sanford2

Mushrooms, Molds, & Miracles

Kavaler, Lucy. (1965). Mushrooms, Molds, and Miracles.
NY: The John Day Company.

ISBN: none

Description: Hardcover, 318 pages, 22 cm. x 15.2 cm. x 3.4 cm.

Contents: 17 chapters in 6 parts. Part 1: Fungi and Mankind, Part 2: Fungi as Food, Part 3: Fungi
and Your Health, Part 4: Fungi and Our Crops, Part 5: Fungi and the Things You Use, Part 6: Fungi
and the Conquest of Space, bibliography, index

Excerpt(s):

Chapter 1: Introduction: Fungi and Your Life

The extreme swing between good and evil is nowhere more evident than in the hotly disputed mind
drugs, LSD-25 and psilocybin, both of fungal origin. These vision-producing drugs remove the taker
from the confining world of reality. Unschooled Indians have long considered the mushrooms
con-taining psilocybin as sacred; more sophisticated individuals take a less starry-eyed approach.
Harvard University has dis-missed a professor for testing these drugs on students (with their full
cooperation - the undergraduates were most en-thusiastic about their surrealistic experiences). The
American Medical Association warns that LSD-25 and psilocybin could cause permanent damage to
the mind. And yet, other experts believe that these drugs can aid in the treatment and under-standing
of mental illness. (page 16)

Chapter 2: A Third Kingdom?

An equally important partnership, that of fungi and algae (the most primitive plants on earth), forms
lichen. This combination is so thoroughly entwined that it is usually de-scribed as a single plant,
although its dualism was explained by De Bary in the last century. Found in barren or rocky ground,
this combination spells the difference between life and death to many peoples and animals. Its
lifesaving tradi-tion is a long one, dating back to Biblical days when the Israelites left Egypt and were
starving in the wilderness, and the Lord told Moses that He would cause bread to rain from the
heavens upon them.

"And it came to pass… in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. And when the
layer of dew was gone up, behold upon the face of the wilderness a fine, scale-like thing, fine as the
hoar frost upon the ground."

As every Bible reader will recall, the children of Israel did not know what it was, and Moses
explained that it was the bread sent by God and that they should gather it and eat. Every morning,
except on the Sabbath, they took up this "scale-like thing" and baked it into bread, which they called
"manna." And it is said to have sustained them for the forty years of their journey through the
wilderness.

Over the centuries, first Biblical scholars and then bota-nists have tried to determine what kind of
plant this "manna" really was. The one that fits the Biblical description best is lichen, which can indeed
cover the ground with a "fine, scale-like thing, fine as the hoar frost." The fungi, able to absorb
moisture from the air when there is none in the soil, can flourish even in a desert. The fact that a layer
of dew ap-peared would indicate a fair amount of water in the atmos-phere above the wilderness.
Lichen can be ground into a flour and baked, producing a bread that is extremely high in protein. The
one area of disagreement between the Biblical records and modern scholars is in flavor. Lichen in
nature is extremely bitter, but according to the description in the Bible: "and the taste of it was like
wafers made with honey." This discrepancy can be explained away in terms of a miracle; then, too,
anything tastes good to starving people. (pages 26 - 27)

Chapter 3: Mushrooms: Mystery, Miracle, Pleasure and Pain

European folklore explains the strangeness of mushrooms in religious terms. In northern Europe, the
Germanic gods are said to play a role in bringing mushrooms into the world. On one winter's night
every year, the chief God Wotan, rides through the forest on horseback, accompanied by his
followers and dogs. Pursued by devils, they ride faster and faster until bloodspecked foam falls from
the mouths of their horses. The following spring, a beautiful poisonous mushroom whose red cap is
flecked with white is to be found wherever the foam has dropped. The Christians, too, have added
to the store of legends. According to one account, Christ and Peter walked over the countryside
begging for bread whenever they were hungry. Some of the peasants gave them brown bread, but
others gave offered delicious white biscuits. The two walked on through the forests, eating.
Wherever a brown crumb fell, poisonous mushrooms sprang up. While wherever a white crumb fell,
wholesome mushrooms grew. (pages 34 - 35)

… Legends are still current about prohibition days in the United States when, it is said, a particular
species of mushroom was eaten to produce the effects of a mild alcoholic binge. The mushrooms that
inebriate are classified as poisonous, regardless of how delightful their users consider them to be.
(page 43)

The practice of cultivating mushrooms like a crop is surprisingly recent, considering how long these
fungi have been prized. The Pharaohs of Egypt viewed them as much too good for the common man,
and the Romans described them as "food for the gods" and as stimulants to virility. (page 44)

Chapter 10: Something Old, Something New

When not aiding patients, ergot, exhibiting again the contradictory nature of fungi, can make people
desperately and horribly ill. A disease, ergotism, is caused by eating bread made of infected rye. In
its most common form, ergotism re-sults in gangrene, loss of limbs and sometimes death. A second
type, also often fatal, affects the mind and causes psychotic behavior. Peasants, therefore, gave
ergoty bread the falsely gay name of "inebriating bread."

During the Middle Ages, ergotism was very common, particularly among the poor. It was customary
then for millers to clean the grain and separate it into two piles - one good and one ergoty. The
infection-free grain was ground into flour and baked into bread for the nobility and the clergy; the rest
was left for the peasants. The result was graphically de-scribed in 857 by a writer whose name has
been lost: "A great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loath-some rot." In one
epidemic in the year 994, more than 40,000 people died. … (pages 149 - 150)

Chapter 11: The Mind Drug Madness

"I felt like a flower that had just started to bloom."
"I became an angel floating deliciously through space... every cell in my body a frenzy of joyous
vibration."
"I realized I am the universe, I am all men.
"I am only six inches tall."
"I have no boundaries - scoop me up off the floor and tie me up in a sack to give me some limits."

Every one of these extravagant statements is an exact quotation from a man or woman undergoing
"The Experi-ence", as it is known, of LSD-25, a drug that induces hal-lucinations.

This visionary state brings a mystical sense of religion to many if not most drug users. "I didn't have to
run any-more, because what I was running to was God, and I found Him."

On a Good Friday in 1963, twenty young people, most of them ministry students, entered Boston
University's Marsh Chapel for what was perhaps the first deliberate scientific attempt to produce a
religious experience artificially. Half of them were given LSD, [sic. psilocybin - TBR] while the others
received a placebo. All but one of the drug-takers experienced a "deep union with God," while only
one of the control group reached this level. Though most clerics decried drugs as a road to faith, one
minister was so struck by the reports of the experiment that he preached to his congregation that
LSD could bring them closer to God.

"The fact that the experience was induced by drugs has no bearing on its validity" was the considered
opinion of Dr. W. T. Stace of Princeton University.

Other LSD converts have found that it changed their attitude toward those around them. "My
mommie has gone to take the drug that makes her terribly nice for a whole month," remarked the
nine-year-old daughter of a writer who gave a graphic description of her LSD experience under the
pseudonym "Jane Dunlap."

"Now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her," said Cary
Grant after LSD-25. (pages 159 - 160)

But the story of the mind drugs is much older than this, and fungi are at the root of it. In Europe the
history has been traced back more than one thousand years. From the ninth to the twelfth centuries,
Iceland and the Scandinavian countries were terrorized by gangs of fighters and murderers. They
were called the "Berserks" after a legendary hero who went into battle dressed only in a bearskin.
The Berserks were normal, though disagreeable, most of the time. But every so often they would be
seized by a fury and would act "like wild animals," according to accounts of the period. The onset of
these attacks was accompanied by fits of shivering and chills in which their faces would swell and
change color. At the height of their rage, they howled, bit their shields and cut down their opponents
mercilessly. Once the fit ended, they were left weak and stupid for several days. One might think that
they were mad were it not for one fact: In 1123 a law was passed exiling for three years anyone who
went berserk and from then on these mass fits of madness were no longer seen. As legislation against
insanity has never produced a cure, historians have had to look for other explanations. The theory
that has gained general acceptance is that on the day of a massacre or battle, the men would eat the
mushroom Amanita muscaria. Related to the deadly Amanitas described in Chapter Three, the
Amanita muscaria has intoxicating properties. (pages 161 - 162)

In New Guinea the "mushroom madness" to this day periodically seizes some members of the Kuma
tribe of the South Wahgi Valley in the Western Highlands when they eat the native mushroom they
call "nonda." The men put on feather bustles, grab their spears and run about, threatening anyone
who gets in their way. They are not really violent, though. The children hide behind the huts and call
out to the men, urging the excited grownups to come out and catch them. The women become giddy
and tell one another stories about sexual adventures, both real and imaginary. … (pages 162 - 163)

All this is history. Coming to modern times, in the 1950's a most unlikely pair of adventurers,
imaginations fired by these accounts, set off in quest of the sacred mushrooms. They were a dignified,
middle-aged American banker, R. Gordon Wasson, and his Russian-born pediatrician wife,
Valentina. To find out for themselves if the cult was still being practiced, they journeyed deep into the
interior of Mexico. … (page 164)

The taking of the mushrooms is accompanied by a reli-gious ritual. So deep is the absorption of
wiseman and follow-ers that during one ceremony, observed by the Wassons, a shot was fired and
cries of "murder" were heard outside the hut; not one Indian looked up or paid the slightest attention.
The ritual lasts until cockcrow, and once it has started, no participant may leave the room for any
reason - which does not trouble the uninhibited and unfastidious Indians a whit.

