The IAmShaman Blog

We often get asked about what the difference is between “Full Spectrum” extractions as opposed to “Isolated Alkaloid” extractions, so I decided to tackle that one here.  In the world of botanicals, it can be quite difficult to know where to begin when contemplating any kind of extraction in the first place, because different active components and alkaloids of plants will extract into different solutions.

For example, with Kratom, there are a number of alkaloids contain within the leaves of the plant, and although most people know of Mitragynine (which extracts into water), there are at least 14 other alkaloids that play a part in the chemical makeup of the plant.  So, if one were to extract only Mitragynine from Kratom leaves, you would be ignoring most of the naturally-occurring alkaloids that could play an important role if one chooses in ingest this plant, which have the potential to dramatically alter the duration or character of the pleasurable effects, among other things.

This is clearly evidenced with Kava Kava.  Most are familiar with the famous Kavalactone alkaloid that is, in large part, responsible for the pleasurable and euphoric effects of Kava Kava.  But, that’s only part of the story, because there are about 25 alkaloids in total that are responsible for not only the pleasurable effects of Kava, but for protecting you against possible damage to you liver!

It’s amazing that this plant, which has been shown to have chemicals in its stems and leaves that could potentially damage the liver, have alkaloids in the roots, that specifically help protect the liver!  So, in our eyes, enjoying a Full Spectrum extract like the ones that we offer here, as well as the ones at Kona Kava Farm, and Shaman’s Garden offer, speak for themselves.   Whenever I make my Kava drinks, I always start with the freshest root I can find, and extract it into both fats and water, to ensure that i am getting the full spectrum of Kava alkaloids when doing the extraction.

Yes, Kavalactone extracts into fat, like coconut milk (or milk, soy milk, and tons of other options), but not all the desirable alkaloids do.  So, I make sure there’s a mixture of fats (coconut milk), water, and acid (pineapple juice) whenever I am preparing my drink.  Then, I add a dash of Kavalactone paste, found here, for added potency, but still with a complete full-spectrum extraction.

Hope this helps! - Bodhi

We get that A LOT, and are quite used to it, actually.  But, I have the same answer since I’ve had from the 1st day I decided to open this shop:  I was tired of paying extremely high prices for exotic botanicals of questionable quality, with no actual person to speak to when I ordered them, for what I thought was a TON of money, as I was left to wait weeks for my order to arrive.  It seemed as though the companies selling these entheogens and ethnobotanicals felt as though I should be happy that they’re selling me these products at all, and that I should simply shut up, be happy, and wait patiently for my stuff!

Surely there must be a better way, I thought. 

So, I thought that if there was a way I could find out where to source these products myself, I could at least offer my favorite of these; Salvia divinorum on the forum that I had started specifically to seek others who held Salvia divinorum as sacred as I did.  When I posted these thoughts on my forum (I had a forum long before I decided to open an online shop), a dear soul, who worked for a now-defunct online entheogen dealer, made himself known to me.  His name was Tim.

He offered to sell me Salvia divinorum in large enough quantities to be able to make some extracts and to sell it to others for nearly my cost on our forum.  Another dear friend on the forum named Sphere, also taught me how to extract this beautiful and sacred plant, and I was off and running.

I took what I had learned from Sphere, and started to extract Salvia, as we refined and perfected the process along the way.  I was able to provide everyone on the forum with hand-made extracts of this amazing plant, and one of my dearest connections on the forum; John Morley, suggested that I open a small online shop to actually sell this extract.  Since I made extract by hand, with passion, love, and incredible diligence, why not share it with as many as possible.

With much contemplation, realizing that if I sold this plant, I couldn’t start the Salvia Church I so desperately wanted to start for me and everyone on the forum, IAmShaman the forum, now had the IAmShaman Shop as an offshoot of the forum.

Long story short, I continued to make contacts and more friends who knew of places to source ex0tic botanicals and entheogens.  Slowly, I added more products to the small list, and decided that if I was going to actually open a shop, that I wanted it to be EVERYTHING that I wished other online shops were but weren’t.

