Divinity Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
You can send evidence on some of these. A pilot is open on 55 questions in one field, Palaeography. Each says what would resolve it; send something that meets that bar, with a source anybody can check, and an editor will weigh it. Sending evidence does not guarantee the question will be resolved, and it does not have to be your field to read what is being asked. See what is open.
Grouped by the field an answer needs. A question sitting between two disciplines appears under both, which is why the group counts add up to more than the number of questions.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields, 1 selected
Showing 1 of 608 questions, filtered to 1 specialty.
Amazonian Anthropology 1
Ayahuasca Vine
How was the ayahuasca vine and admixture combination discovered?
Open Ayahuasca Vine
Why It Is Open Two unrelated plants, out of the tens of thousands in the Amazon, must be combined for either to have any effect, and nothing about the appearance, taste or separate action of either suggests the other. Explanations range from very long systematic experimentation to the answer the traditions give, which is that the plants communicated it. The record is oral and the practice is old.
What Would Settle It Probably nothing can settle it. What would help is comparative work on how many other plant pairings are known in Amazonian practice, since a tradition with many such combinations implies a method, while a single one implies an accident or a transmission.
Expertise Needed Ethnobotany, Amazonian anthropology, ethnopharmacology
Question posed in
Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, Luis Eduardo Luna.
Ethnobotany 1
Ayahuasca Vine
How was the ayahuasca vine and admixture combination discovered?
Open Ayahuasca Vine
Why It Is Open Two unrelated plants, out of the tens of thousands in the Amazon, must be combined for either to have any effect, and nothing about the appearance, taste or separate action of either suggests the other. Explanations range from very long systematic experimentation to the answer the traditions give, which is that the plants communicated it. The record is oral and the practice is old.
What Would Settle It Probably nothing can settle it. What would help is comparative work on how many other plant pairings are known in Amazonian practice, since a tradition with many such combinations implies a method, while a single one implies an accident or a transmission.
Expertise Needed Ethnobotany, Amazonian anthropology, ethnopharmacology
Question posed in
Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, Luis Eduardo Luna.
Ethnopharmacology 1
Ayahuasca Vine
How was the ayahuasca vine and admixture combination discovered?
Open Ayahuasca Vine
Why It Is Open Two unrelated plants, out of the tens of thousands in the Amazon, must be combined for either to have any effect, and nothing about the appearance, taste or separate action of either suggests the other. Explanations range from very long systematic experimentation to the answer the traditions give, which is that the plants communicated it. The record is oral and the practice is old.
What Would Settle It Probably nothing can settle it. What would help is comparative work on how many other plant pairings are known in Amazonian practice, since a tradition with many such combinations implies a method, while a single one implies an accident or a transmission.
Expertise Needed Ethnobotany, Amazonian anthropology, ethnopharmacology
Question posed in
Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, Luis Eduardo Luna.