Further travels in Mexico revealed to the Wassons that many different Indian tribes still observe the
sacred mush-room cult. In some tribes, however, anyone can consult the mushroom; it is not the
exclusive province of the wisemen. The Christian influence is felt most strongly by the Mije Indians,
who take the sacred mushrooms to church and ask God's permission to use them. During the
ceremony, if the mushrooms are slow to speak the leftover stems are spilled on the floor before a
rudimentary cross and a candle is lit. (page 165)

Primitive people believe that the mushrooms produce visions because they are divine, but we do not
need to accept a supernatural explanation. Seven kinds of hallucinogenic mushrooms have been
gathered to be studied by botanists and chemists. The botanists succeeded in identifying several of
the mushrooms as members of the Psilocybe species. (After they had completed their work, another
scientist popped up and said that he had seen and identified a sacred mushroom accurately 20 years
earlier. Asked for proof, he pointed to two references in an 800-page volume he had written.
Appar-ently no one else had read it all the way through.) … (page 166)

By this time the Eastern mysticism that had always been attractive to Huxley and other visionaries
using mescaline began to infiltrate the LSD-psilocybin cult. Scholars might note the fitness of this:
Buddha ate mushrooms (though no one suggests that they belonged to the Psilocybe) at his last
supper on earth before being carried to Nirvana. At Harvard it became the custom to call those in
charge of the mind drugs "gurus", the Hindu word for "teachers." The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
which explains the secrets of reincarnation, was adopted as a manual, because LSD brings psychic
death and rebirth. The effect of the drug is such as to give the taker an awareness of the beauty of
spiritual contemplation leading to a rejection of materialistic goals. Still, author Arthur Koestler
dismissed the whole thing after one experience as "instant Zen." (pages 171 - 172)

===================================================================
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Cannabis News

                 Mixed Messages on Medical Marijuana
               Posted by FoM on February 14, 2002 at
               12:23:25 PT
               Commentary
               Source: Orange County Register

               For the first time in months, it
               appears that Santa Ana medical
               marijuana activist and patient
               Marvin Chavez could be moving
               toward a satisfactory resolution of
               his legal problems. It can't come too
               soon. Localities like Orange County would do well
               to get their act together on the state law that
               authorizes patients to use marijuana, because it looks
               as if the federal government is beginning a
               heavy-handed crackdown. Mr. Chavez, you may
               recall, was charged with cultivation for distribution
               and sale of marijuana after the Santa Ana police
               raided his home and confiscated the marijuana plants
               he was growing.

                 Petaluman Faces Pot Charges After
               2-Nation Bust
               Posted by FoM on February 14, 2002 at
               10:42:16 PT
               By Jeremy Hay, Staff Writer
               Source: Press Democrat

               A Petaluma man who was acquitted
               in a medical marijuana case last year
               is now facing federal charges that his
               pot club is a front for drug dealing.
               Kenneth E. Hayes was arrested in
               Canada on Tuesday as federal
               agents raided the San Francisco club and seven
               other locations, including his home.

               Drug Enforcement Administration agents said Hayes
               is the head of an organization that grows and
               distributes "large quantities" of marijuana.

                 ID Cards Approved for Medical-Pot
               Users
               Posted by FoM on February 14, 2002 at
               08:19:11 PT
               By Ray Huard, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
               Source: Union-Tribune

               People who use marijuana on their
               doctor's advice will get identification
               cards meant to protect them from
               arrest under a program approved by
               the San Diego City Council
               yesterday.

               "This is a very modest response to an immediate and
               real need," said Councilwoman Toni Akins, who
               joined Councilman Ralph Inzunza Jr. in leading the
               drive for a medical marijuana ID card program.

               Drug Enforcement Administration agents said Hayes
               is the head of an organization that grows and
               distributes "large quantities" of marijuana.

Read More...
(14 Comments)

Pot Raids Stir S.F. Protests
Pot Raids Stir S.F. Protests

=======================================================================================
The Road to Eleusis

With thanks to The Johns Hopkins University Press for their kind permission to reprint the following.
- TR
===================================

Luck, Georg. The Road to Eleusis. American Journal of Philology 122:1 (2001) 135-138. © 2001
by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with the permission of The Johns Hopkins
University Press.

Book Review

The Road to Eleusis

R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl A. P. Ruck et al. The Road to Eleusis. New edition
with preface by Huston Smith. Los Angeles: William Daley Rare Books, 1998. 149 pp. 14 ills.
Cloth, $50.

The first edition of this book was published in 1978 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and did not
receive much attention. Among the few reviews listed in L'Année Philologique, the one by Michael
Jameson (CW 73 [1979]: 197 ff.) was rather guarded but certainly not as negative as that by P.
Walcot (G&R 26 [1979]: 105). I have been unable to consult the others. The prestigious
Insel-Verlag (Frankfurt am Main, 1984) brought out a German translation. Walter Burkert's
skepticism (Ancient Mystery Cults [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987]) probably
reflected the attitude of other scholars, while Carlo Ginzburg (Ecstasies [Harmondsworth, U.K.:
Penguin Books, 991]) kept an open mind.

The only enthusiastic endorsement that I know of (thanks to the kindness of Robert Forte)
appeared in the Mexican review Vuelta (28 [March 1979]: 16-21), directed at that time by Octavio
Paz; it was written by his friend, Jaime García Terrés, hellenist, ambassador, and poet, and it is well
worth reading along with the book, because it is beautifully written and adds new perspectives.

Otherwise, there was the kind of embarrassed silence which often means that the profession is
uncomfortable with a revolutionary idea.

Since then this idea, the role of psychoactive substances in religion, has been pursued forcefully
by Wasson, Ruck, and others in Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion (New
Haven: Yale University Press, [End Page 135] 1986) and by Robert Forte, who has edited a
collection entitled Entheogens and the Future of Religion (San Francisco: Council on Spiritual
Practices, 1997), with important new contributions by Hofmann and Wasson. The handsome new
edition of The Road to Eleusis has been expanded by Smith's preface, Ruck's "Hindsight," and
Hofmann's afterword.

I hope that, this time, the book will be read carefully and critically, but with an open mind, by
classicists, historians, and anthropologists, because it could change our way of thinking about ancient
religions. It makes an excellent case for the use of a hallucinogenic drug in one of the ancient world's
most venerable rituals, the initiation ceremony at Eleusis. Such drugs, when administered in a strictly
religious context, are now called "entheogens," a convenient term, addendum lexicis, which was
introduced some time ago and is explained again here (137 ff.).

If we disregard modern phenomenological studies of psychedelic experiences, the most
compelling evidence for the sacramental use of psychoactive substances comes from "primitive"
cultures whose rites can be observed today and whose shamans sometimes talk to outsiders. By now
an enormous material has been collected and interpreted by anthropologists, ethnobotanists,
chemists, and pharmacists. The time has come to apply all this evidence to ancient cultures. After all,
E. R. Dodds half a century ago (The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1951]) suggested that Greek religion was essentially a superior form
of shamanism, and he has never been challenged effectively. Today the evidence at our disposal is
even more substantial than half a century ago. What we know today about the religious uses of
mind-altering drugs in South America, Africa, and other parts of the world confirms Dodds' intuition.

The Road to Eleusis owes its existence to a unique interdisciplinary (and international) meeting of
minds. Wasson, the American banker, became interested, through his Russian wife, in mushrooms
and soon established a reputation as the world's first thnomycologist. He and Hofmann, the
distinguished Swiss scientist, became friends and collaborated with Richard Evans Schultes of
Harvard University, the prestigious explorer of psychoactive plants in the New World. They were
joined by Carl Ruck, a classicist at Boston University who has since, along with Clark Heinrich and
Blaise Staples, embarked on what could be described as a mycological or entheogenic interpretation
of Greek religion and mythology.