The IAmShaman philosophy and shop were born! – I wanted to provide the highest quality botanicals at the lowest prices, while shipping out these botanicals the SAME DAY.  I also wanted to have a phone number that people could call, to find out what was going on with their order, or to ask product questions, or whatever else they needed.

It turns out that more fellow spiritual explorers than I ever imagined had wished the same things when it came to buying entheogens and ethnobotanicals online, and the shop grew faster than I ever imagined it would or could.

Since then, my mission has remained the same, and we are still dedicated and devoted to offering the highest quality botanicals at the lowest prices.  The modest profits we have made, have gone straight back into the shop, to develop new contacts, to buy farming fields to grow our own products, and most recently; it has enabled us to offer the one-of-a-kind IAmShaman Grant, which we hope to expand every year.

I have never forgotten that it’s our treasured customers who made this all happen, and I want to continue to give back in every way I can think of until this body becomes too rickety to carry on.  My hope is that someone else will take over the shop and continue to fight for the freedom of thought and the preservation of knowledge of these sacred plants, just like the folks at Erowid and Entheology and so many others are doing.

In fact, I will still offer you a personal response to any question you may have.  Simply e-mail me, Bodhi, at Bodhi at iamshaman dot com, and I promise that I will get back to you.  Or, simply post on this blog; I am the only person who writes in it, so anything you write here, will get a personal response from me.

This is one of my favorite questions to answer, since dreaming and lucid dreaming are one of my absolute favorite experiences as a human.  Waking up inside a dream to realize that you’re dreaming is a magical gift; one that, if you spend the time and energy, you can cultivate and improve upon.  Imagine being able to have an experience that is as real as this one, with the same self-awareness and lucidity that you posses in your regular waking world, but with the ability to do whatever you wish, by just willing it so?

Besides something called a “Nova Dreamer” which I have used for about 12 years now to help induce lucid dreams, I have scoured the planet for herbs that have clear histories of being used specifically for making dreams more vivid.  (I think it’s interesting to note that the Top 2 activities reported by first-time lucid dreamers are sex and flight! )  In this search, I found something quite unexpected:  It was the African culture’s view on dreams and dreaming.

They believe that their ancestors speak to them through their dreams, so, built into their culture, is the historical quest for any plants and herbs that might help to induce dreaming.  As a result, we found several interesting herbs that have been known for helping to induce vivid dreaming, and which we call DREAMING HERBS.  By visiting that section of our site, you can see descriptions of each of the herbs that we have found, which have clearly documented use for this very purpose.

So, even though I am biased towards the product that I developed for the specific purpose of inducing lucid dreaming, (Find LUCID DREAMING reports in the Reports section of the website) called “Dreamer’s Blend”, it was created out of many months of trial and error.  I have been a longtime fan of Calea Zacatechichi, but i wanted to see if i could amplify the effects, if there was a way to make several well-known dreaming herbs work synergistically, to heighten the effect, increasing my frequency and vividness of my dreams.

So, I took the top herbs from 4 different cultures, trying to cover all my bases.  Calea Zacatechichi was an ingredient in all of my different “concoctions”, since that was always my favorite herb anyway.  That ended up working even more effectively ad more reliably when it was mixed with African Dream Herb (also known as a sea bean), and then with Blue Vervain and Wild Lettuce, both used by the American Indians who were also deeply intertwined with visions and dreaming.

I don’t know the science behind any of these herbal products, but extensive testing by me has shown a definite pattern of specific results, especially when alternated with a 1/2 dose of diphenylhydramine (25mg).  Diphenylhydramine is simply over the counter sleeping medication.  (With that, I am obligated to say that I am no doctor, and, by law, I cannot advise the mixing of untested herbal products with any pharmacy medication.  I offer this only as an anecdote of a personal experience with a plant that is very dear to me.)

