor of English at SUNY Oneonta; he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Denver in 2004. He is author of six additional books, including Palace of Ashes, American Community, and The Raging Erie. His recent work of creative nonfiction, Living the Food Allergic Life, chronicles the everyday challenges of living with life-threatening allergies to food. Ferrara has also published fourteen peer-reviewed articles on literary and cultural studies and was appointed Visiting Scholar in the Department of English at University of California, Berkeley during the spring 2015 semester. In addition, he has taught for universities in South Korea, China, and on a Fulbright scholarship in Turkey. His courses are internationally focused, interdisciplinary, and aim to raise critical insight of other cultures through their literature.