The real breakthrough, as I see it, is due to Albert Hofmann who, in 1943, discovered LSD, one
of the most powerful mind-altering drugs in the world. As he studied its effects and explored its
possible value in psychiatry, knowing that such drugs can induce deep religious experiences, it
occurred to him that, during the initiation rites at Eleusis, the priests may have administered a
substance related to LSD.

A veil of secrecy still covers the events, but we know that at one point a drink, the kykeon, was
offered to the candidates, and its ingredients seem perfectly [End Page 136] ordinary, as far as they
are specified: barley, flour, mint, and water. But what, Hofmann asks, if there was an admixture of
ergot from barley in the Eleusinian potion? Ergot grows on grain as well as on wild grass and is
chemically related not only to LSD but also to ololiuhqui, an ancient South American entheogen
whose well-documented psychotropic effects are not unlike the striking visions experienced at
Eleusis.

Hofmann does not underestimate the importance of the long preparation of the candidates through
certain ascetic techniques, their conditioning by the hieros logos, the supreme role of set and setting,
but he argues convincingly, I think, that the great moment when a candidate realized the transcendent
truth of all that he had been told owed its overwhelming power to a specific psychoactive
substance applied at the right moment, in the right dose. Now he actually "saw those things." The
phrase (see G. Luck, "Virgil and the Mystery Religions," in AJP 94 [1973]: 147-66) is crucial, for in
Greek as well as in Latin, "to see"--when the verb occurs in an emotionally charged context-always
means more than just "to observe" or "to witness" something; it means "to experience," "to be
involved" in a happening, a meaningful event. The book also deals with wine, the gift of Dionysus,
another ancient entheogen. Its impact on the human soul is shown in Euripides' Bacchae, in vase
paintings, and other testimonies. Could fermented grape juice transform the normal human
consciousness to such a stupendous degree? Hardly. It seems rasonable to assume that the Greeks
fortified their wines in some way. They did this, not by adding strong spirits, for real distillation seems
to have been discovered only towards the very end of the first millenium b.c. They probably added
potent herbal toxins to wine (54). The initiation rites at the Dionysiac mysteries would have been such
a special occasion, a parallel to what happened at Eleusis. Various recipes have survived, and even if
it is not clear whether the mixtures served as entheogens, some of the ingredients are almost certainly
narcotic or hallucinogenic. The authors mention (101) a blend of frankincense, myrrh, oil of
marjoram, oil of crocus, cyclamen, and oleander. These substances, added to wine, would certainly
make a potent psychoactive concoction and help us understand why the Greeks approached their
wine so reverently; they normally drank it mixed with water.

We may never know what the psychoactive element in the kykeon was, but Hofmann is probably
right, though he does not exclude the rust on darnel (Lolium temulentum), a weed that sometimes
grows in grain fields. One might even speculate that the mint in the Eleusinian drink was a kind of
pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), said to be mildly narcotic.

But perhaps no single hallucinogen or entheogen--once we accept the idea--could account for the
visions which happened so predictably. My own guess is that it may have been a combination of
factors. In addition to the potion itself, there may have been smoke from certain substances
(henbane? poppy seeds?) smouldering on beds of coals. That "holy smoke" was inhaled in religious
and magical rituals is well attested, and many passages in the Old Testament strongly suggest the use
of a special blend of incense as an entheogen (See Paul [End Page 137] Heger, The Development of
the Incense Cult in Israel [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997], although the author stops short of drawing this
conclusion.) The trance of the Pythia in Delphi may have been induced by smoke. Heavy perfumes
were used in theurgical rites in Neoplatonist circles--they may have contributed to the apostasis of
Julian--and by the Byzantine empress Zoe in her palace, as Michael Psellus (Chronogr. 6, chaps.
24-27) relates.

Finally, hypnosis and mass suggestion could have played a role. Hypnotic techniques almost
certainly were practiced by priests in Egypt and Greece and, long before that, in India. These
techniques were kept secret within a few castes and clans and were almost--but not quite--forgotten
in the West, until their rediscovery as "animal magnetism" in the eighteenth century when they caused
quite a stir.

These are just a few suggestions arising from a new reading of a book which literally opens new
doors of perception. Even if its main thesis is not accepted by everyone today, the beautiful pages by
Albert Hofmann on the meaning of the Mysteries and the mystic experience itself have a universal
appeal. Let me quote from his afterword (148): "Only a few blessed people spontaneously attain the
mystical vision. . . . As a result, mankind has repeatedly sought paths and evolved methods to evoke
deeper perception and xperience. First among these are different techniques of meditation.
Meditation can be assisted by such external means as isolation and solitude, a path the hermits and
desert saints followed; and by such physical practices as fasting and breath control. An especially
important aid in the induction of mystical-ecstatic states of consciousness, discovered in the earliest
times, is decidedly the use of certain plant drugs."

The Road to Eleusis brings us closer to the Mysteries of the past. More work remains to be
done. We should now explore the survival of ancient entheogens in medieval witchcraft and the
channels of transmission--through the Church itself, even though it battled magic in all its forms, but
also through exotic carriers, such as the Roma.

I would like to thank Robert Forte for reading this review and offering valuable suggestions.

                                                                                    Georg Luck
                                                                          Johns Hopkins University
                                                                      e-mail: [email protected]

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_journal_of_philology/v122/122.1luck.html

==================================================================================
The Heffter Review

The Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research. (2001). Vol 2. Santa Fe, NM: The Heffter Research
Institute

ISSN: 1534-9640

Description: Paperback, 108 pages. 27.7 cm. x 21.6 cm. x 0.8 cm.

Contents: 7 articles

Contributors: Andrey Burakov, Mark Geyer, Euphrosyne Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, Alexander
Grinenko, Geoge R. Greer, John Horgan, Evgeny M. Krupitsky, Charles D. Nichols, David E.
Nichols, Daniel M. Perrine, Tatyana N. Romanov, Elaine Sanders-Bush, Rick J. Strassman, Franz
X. Vollenweider.

Excerpts:

The Future of Mind-Science
John Horgan

There are many alternative reductionisms. We are nothing but a pack of idiosyncratic genes. We are
noth-ing but a pack of adaptations sculpted by natural se-lection. We are nothing but a pack of
computational devices dedicated to different tasks. We are nothing but a pack of sexual neuroses.
These proclamations, like Crick's, are all defensible, and they are all inad-equate.

… Reality has a hierarchical structure, Anderson contended, with each level independent, to some
degree, of the levels above and below.

"At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration
and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one," Anderson argued. "Psychology is not
applied biology--nor is biology applied chemistry." If there is any feature of nature that has proved to
be more than the sum of its parts, it is human nature. (page 1)

My own sojourns into altered states have left me convinced that they cannot solve the mystery of
con-sciousness. Far from it. I suspect that the more intelli-gent or aware or enlightened we
become-whether through drugs or meditation or genetic engineering or artificial intelligence-the more
we will be astonished, awestruck, dumbfounded by consciousness, and life, and the whole universe,
regardless of the power of our scientific explanations. Wittgenstein captured this no-tion when he
wrote, "Not how the world is, is the mys-tical, but that it is." (page 4)

Visions of the Night
Western Medicine Meets Peyote 1887-1899
Daniel M. Perrine

This article outlines some of what I have thus far learned from a project I began some years ago to
study the history of the earliest scientific investigations of peyote and its alkaloids. I have come across
a number of intriguing features in this history, including particularly the personalities of many of the
principal investigators. But I will focus on two main questions here:

1) What is actually known of the human pharmacology and psychopharmacology of the many
alkaloids in peyote other than the most famous and abundant alkaloid, mescaline? Could these
contribute in any way to the overall effects of regular peyote consumption as practiced by members
of the Native American Church?