I want to tell as many people as possible, that lucid dreaming is as real as you reading this post by me; it is a reality that you can be completely awake and alert in, yet you have complete control over that reality, limited only by your imagination! - This is so deeply exciting to me in so many ways, and none of them have to do with a deep desire to escape this reality.

I’ve found myself awake in my dream so many times, and have since given up on trying to find any “ultimate answers” to life, though.  In these “questing dreams”, I have visited mediums in the dreams, I have scoured bookstores for some book that held all the “answers”, I have cast Tarot Cards, and tried to fly to the edge of the Universe, but none have brought me any more knowledge than I have now, except for the rare occasions where I am shown an event, related only to personal friends and family members, that comes true shortly thereafter, or occurred that same night while I was dreaming about it.

This is what spawned my interest in Remote Viewing as well, and I have since taken a course on the system, and plan to post about that at a later date.  To me, this is modern Shamanism; this is the exploration of this consciousness we have been given, using the natural tools at our disposal, especially the ones from the plant word, to aid us in our exploration and journey through this world.

- Bodhi

We’ve been asked this question so many times, and I wish I had a better answer for everyone.  We have some very strict rules we have to follow at the shop, so the information we provide you with regarding our products is the most complete information we are able, by law, to give you.  Every bit of information we have for a product is in the Expanded Description page, found by clicking any product image in the shop, or the link just under the title of a product.

There are in increasing number of resources on the web these days, including affiliate sites of ours, such as The Kratom Shop, The Amanita Shop, Entheology.org, and many others.  We even found an Alterative Search Engine called Link-to-Me, which has a growing number of reseources for the spiritual explorer.

We believe so deeply in being able to offer you such a wide variety of rare and exotic botanicals, and will do whatever we need to do to preserve our ability to do just that.  Look through our site, browse our Answer Center, speak to us via LiveChat of by phone, and we are willing to answer your questions and concerns six days per week.

Ahh…this is probably the top product question we receive here at the shop.  Before I offer my explanation, I want to let you know that the information I am presenting is from several reliable sources; one of them the premier authority on Blue Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) and Blue Lily (Nelumbo nucifera).

More often than not, this is the most common error:  People referring to Blue Lily (also known as the Sacred Lily of the Nile or "Water Lily), have mistakenly called it a Blue Lotus instead.  Countless depictions of the floral symbol of Upper Egypt is, without question, a Nymphaea caerulea plant, and NOT a Blue Lotus plant.  Water Lily’s have a very distinct petal pattern, which is longer and thinner than Lotus petals. 

See the long, narrow petals of the Blue Lily here…

Where Blue Lotus petals tend to be "plump" in appearance…

The Blue Lily, along with the papyrus flower, was clearly shown throughout Egypt in tombs and temples to symbolize the union of Upper and Lower Egypt.  This sacred plant has often been thought, by many scholars, to be one of the ingredients of the mysterious visionary drink called Soma.  (There are several books devoted to this line of thinking; just check our bookstore for several titles.)

In terms of active alkaloids that each of these plants possess, they have very similar nuciferine content.  In Egypt, this is why Blue Lily was extracted into wine; it provided a euphoria for the royalty to enjoy, and it was even thought to possess magical powers of insight and depth of understanding.

This was true, as well, of the infamous LOTUS EATERS, found in many stories, and made famous in Odyssey by Homer.  We all know the Cyclops and the Sirens, but in a chapter that is rarely spoken of and certainly not taught in schools, is the chapter in the myth of Odysseus where he visits the Land of the Lotus eaters.  It’s actually one of the first stopping off points of the voyage after leaving Troy. On arriving at the island, Odysseus sends some of his sailors to investigate the place. They find a land where the inhabitants are fond of ingesting a plant called the Lotus. The result of eating this strange plant is that the lotus eaters are put into a kind of sleepy euphoric state. When Odysseus’s sailors eat the Lotus, they succumb to the plants power as well, and do not want to leave the island.  Odysseus has to free his sailors from the lure of the lotus plant, so the can set sail for the next destination.

