Category Archives: Novel

Way of the Shaman? Methods before magic and madness!

In our new series by Ed White, the way of the shaman intertwines with the endless need to exorcise the malicious spirits and Fell Kind that threaten Earth. While we won’t explore shamanism today, let’s take a brief look into some methods to travel worlds and expand the mind from a “medicinal” or chemical approach…

Shaman
Magic Mushrooms

The magic mushroom fungus grows naturally in the wild, known for its hallucinogenic effects. There are many varieties of mushrooms cultivated for millennia for their psychoactive properties, including psilocybin, mescaline, and ibotenic acid.

Did the human brain evolve because of exposure to fungi, specifically psychoactive mushrooms? The shamans of the northern stretches of Siberia and Mongolia used such mushrooms.

Toadstool

Bufo alvarius toadstools are psychedelic mushrooms that grow naturally throughout the world. The infamous “magic” mushrooms! Bufo leaves contain the same chemical compounds as psilocybin mushrooms, although it produces much less of them.

Kratom

Kratom is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. Its leaves commonly chewed or brewed into a tea to produce a mild narcotic effect.

Like the crimson plants of the Matsureda, with outright psychic-inducing properties, or the legendary tea of Granny Meng, they knew of such teas within the cultures, societies, and sects of the SalvoVerse.

DMT

DMT is a powerful psychedelic substance that comes from the pineal gland. Many people believe DMT causes lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences. It is possibly the active ingredient in ayahuasca, a traditional South American drink.

Salvia divinorum is a perennial herbaceous plant that grows in Mexico and Central America. It has long been used in shamanistic rituals and religious ceremonies. Salvia divinorum contains salvinorin A, a potent hallucinogen.

The SalviaVerse? Certainly known to the people of the Escuridado, the insidious Escuridon, and their masters, the Tezca Lords. Read about them in Otherwest: Diablero, free on Royal Road.

LSD

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a psychedelic drug first synthesized in 1938, but produced naturally in certain species of the genus Eleusine and is present in trace amounts in various seeds. It is a strong hallucinogen that causes users to experience visual distortions, hallucinations, and extreme states of euphoria.

What mad trips are experienced with LSD? Is it truly the opening of the Third Eye? Does it awaken, or simply enhance, chemicals produced by the pineal gland? Who is to say?

As Battle Avatars unfolds, David Grey believes the Lenscape is entered via the use of LSD…

“Drugs?”

“Yeah, man, it’ll balance out your heart rate and settle you down. It sets your right up to enter REM sleep and enter Lenscape.”

“So LSD,” I say. “That explains the colors.”

Read more in Battle Avatars by author Ed White.

Cannabis Sativa

Cannabis sativa is the scientific name given to marijuana. It is a flowering plant that belongs to the Cannabaceae family. It is native to central Asia and widely cultivated today. Cannabis sativa contains over 60 cannabinoids, of which delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychotropic cannabinoid.


Disclaimer: A First Salvo and the First Salvo Partners do not endorse the use and/or possession of any illegal drugs.

Shaman

All Content TM & © 2007-2024, the First Salvo Partners, Thaddeus Branco. All Rights Reserved.


Get the Battle Avatars revised editions on Amazon today!


Want to stay up-to-date? Follow author Ed White and the Battle Avatars page on Facebook for daily interaction.

Creativity is doing!

Happy Halloween! Journey into the Otherwest, a supernatural thriller!

A supernatural tale for the season… a complete Otherwest novella on Royal Road.

What if the life you want is taken from you?

After surviving the brutal slaughter of his naval squadron, Van Bran believed he could escape the world of empires, war, and magic by forging a new life on the American frontier.

As a rancher, Van’s life was simple, quiet, and far more peaceful.

But when Van and his drovers come face to face with an ancient evil vying for control of the New World, a life of peace may be forever outside his grasp.

Unless Van can take up arms once more and face the terrors of his past, he and his friends will serve as spiritual hosts to demonic skinwalkers.

Enter the Other West

Chapter One: Brethren

Proverbs 10:11 – “The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, inspiring the weary”.

Van tossed and turned before he jolted awake, free of another nightmare of the Crimea. Rubbing his eyes, he cast his gaze about the star-lit camp. The Black Seminole, Day Long, snored, mouth open, his limbs at all angles. Nathan Drake, their scout, was silent beneath his furs. Van’s childhood friend Teven Har lay with a lock of his wife Jessica’s hair held in his hand from the rawhide tied around his wrist.

Day Long coughed and broke wind in a prolonged release. Van smiled and shook his head. The terrors in his nightmares of Azov were nothing compared to the horrific odor that rose from the Seminole warrior’s back end. Its smell, like the memories, lingered. The horses hobbled nearby snorted and whinnied. The stench was unpleasant even to their noses.