2) How did peyote affect the first non-Indians to ingest it? I was particularly interested in
finding first-hand accounts from these earliest "psychonauts" (to employ an anachronism) which might
reveal significant differences in the response of non-Indians from Indians. My motives in looking for
such differences and my reasons for expecting them are developed below. (page 6)

Over the years, this process expanded geometrically; with everyone quoting everyone else
so that by 1938, La Barre could devote two pages and cite six or more authorities (including Dixon's
totally unreliable work, which in any case claimed just the opposite, that all the alkaloids were
pharmacologically identical) discussing how the earliest effects of peyote intoxication were due to one
alkaloid, the next due to another, and so forth. This is the sort of science Mark Twain so admired
because it produced such an enriching return in speculation from such a modest investment of fact;
indeed, it conforms to the description a Jesuit friend of mine has for theology, which he calls
"data-free analysis." (page 11)

The First Psychonauts?
Briggs, Lumholtz, and Mooney

There are three Ameuropeans, two Americans and a Norwegian, who each independently
discovered peyote and became interested enough in the plant to sample it themselves.
Chronologically, the first was a Texas physician, John Raleigh Briggs (1851-1907), who
experimented with peyote in 1886. The second was Carl Lumholtz (1851-1922), a Norwegian with
a passion for exploration who was the first white man to live alone with the Australian aborigines, as
well as the Tarahumara and Huichol of northwest Mexico, where in 1892 he first became acquainted
with and sampled hikuli, as these natives call peyote. The third was James Mooney, an
Irish-American with a lifelong passionate interest in and sympathy for Indian history and culture,
whose field trips as an ethnologist working for the Smithsonian allowed him in 1891 to be the first
non-Indian to attend a peyote religious ceremony and report on it. He continued to attend many of
these ceremonies over the course of many years, and at some point no later than the summer of 1892
he began the regular custom of eating four to eight peyote "buttons" during the ceremony.

John Raleigh Briggs seems to be the first Ameuropean to report on the experience of consuming
peyote. In the Medical Register he authored an article titled "'Muscale Buttons'-Physiological
Effects-Personal Experience."… (pages 15 - 16)

Carl Lumholtz was born in 1851 near Lillihammer, Norway. His father wanted him to become a
Lutheran clergyman, so he abandoned his early interest in botany and began the study of theology.
"To secure my degree," he writes, "I had to work sixteen hours a day for several months; this strain
brought on a nervous breakdown, which, however, unexpectedly turned to my benefit. (pages 15 -
16)

Of late years, the hikuli cult has, strangely enough, been adopted by certain tribes in the United
States and well meaning people are trying to stop this on the ground that it is a kind of debauche.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. By all manner of means prevent the Indians from getting the
white man's brandy, which ultimately and surely ruins them, but hikuli, or peyote, is an entirely
different matter. (page 16)

In any case, what is more noteworthy is what does not happen to Lumholtz either of the times he
takes hikuli. There are no psychological or spiritual reactions whatever on his part; merely physical
symptoms (chill, renewed energy) or at most the "after effects" of closed-eyes visuals. As for this last
phenomenon, the only one distinctly typical of peyote, Lumholtz seems oddly ambivalent. He
"suffered" from them, and he lumps these visuals together with the negative effects of nausea and lack
of appetite, and yet he describes them as "beautiful." All this stands in vivid contrast to Mooney's
brief but rich description of the effects on him of peyote taken during a Kiowa Indian religious
ceremony, which we will discuss below.

James Mooney. Born in Richmond, Indiana, in 1861 of immigrant parents from Meath, Ireland,
James Mooney as a young boy became fascinated by the stories of the Indians who once inhabited
all of the vast U.S. continent. … (page 20)

… He thereby became the first white person to observe the peyote ritual as practiced by the
Amerindians of the United States.

Mooney was fascinated by the ceremony and the cactus at its center, and much of the rest of his
career was dedicated to the study and defense of this cult, which Mooney soon realized was uniquely
able to provide a source of unity and cultural integrity to the multitude of Amerindian tribes uprooted
from their native lands and thrown together on the reservations. The peyote cult is "a pan-Indian,
semi-Christian, nativistic movement… that stresses the common bond among Indians rather than the
local cultural differences ... to preserve what are seen as distinctively Indian elements against the
efforts of the dominant whites to make the Indians over into standard Americans." On Mooney's
return to Washington in the fall of 1891, he spoke enthusiastically about this "Kiowa Mescal Rite"
before the Anthropological Association of Washington; he was eventually to play a leading role in
founding the Native American Church. (pages 20 - 21)

I mentioned above the contrast between Mooney's experience described here and the experiences
Lumholtz had on his two encounters with hikuli. Some of the differences may be due to Lumholtz's
taking a smaller dose; he says he took three hikuli in all in Te-akata. On the other hand, these were
probably entire hikuli plants, not just the slices, or "buttons" used by the Kiowas. In any case, while
the effects on Lumholtz were limited to physical symptoms, the images used by Mooney to describe
his experience, in part because they are not explicitly religious, powerfully evoke the immanent
approach and presence of Otto's mysterium tremendum etfascinans-that shuddering sense of awe,
simultaneously terrifying and utterly enrapturing, which is at the heart of every "religious" experience.
(page 22)

The First "Bicycle-Day" - May 30, 1896

Finally, Mitchell appends a report from one of his colleagues, a Dr. Eshner of the staff of
Washington's Infirmary for Nervous Disease. Eshner describes what he experienced when he took a
total of 3.66 fluid drachms (equal to 3.66 peyote buttons) on Memorial Day of 1896, just a few days
after Mitchell's experiment: …

At about 6.30 p.m. I arose and attempted to eat a little, but failed. Nausea was quite pronounced,
and there was total loss of appetite. At no time did vomiting occur.

I then lay down for half or three-quarters of an hour, and the visions were repeated. I had intended
going out in the evening, and, in the hope of gaining relief, I equipped myself for a bicycle ride, and
started off, despite my langour and general depression. I made my way to the Park without the
slightest difficulty, and at Girard Bridge met and spoke to an acquaintance, stopped under the bridge
to view the Memorial Day illumination, and went on.

I rode in all about eight miles, going down a fairly steep declivity with ease, and descending
a longer and perhaps steeper declivity with almost equal ease. … (pages 33 - 34)

Shortly after his visit to "fairyland" in 1896, Mitchell sent some of the peyote buttons to William
James at Harvard, whom he deeply admired and with whom he had an on-again off-again friendship
of many years-frequently marred by such incidents as Mitchell's impatiently declaring to James after a
spiritualist seance they had attended together that it was nothing but "inconceivable twaddle".

James promptly sampled the buttons while alone on June 8th at the family's Chocorua cottage.
Perhaps the buttons had begun to rot or were contaminated with some bacteria-in any case, the
results were entirely different from those produced by Mitchell's extract. On 11 June 1896, William
wrote to his brother Henry (addressed jovially as "Dear Heinrich") in Europe: "I took one bud 3 days
ago, vomited and spattered for 24 hours and had no other symptom whatever except that and the
Katzenjammer the following day. I will take the visions on trust".

This must sadly rank as one of the greatest lost opportunities in entheogenic history. For as is well
known, William James wrote extensively of his response to nitrous oxide, at one time saying that an
"intense metaphysical illumination... [and] immense emotional sense of reconciliation ... a
thousand-fold enhanced, was the direct effect upon me of the gas." He says he tried nitrous oxide a
number of times, always with the same result, after reading (at no stated
date) a pamphlet called The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy by Benjamin Blood.
… (page 35)

From Peyote to Mescaline: Arthur Heffter's Self-Experiments of 1987

The most critical contribution to the understanding of peyote's unique properties was without doubt
the series of meticulously systematic experiments which Heffter performed on himself in 1897, and
which led to the identification of mescaline as the first single chemical entity known to be an
entheo-hallucinogen. (page 42)

Without any doubt, Heffter's famous article of 1898 in which he describes the careful series of
self-experiments he had conducted the year before which led to the inescapable conclusion that
the single alkaloid mescaline, taken by Heffter as a pure compound in known dosage, was
responsible for the most striking and characteristic effects of peyote, the colored
pseudohallucinatory "visions," is deservedly regarded as a classic in psychopharmacology.

As noted above, the key part of this article describing most of the self-experiments is available in
English translation thanks to the indefatigable Bo Holmstedt, whose labors over the years to honor
the memory of the first explorers of psychedelic substances, as well as his own invaluable studies of
the chemistry of peyote, should guarantee him a place of honor among every entheogenist's
household gods. (page 48)

Concluding Unscientific Postscript - A Perspectival View

Let us briefly return to one of the original issues motivating this detailed look at these first
Ameuropean experiences of an Entheogenic Sacrament. I use this possibly controversial term to
highlight just what for the most part did not take place.

There is no question that peyote is for the members of the Native American Church just that-an
entheogenic sacrament. But in all but two of the 20 or so Ameuropean responses to peyote we have
examined (I am including a post-Heffter report of Ellis, counting Mooney only once-though he may
have participated in several dozen ceremonies-and counting James and Yeats each as ½) the drug
was nothing more than a (pseudo) hallucinogen.