So, the Blue Lotus that is one of the world’s most celebrated flowers, the one in in folklore, religion and the arts in one form or the other, which are found in temperate regions of Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, are actually Blue Lily, and NOT Blue Lotus.  Any plant that has "Nelumbo" as part of its name is a LOTUS, and any plant that as "Nucifera" as part of its name is a lily.

Later, Buddhism borrowed the flower from Hinduism, but their plant looks far more like a Lotus than it does a Water Lily, like those of the Nile. In Buddhist painting and sculpture, whenever Buddha is shown delivering an important sermon, he is shown sitting on a lotus pedestal. Buddhist scriptures enumerate fragrance, purity, delicateness and beauty as the attributes of lotus.  The 2nd image above looks far more like the traditional Lily of Buddhism than the 1st image above, from Egyptian times.

There is still much confusion about these plants, even in literature, historical documents, and even encyclopedias! - Know that it is your connection to the plant that matters most, because both are from a similar family of flora, and both contain almost the same amount of alkaloids, although Blue Lotus flowers have consistently shown, in our independent tests, to have slightly higher levels more often.

- Bodhi

My desire always remains the same; to find those who resonate with all that so many sacred and rare botanicals reveal in their individual forms, allowing us to find expression through mutual revelation of all I hope to be true.  In that, I hope to help to awaken others, as I was awakened, to a dream that is larger than any of us have ever imagined or have simply forgotten. Wrapped in such humanness, we have the power to reach beyond, to share that which is real, to love and to be loved with complete surrender.

Isn’t this all anyone ever wants when all falls to nothing?

So this shop is part of my dream, my beacon, honest in its design, obvious in its intent, hoping for nothing more than to share my experiences and discoveries of as many plants as I can find, plants with a rich use in Shamanic Traditions, as I work to help others to know of such rare treats, of which few are privileged to taste, and the majority are unaware.

This is why I am, why I still am, and what will always be my only purpose and intent. I was tired of waiting weeks for a product, with no communication from the vender, only to get a product that I was disappointed in and would never buy again.  Not so, with IAmShaman.

And this is why I treasure each one every one of our customers; it is because of all of you that we are able to persist.  We are not the fanciest and we do virtually no marketing, but we have a passion that is unmatched, a desire to bring you only the products that we believe in and would choose to work with ourselves.  We’ve always relied on word of mouth and continue to.  We feel that our products speak for themselves, and that whenever you try similar products at any competitor’s website (although we pride ourselves on having rare and exotic botanicals that no one else has), that you will find our way back to us.

- Bodhi

Salvia is rapidly being made illegal in many states across the United States (including ours), but it’s still legal to buy it from venders in some states so, we now offer this: 

Complete your purchase here for everything EXCEPT Salvia products using this coupon code: NOSALVIA08. It gets you FREE SHIPPING here, and once your purchase is complete from our shop, then use this link to BUY SALVIA ONLINE from our most trusted vender. By clicking that link, they will know you came from here, your order will get expedited processing, and we get to continue helping to spread the word of Salvia.

And yes, we have stopped selling Salvia divinorum.  We are one of the few fully licensed and certified ethnobotanical companies that exist today, and as a result, we follow the law exactly to protect our customers and our business.  In one of two scenarios, we would simply direct our customers to a company that we have already spoken about partnering with, so our present customers who are not in any of the states where Salvia is illegal, will still be able to purchse the uniquely high quality Salvia leaves and extracts that many have come to expect from us, or we would open a division of IAmShaman in another state (such as Indiana or California) that offers only Salvia, and conduct business as well as ship orders from there.

Once the bill passed both the House and the Senate (SB0226 and HB0457), there was no stopping the senseless scheduling of Salvia as a Schedule I drug, right between LSD and Peyote.  The law went into effect on January 1st of 2008, giving interested spriitual explorers time to get the Salvia they would like to purchase for themselves. 

