“Utterly brilliant and inspired in every direction – writing, ethnobotany, chemistry, psychonautics, pharmacology, drug history, gardening, house building, hydroelectrics (he powered his house and village at one point with a hydroelectric system he installed), teaching, editing, and pretty much everything else you could ever find interest in. Jonathan had a gargantuan knowledge bank, skill set and even bigger heart. He will be so missed by so many.”
Hattie Wells, Psychedelic practitioner and co-director Breaking Convention
Jonathan Ott was born on 2 June 1949 in Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent his childhood with his three sisters. According to Claudia Müller-Ebeling, who knew him well, he had to overcome «familial, political, and academic boundaries and mostly limited spheres of awareness,” before studying organic chemistry at the Evergreen State College in Olympia (Washington), and later in Mexico, where he made his home.
In 1973, a fateful encounter brought him together with Richard Evans Schultes. He, Albert Hofmann and R. Gordon Wasson remained Jonathan’s most important mentors. He also collaborated with other passionate ethnobotanical researchers such as Pablo Blas Reko, Christian Rätsch and Jochen Gartz. Along with Alexander Shulgin and Antonio Escohotado, who also left us recently, he has now joined them in the land beyond the rainbow, where I hope they are having a good time together.
Among many other things, Jonathan Ott is famous for having been the English translator of Albert Hofmann’s book LSD My Problem Child, and for having co-coined the term «entheogen.» Not only was his Engish most elegant, and a pleasure to hear and read: his German was also remarkable, spoken with only the slightest accent. Other than Spanish, he was a scholar on Indigenous languages. He authored and co-authored a large number of books and articles, the most famous being his Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and History (1993), Ayahuasca Analogues. Pangean Enthogens (1984) and Hallucinogenic Plants of North America (1976). You’ll find a selection of his available writings here.
Ott was an experienced field collector in Mexico, where managed a small natural-products laboratory and botanical garden of medicinal herbs. In March 2010, his home was destroyed by arson. In a vindictive act, the books given to him by Albert Hofmann were reportedly used as fuel, meaning the arsonist must have acted with premeditated intent. Fortunately Jonathan Ott was not home when it happened.
From 1976 onward, Jonathan initiated several psychedelic conferences along with various partners, The psychedelic movements owes him more than we’ll ever know or be able to express.
The Gaia Media Foundation hosted or co-hosted him on several occasions. You’ll find his talks «The Hermit of a Latter-Day St-Anthony Entertains St Albert» (LSD80, Basel 2023), «Albert Hofmann’s Contributions to Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research» (2014) as well as an «Interview with Faustin Bray» (World Psychedelic Forum 2008) and «Albert Hofmann & Jonathan Ott on Consciousness & Mystical Experience” (Outside Dr. Hofmann’s home on the Rittimatte 2002) on our YouTube Channel. I also found him here. Keep on scrollling…
Jonathan Ott and I were about the same age. He was a warm-hearted man, and I am very sorry he’s no longer with us. He passed on 5 July; the cause of his death remains to be revealed,
In fond memory,
Susanne G. Seiler