True, this is in itself an astonishing and remarkable thing-that swallowing a dried piece of cactus or a
white powder could cause an intense, vivid, and usually quite beautiful series of brilliantly colored
phantasms to burst unbidden and irresistibly into the usually inviolable inner sanctum of one's personal
consciousness. (pages 48 - 49)

… And this reminds us of what should never be forgotten: a person's own entheological dynamism is
the one necessary, even at times all-sufficient factor in "producing" a mystical experience.

As the history of every religion shows, such an internal orientation, if sufficiently intense, can carry all
before it and result in a mystical experience in the most unsacramental and unlikely of settings-as with
Viktor Frankl's experience in Dachau. (Indeed, the goal of much religious asceticism seems to be to
create with near masochistic zeal a setting so devoid of any appeal that the naked spirit, forced to
confront nothing else, will be finally annihilated in the blaze of its own all-consuming Quest.) (page
49)

… Indeed, what transforms a drug into a sacrament is precisely the setting; and the sacrament
then reacts back to totally transform the setting in a reinforcing synergism.

Setting and sacrament (whether "real" or "placebo"-for everything is placebo next to the one Reality)
will never be more than catalytic. Nonetheless, as every chemist will testify, catalysts are very helpful.
As we ascend from simple inorganic reactions through organic chemistry to biochemistry and life
itself they become increasingly important and finally indispensable. Life without catalysts would be
more than difficult-we could not survive our next breath without them. They provide Huxley's door in
the wall-the opened path of lower energy without which
the thermodynamic barrier would be impossibly high--which allows phenomena to occur that
realistically would simply never occur otherwise.

Modifying Timothy Leary's astronomical analogy, religion without psychedelics is like chemistry
without catalysts-in its simplest forms merely difficult, but in its higher reaches next to impossible.

Somewhere, surely- perhaps in the flickering fire of a peyote lodge-- a smiling Ervin Ewell nods
agreement. (pages 49 - 50)

Acute Psychological and Neurophysiological Effects of MDMA In Humans
Franz X. Vollenweider, Mark Geyer, George Greet
(page 53)

Differential Actions of an Entactogen Compared to a Stimulant
and a Hallucinogen in Healthy Humans
Euphrosyne Gouzoulis-Mayfrank
(page 64)

Serotonin Receptor Signaling and Hallucinogenic Drug Action
Charles D. Nichols and Elaine Sanders-Bush
(page 73)

LSD and Its Lysergamide Cousins
David E. Nichols
(page 80)

Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KPT) of Heroin Addiction:
Immediate Effects and Six Months Follow-Up
Evgeny M. Krupitsky, Andrey M. Burakov, Tatyana N. Romanov, Alexander Y Grinenko, Rick J.
Strassman

Many addiction studies in the 1950's and 1960's suggested that hallu-cinogen-assisted (psychedelic)
psychotherapy might be an efficient treatment, but different methodologies made it difficult to
generalize across studies.

In the 1970's Savage and McCabe showed that LSD-assisted psychotherapy had a positive effect
on the outcome of treatment of heroin addicts: 25% of the subjects treated with LSD remained
abstinent from opiates for one year as opposed to only 5% of the con-trol group of conventional
weekly group psychotherapy. (page 88)

…Spirituality Changes Scale (SCS) based on the combination of the Spirituality Self-Assessment
Scale developed by Whitfield , who stud-ied the importance of spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous,
and the Life Changes Inventory developed by Ring to estimate psycho-logical changes produced by
near-death expe-riences. SCS has been shown to be sensitive to the changes in spirituality in our
studies of KPT in alcoholism. It has also been shown to be useful in studies of meditation's effect on
spiri-tual development. … (pages 90 - 91)

Description of the Psychotherapeutic Technique Provided

… During the ketamine sessions, patients often experience the sepa-ration of consciousness from the
body and the dissolv-ing of the ego, so it is very important to prepare pa-tients carefully for such an
unusual experience. The therapist pays close attention to such issues as the patient's personal motives
for treatment, his goals for his new life without drugs, his idea of the cause of his disease and its
consequences, and so on.

An individually tailored "psychotherapeutic myth" is formed during this dialogue. It becomes the most
important therapeutic factor responsible for the psy-chological content of the second stage of the
KPT. It is also very important to create a specific atmosphere of confidence and mutual
understanding between the psychotherapist and patient during this first stage of KPT.

The second stage is the ketamine session itself. …

We try to help our patients create a new meaning and purpose in life during this session. We
emphasize the positive values and meaning of life without drugs and the negative aspects of drug
abuse during the ketamine session. It is also very important to carefully direct the patient's
psychedelic experiences by verbal influences and manipulating the musical background towards the
symbolic resolution of the personality con-flicts as well as a final cathartic peak experience. …

… The uniquely profound and powerful ketamine experience often helps them to generate new
insights that enable them to integrate new, often unexpected, meanings, values and attitudes about the
self and the world. (pages 91 - 92)

Conclusion

The results of this double-blind randomized clini-cal trial of KPT for heroin addiction showed that
high-dose (2.0 mg/kg) ketamine psychedelic psychotherapy (KPT) elicits a profound, full
psychedelic experience in heroin addicts.

On the other hand, low-dose KPT (0.20 mg/kg) elicits "sub-psychedelic" experiences that are very
similar to ketamine-facilitated guided imagery. High-dose KPT produced a significantly greater rate
of ab-stinence in heroin addicts within the first six months of follow-up than did low-dose KPT.
High-dose KPT brought about a greater and longer-lasting reduction in craving for heroin, as well as
greater positive change in nonverbal unconscious emotional attitudes.

Thus, it is possible that the higher rate of absti-nence in the high-dose group was to some extent due
to positive effects of ketamine on craving (which has been reported with other NMDA receptor
ligands). It also may be due to the positive transformation of non-verbal unconscious emotional
attitudes.

KPT-induced changes in depression, anxiety, an-hedonia, and psychological changes on the verbal
(con-scious) level assessed with verbal tests (MMPI, Locus of Control Scale, Questionnaire of
Terminal Life Val-ues, Purposes-in-Life Test, and Spirituality Scale) were similar in the experimental
and control groups. These results support the hypothesis that dramatic psycho-logical
transformations induced by psychedelic psy-chotherapy on the verbal level do not always lead to
high rates of abstinence from drugs and alcohol. (page 100)

======================================================================================

The Fly-Agaric and Early Scandinavian Religion
Bennett M. Nichols

ABSTRACT: In this article the author attempts to make a case for the hidden role of the fly-agaric in
Norse mythology and the early Scandinavian religion. The research has elaborated on and has
confirmed the numerous similarities between Soma of the Rig Veda and cult of Odin as described by
the Eddic sources. The mead of poetry has been evaluated and analyzed as an actual component of
the early Scandinavian religion, and not simply as an invention of Icelandic literature and the scaldic
tradition. A similar evaluation and analysis has been made for Yggdrasill and the other central sacred
trees that occur in the medieval Icelandic sources, leading to a re--identification of a birch/ash
confusion which may have arisen in the post-Christian period which introduced Latin and classical
scholarship into Iceland. (page 87)

This article is an attempt to excavate and explain the role, albeit a covert and hidden role, of the
fly-agaric in early Scandinavian religion and pre-history. The fly-agaric, Amanita muscaria, is the
beatific red mushroom with white spots, often known for its subtle appearance in the background of
illustrations in children's fairy tale books, as well as for its use in various ornamentation during the
Yule. The fly-agaric remains a passive, although extremely widespread and beneficent symbol in
many countries in Europe, most notably in the northern European countries. Such positive sentiment
remains, although the fly-agaric is popularly believed to be deadly poisonous to humans. (page 88)

The origin of my interests in the fly-agaric in Scandinavia began in 1992 while in Andersonville, the
former Scandina-vian immigrant section of Clark St., Chicago. I was visiting the Swedish-American
museum when, in the gift-shop, I spied a shelf with candle-stick holders in the appropriate shape and
decoration of fly-agarics, or flugsvamp ('fly-mush-room') as the mushroom is called in Swedish.
Upon seeing the fly-agaric candlestick holders in the gift shop, I pon-dered the significance of this
mushroom in various cul-tures in the Old World. Already acquainted with the sha-manic use of the
fly-agaric in Siberia, I wondered whether there was ever such a use in ancient Scandinavia.