Van looked around. Something caused him to wake. He touched his forehead and thought of the battles on the Sea of Azov, his instincts and headaches that warned him and kept him and Teven alive. In the dim light of the stars, shadows loomed beneath boulders and rock formations resembling mushrooms and goblins. Perhaps the danger was closer at hand; they might die from Day Long’s foul flatulence.

No, young Christian Har still stood watch, sitting ten feet away, atop one of the goblin-like formations.

Van snorted, breathing through his mouth beneath his hand. His stomach gurgled. Rather than being sickened by the smell, he found he was hungry. What did that say, and had hunger awoken him? Patting the ground beside him, he found and drank from his canteen. His tongue tingled. He pulled a small packet from within a saddle bag and opened it. Delicate flakes fell from his new favorite food—piki bread. The flattened, thin, blue corn rolls almost resembled parchment and lay black in the night on his lap. Next, Van removed a second canteen, this one filled with honey. He sat back against his thick-horned, A-fork framed saddle, stared up at the stars, and thought of Aleya.

The morning of their journey south, Aleya gave Van a jar of honey. Van recalled how she looked that morning, fresh from a bath in the ranch’s nearby brook, “For luck, Honey Sly,” she said. She grinned and laughed to see Van’s eyes widen at the thought of honey, almost not hearing her affectionate nickname for him; borne of his love for the sweet nectar. The Mormons had only recently introduced honeybees to the region, but Van believed he’d go without honey after the move to the Colorado territory.

On the porch of their ranch house, speaking their goodbyes, Van whispered between them as he embraced Aleya. “When you look up at night, those will be the same stars I see.”

Aleya pulled back and laughed at the cliché, raised a finger to his lips, caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers, and said, “Bring me the night that brings me to you.”

The sound of a cleared throat drew Van’s attention to the present. Day Long, propped up on an elbow, reached out his open palm with his other arm. He raised his chin and bobbed his head. Van looked down at the remaining portion of piki in his hand. Day Long wiggled his fingers.

Born on Andros Island, John Day Long traveled west as an Army scout and his heritage of Black Seminole and Carib Indian gave him a unique perspective on the tribes along their current journey.

Known as Johnny Day Long, he was just about the craziest, fiercest man Van had ever known. No one had a quicker temper than Day Long. He wasn’t long on patience. Van called on him to help them scout a suitable trail and locate the herds of wild Spanish cattle to drive east and then north into the Colorado Territory, around and back to his ranch in St. Maria.

Nathan traveled with them, dressed in his usual buckskin and wearing his hawk-motif buckle. Drake served as a scout and guide and thrived in the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from the Colorado territory to deep within Canada. He spoke French, employed conversational knowledge of Spanish, and several native languages; often mediating between native tribes and encroaching Easterners.

Teven stirred in his sleep, nose wrinkled. Behind him, Day Long made doe-eyes and pouty lips; his hand remained outstretched.

Van dipped the blue corn roll in honey and turned away. Day Long laughed. “Best I take over for young Mister Har,” he said. “After I drop a load.”

Van coughed. “Downwind and far away.”

“Absolutely, brethren.”

Continue Diablero on Royal Road—for free!


What is Otherwest?

Otherwest is a fantasy epic that follows Van, a former naval sailor turned rancher, as he learns of the ancient Otherwest—the spirit world of fallen gods, demons, immortals, and monsters harness etheric energies to wield magic and supernal abilities which spill onto the Mundane Plane—our reality.

Fans of eastern fantasy and the cultivation of qi will be familiar with such themes in Otherwest, as Van’s journey plunges him into the supernatural cultures at war and broadens his knowledge of ley energy, mana, and personal chi.

Magic and mayhem await, along with the literal western flavor of adventurous heroes testing the limits of the frontier—the unknown and hidden worlds that surround us.

Otherwest

All Content TM & © 2007-2024, the First Salvo Partners, Thaddeus Branco. All Rights Reserved.


Follow A First Salvo Partner and Otherwest author T.E. Branco and A First Salvo pages on Facebook for further interaction.

Otherwest

Creativity is doing!

JOIN THE CULTIVATION GOODNESS!

Thank you for celebrating the Chinese New Year with us! Cultivation in progression fantasy novels.

On February 1st, author Ed White teamed up with 11 other authors for a Chinese New Year party in the Cultivation Novels group on Facebook.

Come see the AMAs, interviews, and much more!

Want to take part? Don’t forget to join the Cultivation Novels group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cultivationnovel

Winners of the Ed White giveaway on February 1 will gain free copies of the revised Battle Avatars during the March Battle Avatars promotion!

Creativity is doing!