03/11/2025
In March 2024, ethnobotanist Wouter Bijdendijk stepped onto the TEDx stage with a message that the mainstream wasn't ready for. His talk, "The Sacredness of Plants," revealed truths that have been systematically suppressed for over 600 years—truths about humanity's deepest tradition with mind-altering plants, the deliberate demonization of sacred botanical knowledge, and the profound importance of plant consciousness in our lives.
It was never released.
Why? Because Bijdendijk spoke out against the system. He exposed how Western civilization became the only culture on Earth to criminalize humanity's most ancient sacramental practices. He revealed how the witch hunts weren't just about persecuting women—they were about destroying millennia of botanical wisdom, severing our connection to plant teachers that had guided human consciousness since the Neolithic era.
Standing before that audience, Bijdendijk held up a 2400-year-old Greek cup decorated with mushrooms—a "grail of immortality"—and declared what the ancients knew well: that plants communicate with us not only through their chemical makeup but also through cultural memory, spiritual connection, and lived experience. He traced the lineage from ancient Sumerian beer goddesses to medieval women brewers, from the Eleusinian Mysteries where sacred plant medicines revealed the deepest truths to the systematic suppression that followed.
His once-lost message now finds new life in Plant Power—a full-color reference guide to beneficial plants and mushrooms that includes simple yet elegant recipes shared by his brother, Michelin-star chef Joris Bijdendijk. The book explores the historical suppression he once spoke of, while restoring the full continuum of plant wisdom: from the immune-strengthening chaga revered by Sámi shamans to the consciousness-expanding gifts of sacred cacti, from the digestive alchemy of ancient fermented tonics to the neurogenic intelligence of lion’s mane, long recognized by our ancestors through the Doctrine of Signatures.
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