FOLK USE

It is well documented that the fly-agaric was employed by the rustic folk of Sweden, at least until the
beginning of the twentieth century, as a method of controlling (either stun-ning or killing?) house-flies.
The notion that it was used as an insecticide is likely a misinterpretation of the folk-cus-tom as
described in the early accounts and the subsequent scientific literature. The earliest description of the
insecti-cidal properties of the fly-agaric was recorded by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century;
Linnæus subsequently published accounts describing this particular folk use for the fly-agaric in his
home-country of Sweden. After Linnæus references to the insecticidal properties of the fly-agaric
are, innumerable in literature about mushrooms. The Linnæan name muscaria, from the Latin term
musca ('fly'), has carried the folk-association between the mushroom and the fly into scientific
nomenclature. (page 89)

A FETISH FOR FLIES

… It is highly unlikely that the ancient Scandinavians were unaware of the psychoactive properties of
the fly-agaric; it is improbable that the sole significance of this mushroom was a product of its use as
a primitive insecticide. As with mistletoe, a magical plant which has lost its original purpose and use,
the flugsvamp had become an organic talisman, or fe-tish (which had also lost its original purpose and
use). On a subconscious level, however, the flugsvamp had retained its inherent magical spirit and
mystical symbolism. It is interesting to note that both mistletoe and the flugsvamp are plants
associated with the Yule. (pages 91 - 92)

THE FLY-AGARIC IN DECORATION AND ORNAMENTATION

In contemporary northern Europe and Scandinavia the fly--agaric is symbolically associated with the
Yule, or "Christ-mas-tree" as it is now celebrated in much of the world. In modern Swedish folklore
this mushroom appears to be as-sociated with the world of elves, dwarfs, and trolls. I have
personally seen, in Switzerland, countless Christmas trees highly decorated with fly-agaric ornaments.
It is fascinat-ing, or as the skeptics may say "fortuitous', to see the Yule--tree in such an intimate
association with the fly-agaric. (page 92)

AMONG THE SAAMI

We know that at least the Inari Lapps of Finland once consumed the fly-agaric in their shamanic
rites, as today their eastern counterparts in Siberia still do. In Soma, Wasson states that the Inari
Lapps in Finland "preserve oral traditions of having consumed the fly-agaric in times past, though
they no longer do so". Wasson states that "tradition reported by Itkonen among the Inari Lapps [tells
us] that they were once familiar with the fly-agaric as an inebriant, we get some idea of the wider
range that this practice enjoyed". I wonder where Wasson, and others, have envisioned, positioned,
on postulated the border in Scandinavia where this shared tradition of consuming the fly-agaric as an
entheogen came to a cultural halt. Was there always a cultural and shamanic border between the
Lapps and the Scandinavians of ancient times? I do not believe so. The use of the fly-agaric was a
shared Old World tradition that last existed in the far north, among the Siberian tribesmen and
formerly among the Inari Lapps, which regionally and culturally was last to be sub-jected to the
influence of foreign religious pressures and political domination. (page 93)

STONE TO BRONZE AGE

There also exist in southern Sweden, and elsewhere in northern Europe, stones and stone slabs with
curious "bowl-shaped hollows" (or "cup-like" hollows), which vary in size from 1 to 2 inches in
diameter (and generally about 1 inch deep), which Du Chaillu states "will probably always re-main an
enigma".

One stone of this type pictured in Du Chaillu's The Vi-king Age (p.135) is enigmatic, but not devoid
of a possible explanation. There are numerous round hollows, sporadi-cally spread across the
surface (and sides) of the flat rounded stone. This particular stone (and perhaps others like it) can
conceivably be viewed as an early representation of the fly-agaric itself. There have been no other
explanations or interpretations proposed by archaeologists that have seemed plausible or likely.

So, here I propose the identification of this enigmatic stone as an early representation of the
fly-agaric, Amanita muscaria. This particular stone may have originally func-tioned as a type of altar.
( page 94)

KAPLAN

In 1975 an article by Reid W. Kaplan was published in the journal Man entitled "The Sacred
Mushroom In Scandina-via." In his article Kaplan highlights the importance of some Bronze Age
archaeological evidence, which support his theory for the former existence of the cult of the sacred
mushroom in ancient Scandinavia. His article is of great significance, for Kaplan was the first to state
a theory, sub-stantiated by archaeological evidence, for the former existence of the sacred mushroom
cult in Scandinavia. (page 95)

FRAZER'S GOLDEN BOUGH

The St. John's Eve bonfire ritual, which was formerly called Balders Balar ('Balder's Balefires'), was
a folk-custom in which the mushroom was apparently used in an attempt to control the dark magical
forces of trolls and evil spirits. We know the season of the St. John festival, but we can only
speculate as to the species of the mushroom used, its sea-son, or its original sacred significance.
(page 97)

SACRED TREES

Concerning the origins of the world-tree in Norse mythology and the early Scandinavian religion,
Simek adds: "The manifold symbols which fall together in Yggdrasill as the world-tree, world-axis,
support of the skies, Odin's tree of sacrifice, have led to attempts being made to show that this myth
has Christian characteristics (cf. the legend of the Rood); it is more likely, however, that
Indo-European concepts, if not indeed archetypal concepts, have mingled together in the concept of
the world-tree in Yggdrasill". Yggdrasill represents and functions as the "pillar of the universe," in a
manner precisely analogous to Soma, the "mainstay of the sky", one of the many metaphors for Soma
in the Rig Veda. (page 108)

OF ROOTS UNKNOWN TO MAN

A shared poetic and conceptual feature exists between Ygg-drasill and Mimameiðr in that, in both
cases, the trees are said to originate from roots unknown to man (manngi veit af hverjum rótum renn
= 'no man knows from where its roots run', also glossed as 'no man knows of what roots it is
grown'). This shared feature has been an important poetic element that has further convinced the
majority of Norse scholars that both Yggdrasill and Mimameiðr are one and the same tree. When
this poetic description is applied to the fly-agaric, or to any other mushroom, there exists a co-herent
and biologically plausible argument, at least within the classificatory system of pre-scientific man.
Mushrooms, as well as having no visible 'seeds', do not have conventional 'roots'. Therefore, it is fully
conceivable that the mushroom would be viewed as originating from roots unknown to man.

BIRCH

The assertion that the ash is the sole sacred tree of Norse mythology and the early Scandinavian
religion is excessively reductionist and incorrect. We must remember that no ex-plicit species are
assigned to Læraðr or Mimameiðr. The consensus of Old Norse/Icelandic scholars appears to
en-dorse the notion that all of the aforementioned trees are merely different names for, or
mythological versions of, the world-tree Yggdrasill. The birch was a sacred tree across northern
Europe, Siberia, Russia, and Eurasia. The birch has thus far been completely overlooked as a
possible can-didate for a (or the) sacred tree of the early Scandinavian religion. (page 109)

SOMA AND THE MEAD OF POETRY

For over a century, numerous scholars and mythologists have noted the mythological similarities
between the Soma of the Rig Veda and the "mead of poetry" of Norse mythol-ogy. This divine
substance, i.e. the scaldic mead, is elabo-rately described in the Skáldskaparmál. The similarities
be-tween Soma and the mead of poetry are numerous and compelling. The Rig Veda describes
Soma as a plant that comes from the mountains. This sacred Vedic plant is meta-phorically linked to
many parallels in Eddic mythology: (pages 112 - 113)

VEDA EDDA

1. Soma = Horse/Bull    Yggdrasill = 'Odin's horse'
Soma = 'Sun's steed'
2. Mainstay of the sky    Mainstay of the sky
3. Soma = 'Single-eye'    Odin = 'Single-eye
4. Soma    Mead of Poetry
5. Theft of Soma (by lndra)    Theft of Mead of Poetry (by Odin)
6. Soma's head    'Mímir's head' = Mímis höfuð
7. Soma juice (Pávamana)   'Kvasir's blood', Kvasis dreyri
8. su ('to press')    kvas (Dan. 'crushed fruit, wort of')

KVASIR'S BLOOD

With respect to the scaldic mead, the mead of poetry, what herbal candidate could be described by
the kenning Kvasis dreyri ('Kvasir's blood')? Again it is unfortunate that the recipe for the mead of
poetry was never written down explicitly, but rather only in the metaphoric language of Eddic poetry
and prose. Was Kvasis dreyri simply the fer-mented juice of crushed berries such as crow-berries,
rowan-berries, or juniper-berries? I think not. My floral/fungal candidate for Kvasis dreyri is the
fly-agaric, the most widespread entheogen of the North and the ancient Soma of the Vedic religion.