There are so many other rare and exotic botanicals that we are excited about, and part of me feels that Salvia is in the consciousness of the masses, and that when that day arrives in Illinois and the entire United States where Salvia is banned or scheduled, we can continue to focus on the countless other plants that have been used ritualistically or shamanistically for ages, that are presently overshadowed by plants like Salvia divinorum, before they too get senselessly scheuled out of our hands, removing more personal freedoms that the consitution of the United States originally gave us. We will never give up the fight, and will continue to help defeat the Salvia Bill up in California as best we can.

As of this writing, the Federal Government has moved to make Salvia illegal across the entire United States.  We will kjeep you posted on the progress of that tragic series of events. - Sarva Shanti, Bodhi

In my continuing quest to enrich our customers experience at the shop, I have almost completed several new features for you, dearest customers and fellow spiritual explorers.  The most exciting, is a completely re-designed shopping cart system, that will not only allow you to log on, create Wish Lists, e-mail products to friends as well as rate them, it will let you know EXACTLY where your order is, complete with notes about any product that might be backordered, as well as Order Histories, and one-click re-ordering.  In addition, we’ve got an extremely robust Live Help system now with extended hours, so you can get more Live Help more often.  Finally, we’ve got a completely new menu system for whenever you call.  We’ve got more options, better call transfers, on hold music, and more.

I built this shop to offer an experience that is rivaled by no one else, while trying to offer the best products at the best prises, but I also want to ensure that entire process along the way is as smooth and pleasant as possible.  We look forward to seeing you on the other side! - Sarva Shanti, Bodhi

In a “Why didn’t I do this before?” moment, I have finally added a blog to The IAmShaman Shop and have called it, quite predictably; The IAmShaman Blog.  This is yet another attempt to interact with our treasured customers, offering whatever I can to whomever wishes to share anything they wish to share (within, of course, guidelines that respect the rules we already have in place at the IAmShaman Shop).  As long as any posts here follow the Terms & Conditions strictly adhered to at the shop, I am willing to listen, discuss, ponder, and share, whether it’s suggestions, product-related questions, questions about me, my beliefs, or my philosophy regarding my shop or life in general, ideas for new products, questions about old products, or events or music or anything else I should know about or see.  This blog will inevitably evolve over time, so please bear with me as i learn this new (to me) medium.  It truly is important to me that people know I am a real person just like you who simply wanted to find a way to spread the knowledge about these amazing plants to as many people as possbile while we have the freedom to do so, while doing my best to help with other causes I believe in, outlined HERE. - Sarva Shanti, Bodhi

P.S. To post a question, simply click any of the “Comments” links below each post.

The #1 “Ask Bodhi” Question 

Q: Are your products for incense purposes only?

A: As a provider of many products not yet approved by the FDA, and as a provider of some products listed as poisons by the FDA, we are required, by law, to adhere to certain guidelines. One of these guidelines is that we are not allowed to offer advice for most of our products, so please don’t press us for information, even if you state that the information is for educational purposes only, if you are in a place where the thing you are asking about is legal, or want to know what would happen if a small animal accidentally ingested any of our products. We are also not doctors and could never dispense any advice related to the introduction of anything into the body in any way.

Our products are made with extremely exacting standards and the utmost care is taken in producing them. Everything we sell is just as nature intended; organically grown or wildcrafted, without the use of harsh chemicals or pesticides that could lessen germination rates of seeds, and alter the preservation of the plants in their pure state. Any extracts are made from organic grain alcohol or distilled water under strictly controlled conditions. Plant identification is done by seasoned professionals, and any plant material is purchased only from suppliers who have been in business for a number of years.

That being said, we do not sell many items on our site for human consumption, and you must consider many of the items on our website are poisonous. Also, please don’t ask us about traditional use of any of our products; we cannot answer such questions either, partly because we don’t claim that any of our historical information as factual, and do not want to inadvertently mislead anyone in any way with inaccurate information. We are also not doctors, and could never offer advice on any of our herbal products, especially when it comes to how or if they interact with any other product, edible or inedible.

Further information can be found in our “Terms & Conditions” and on our “FAQ” page.