It fits the requisite symbolic criteria that Kvasir's blood (Kvasis dreyri) is the fly-agaric, or the juice of
the fly-agaric. It is easy to see how the brilliant red color of the fresh cap of the fly-agaric, or the
reddish juice expressed from rehy-drated mushrooms, would have evoked the image of sa-cred
sacrificial blood in the eyes of the early Scandinavians. This expressed juice was then mixed with
honey and the result was the sacred scaldic mead, the mead which made all who drank of it a poet.

According to the Rig Veda, Soma was also mixed with honey (mádhu), as well as with other
additives. Some schol-ars believe that mádhu was mead. Wasson, however, con-tended that mádhu
was simply honey, and not a fermented form of honey. Wasson also notes that pavamana
(Soma--juice) was also sometimes mixed with milk, curds, ghee, barley water, or with honey . In
reference to the Swedish formula for catching flies it is interesting to make note of the essential
ingredients: fly-agaric, honey, and milk. (page 116)

THE FLY- AGARIC, THE YULE, & THE MEAD OF POETRY

The association between the fly-agaric, the Yule, and the mead of poetry has been difficult to firmly
establish due to the scant information we have concerning any of these three elements. First, the
information we have concerning the fly--agaric and the ancient Scandinavians is generally thought to
be only circumstantial in nature. Second, not much is known about the Yule of ancient times, i.e. the
sacred reli-gious rites and rituals during the winter solstice. Third, the mead of poetry has generally
been conceived of (as well as exclusively taught) as only existing within the realm of lit-erature, and
not as an actual component of the early Scan-dinavian religion. Simek states "The fact that
'Yule-drink-ing' was synonymous for celebrating the festival shows the form of the feast as a drinking
feast in historical time, but could in fact point back to an older drink-sacrifice". Exactly what was the
Yule-drink, or Yule drink-sacrifice? (page 118)

Root, Dream & Myth:
The Use of the Oneirogenic Plant Silene Capensis Among the Xhosa of South Africa
Manton Hirst

ABSTRACT: Silene capensis Otth. (Caryophyllaceæ) plays an important role in the initiation of
Xhosa diviners (amagqirha) which is enshrined in myth. The root, which is called undlela ziimhlophe
in Xhosa and means literally "white ways or paths," is categorised as one of the emetics called
ubulawu, which produce a frothy white foam when mixed with water and have a ritual provenience in
traditional religion. Xhosa novice diviners ingest the root to induce dreams which, having personal
and prophetic significance for the dreamer, are closely linked to the liminal colour white, the ancestral
spirits and the practice of divination. This article describes the use of Si1ene capensis as an
oneirogenic plant among the Xhosa of South Africa from firsthand experience. (page 121)

Psychoactive Plant Use in Papua New Guinea
Benjamin Thomas

ABSTRACT: Several plants from Papua New Guinea have been reported to have psychoactive
effects. SCHULTES & HOFMANN suggested "in Papua and New Guinea, sundry poorly
understood hallucinogens are used." Twenty years later, there is still not much knowledge about the
traditional use of plants for their psychoactive effects in this island, although some phytochemical
studies have been published. This article reviews the species from Papua New Guinea which have
been reported to have psychoactive effects. (page151)

This review of the use of plants for their psychoactive prop-erties in Papua New Guinea indicates
that stimulants have been, and remain, the most commonly used psychoactive plants. In accurately
describing the use of other types of psychoactive species it has been necessary to develop new
nomenclature to describe the effects of these species. Two other types of psychoactive plants are
used in Papua New Guinea: therogens and alienogens. Therogens are plants which are used to make
people wild or fierce. Alienogens [etymology again suggested by Jonathan Ott (aliene (Fr.) "mad"])
are plants which make people mad or insane (long-long PNG Pidgin, kava Hiri Motu). The Western
concept of "psychoactivity" is not really adequate in understanding entheogenic plant use in Papua
New Guinea. Here, "psychoactive" must refer to a variety of plant species, some of which are
pharmacologically active, oth-ers not. However, it is ritual, magic, sorcery which activates these
inactive plants and makes them "psychoactive". Eth-nobotanical and phytochemical research is
required before it is possible to distinguish the pharmacological from the "merely magical." (page
162)

Psychoactive Card XIII
Boletus manicus Heim (nonda gegwants nyimbil)
Benjamin Thomas
(page 167)

Maori Kava (Macropiper excelsum)
Michael P. Bock
(page 175)

==================================================================================
Mixing the Kykeon
Peter Webster, Daniel M. Perrine and Carl A. P. Ruck

ABSTRACT: Hypotheses advanced in the book The Road to Eleusis concerning the possible
composition and method of preparation of the kykeon are evaluated in light of published criticism.
Objections to the Eleusis theory are countered, and based on a largely overlooked aspect of the
chemical hydrolysis of ergot alkaloids, a new hypothesis is suggested that reinvigorates the Eleusis
debate. In part 2 of this essay, organic chemist Daniel M. Perrine provides further considerations that
build upon the new idea, and a technical discussion of the practicality and realisability of the "Ergine
Hypothesis" paves the way for new chemical and psychopharmacological research. In part 3,
co-author of The Road to Eleusis Carl A. P. Ruck re-examines the Eleusis mythologies and ritual
practises from which appear a much expanded understanding of the entheo-pharmacology of the
ancient world. (page 55)

-PART I -
by Peter Webster

NOTES

… Thus, per 1000 Eleusis participants we require up to 5 g total alkaloids, corresponding to 0.5 kg
of ergot. Modern yields of ergot from cultivation on rye can yield hundreds of kilograms per hectare.
Thus it seems reasonable that the Greek priests could have harvested enough ergot from the nearby
barley fields. Ripe ergots can easily be collected from the grain in the field, as they fall off the grain
head even with strong wind. By contrast, the ergonovine hypothesis of The Road to Eleusis would
require far greater quantities of C. purpurea since ergonovine only represents a small fraction of the
alkaloid content of the fungus.

A likely possibility is that the priests had discovered how to spread an ergot infection using a water
solution of the honeydew produced. Early in the growth of ergot on grain, the fungus causes the
production of droplets of sticky syrup on the grain heads, and insects attracted to this exudation
transmit the ergot mycelium therein to other developing heads of grain. A solution of a few drops of
honeydew in a litre of water produces a mixture that when shaken or sprayed onto other developing
grain heads readily spreads the infection. (pages 63 - 64)

- PART II -
by Daniel M. Perrine

ENTHEO-PHARMACOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

In agreement with what Peter Webster has discussed in the preceding portion of this article, it seems
to me that it is quite possible that a "potion" containing as its main active ingredient lysergamide
(ergine, the active entheogen in ololiuhqui) and free from any more toxic alkaloids, could be reliably
produced from ergot harvested from Claviceps purpurea infected barley using materials and
processes available to the ancient Greeks. That is, such a procedure seems chemically possible for
reasons which will shortly be presented in detail - although, of course, this possibility cannot be truly
proved without actually carrying out a series of experiments in which ergot would be processed as
hypothesized. Chemical possibility is, of course, not historical fact or even historical plausibility, but it
can at least establish historical possibility. (page 64)

But these rather humdrum effects of ergine taken in the context of a dispassionate clinical experiment
by volun-teers already well-acquainted with the overwhelming visual and psychological effects of
LSD and psilocybin by no means preclude the possibility, even the likelihood, that a potion
containing ergine could powerfully catalyze and amplify the religious experience of the Eleusinian
communicants of ancient Greece. Among the most important reasons for affirming this are the
following:

CLINICAL VERSUS RITUAL SETTING

There is no doubt that ololiuhqui has been valued for centuries as a sacred entheogen in Oaxaca by
curanderos of Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and Mixtec tribes. And the principle psychoactive
agent in ololiuhqui (Rivea corymbosa, Ipomoea violacea) is just what we propose to have been the
active agent in the kykeon: ergine (with smaller amounts of isoergine). If, to the vague and
directionless alteration of mental state provided by ergine in the jejune setting of the research clinic,
there is added the governing mind-set of religious belief coupled to the external setting of a
centuries-old ritual, participants can and do experience a many-fold entheogenic intensification of the
awe and dread felt before an ecstatic theophany of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. (pages 65
- 66)

FASTING

The kykeon was drunk after a nine-day fast. It was perhaps the sole beverage/food which broke that
nine-day fast, and the drinking of the kykeon took place at the peak of a most solemn religious ritual.
Probably few or none of the read-ers of this article have carried out a strict fast for nine days in the
integral context of a life-transforming religious ob-servation, and still less likely have any of them
followed this by consuming, at the approach to the Holy of Holies, a dreaded sacrament with potent
mind-altering effects. Peter Webster has given testimony to being himself deeply affected by
ololiuhqui. Let me add my own testimony to the effects of set, setting, and fasting.

About a quarter of a century ago, in the company of a dozen or so other recently-ordained Jesuits
my age, I en-tered upon the consummatory event of the Jesuit spiritual training, the second and final
30-day Ignatian retreat. …

After more than three days of eating nothing, I reached a rather grim metastable state at
the nadir of re-signed desperation: if I could never attain the love of/for God, I would
simply go through the dead motions of devo-tion during the rest of the retreat. It was
dawn. For the first time in four days, I ate, with total absence of any appetite: one slice of
toast and a cup of sugarless black coffee. As I stared then blankly at the blank pages of
my retreat journal, I was suddenly and overwhelmingly "transported." In some
indescribable way and for what seemed like only a few seconds, I was suspended from
the world of space and time and experienced myself in the immediate presence of "God."
I say "God" because it was nothing at all like any-thing my imagination had ever before
constructed. But it was true with an ineluctable certitude I have never been able to doubt.
And it was probably the most pivotal mo-ment of my life: whatever I have done since
(including leav-ing the priesthood many years later) can be traced in some sense back to
this experience; everything I have thought since of myself or "God" has been radically
different. Was it the set and setting? Of course. Was it the fasting? I doubt that it would
have occurred had I not fasted those four days - but then, I would never have fasted
those four days (it was a completely spontaneous lack of interest in eating, not a planned
exercise) had I not been gripped by an overpower-ing mind set which was completely
reinforced by the set-ting.

Perhaps the experience was even to some extent the "entheogenic" effects of black coffee and toast.
(pages 66 - 67)

… I purchased a few seconds of Eternity with four days of fasting and a cup of black coffee; had I
paid with nine days, ergine, and Pramnian wine, might I not have bought an hour?

I am certain that the duration and perhaps even the depth of this experience (although the second
aspect seems much less quantifiable than the first) would have been greatly intensified if, say, I had
drunk a cup of peyote tea instead black coffee. Indeed, when I try to imagine what would have been
the likely outcome of such a switch in beverages I am terrified and find myself quite grateful that only
coffee was available. As Huston Smith says (quoting Gordon Wasson), "awe is not fun," and the
experience was sufficiently awe-some as it was.

Two reasons convince me that an entheogen would have powerfully intensified the duration and
particularly the like-lihood of such an experience (for in-depth experiences of this sort are not that
common, even among the many ear-nest Jesuits who have made this final retreat - at least not among
the Jesuits I knew and know from my generation). The first is that I am now able to extrapolate
backwards in time from a number of quite beautiful, awesome - even occasionally terrifying -
religious theophanies which I ex-perienced years later under the influence of entheogens. The
psychological and spiritual set and setting of these later experiences could not approach the
once-in-a-lifetime situ-ation of the retreat experience described above (although it was intentionally
and earnestly religious), and so I was all the more impressed that the simple ingestion of a plant or
chemical could invoke in such ordinary circumstances so profound an emotional and religious
response.

The second reason is of course the famous "Good Friday Experiment" of Walter Pahnke, the
"Miracle at Marsh Chapel," where a group of seminary professors and students, under double-blind
conditions, were given either psilocy-bin or an active placebo immediately before a three-hour Good
Friday service. (page 68)

SACRED VERSUS PROFANE SETTING

… I am thinking of the hundreds of first-hand written accounts the college students I teach have given
me over the years describing their use of psilocybe mushrooms or LSD. I would characterize fewer
than 20% as empathogenic, and fewer than 10% as entheogenic. Doubt-less the common use of
large amounts of alcohol at the same time has much to do with this, but I suspect the usu-ally banal
intra- and interpersonal context, a context aug-mented by a nearly total absence of prior religious
experi-ence in any depth, is what succeeds in quenching so utterly the sacred flame. All of which is to
say that entheogens, even the best of them, cannot create the "divine within" in and of themselves (to
this extent, "entheogen" is a misno-mer or an overstatement) absent anything at all numinous in set or
setting. Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo admonishes Horace.[I loath the vulgar crowd and avoid
them.] (page 69)

- PART III -
by Carl A. P. Ruck

The narkissos flower figures prominently in Minoan art on a sacrificial knife and wall paintings and a
golden ring, probably the emblem of a shamanic priestess, depicting women as "bee ladies"
experiencing a vision, and even a ceramic plate showing a Persephone snake-goddess with her
flower. We can identify it as Pancratium maritimum, the sea daffodil, of the amaryllis family. Its
ethnopharmacological traditions (as well as its botanical family, which includes the toxic daffodil,
whose poisons from the bulb can be absorbed through the skin, and the autumn crocus [Colchicum
sp], the latter associated with Medea and Prometheus) suggest psychotoxicity. Some fifteen species
of amaryllis are toxic. Pancratium trianthum, because of its entheogenic properties is reputedly often
found growing around shrines and sacred areas. It bears lily-like flowers of pink and white stripes on
a naked scape. The bushmen of Dobe, Botswana know this bulbous perennial as kwashi, a powerful
sacred hallucinogen, capable of producing vivid and colorful vi-sions. The bulb is not eaten, but
rather it is slashed open and pressed onto self-inflicted wounds on the foreheads of participants.
(One might compare the ritual flagellation of Spartan youths with squills.) The intoxicating principle is
transported directly into the circulatory system, creating an immediate reaction. A related species is
Pancratium speciosum, used by the Caribs of the West Indies under the name of ognon or gli as a
powerful emetic. Some species are quite narcotic and are purported to have caused death by
paralysis of the central nervous system; still others are classified as cardiac poisons.

As always, ethnopharmacological expertise is essential for the ritual use of toxins.

The botanical name of Pancratium means the "all-power-ful", like Christ as the Pankrator in
Byzantine art, for its numinosity was assimilated in Christian mystery rites as the plant called chreston,
an ancient corruption of Christ's name as the "good" instead of the "anointed" in Greek. It still goes
by the name of the Virgin Panaghia in modern Greek. But somewhere along the way it also assumed
the sanctity of the haoma or soma which the Iranian Magoi used in their shamanic initiations, which is
to say that it was assimilated to Amanita muscaria, the fly-agaric mush-room. This fungal sacrament
persisted in Gnostic Chris-tian sects, often labeled as heretical, most notably amongst the
Manichaeans, whose rites, which thrived in the orient, were repeatedly reintroduced into western
Europe by the Crusades. The role of fly-agaric in Eleusinian lore can no longer be denied now that
the plant elevated between the two goddesses, and apparently extracted from the Mystery wallet or
pera, on the bas-relief from Pharsalia, Thessaly, in northern Greece, has been definitively identified as
a large mushroom.

Fly-agaric in Greek mythopoeia is involved with the Gorgon Medusa and the hero Perseus, as well
as the moo-ing of estrual cows and the purple-red heifer maiden Io, who is herself a female version
of the same name as the Athenian king Ion, both with names that are cognate with "violet," a holy plant in Greek ethnobotany and involved with the linguistic root for "drug" as in the word for
drugman, iatros. (pages 82 - 83)

=====================================================================================

Eleusis 2000

ISSN: 1129-7301

Description: paperback, 186 pages.

Contents: 7 articles, reviews, new releases.

Contributors: Michael P. Bock, Manton Hirst, Bennett M. Nichols, Daniel M. Perrine, Carl A. P.
Ruck, Giorgio Samorini, Benjamin Thomas, Peter Webster.

Note: Capitalized authors' are followed by reference citations in the original. The citations are omitted
here but the capitalization remains.

Excerpts:

A Contribution to the Discussion of the Ethnobotany of the Eleusinian Mysteries
Giorgio Samorini

ABSTRACT: It was more than twenty years ago that the hypothesis was formulated that there was a
collective use of an "entheogen" in the ancient rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries; a cult that developed
and lasted in Greece for a couple of millennia. In this study the author intend to critically look again,
correct and bring up to date the data, the discussions and the hypothesis proposed up to now on the
drugs of the Eleusinian cult. At the height of the complexity of the Eleusinian Mysteries we find
ourselves facing a "psychopharmacological complex" involving at least two and up to six different
psychoactive agents. The ergot hypothesis of Wasson and colleagues contains some imprecision and
will be re-presented here in a revised version as one of the most plausible hypothesis today
concerning the oldest and most secret psychoactive agent of the Eleusinian Mysteries. (page 3)

In actual fact, Graves and Wasson had established a deep relationship by correspondence, which
numbers some 300 letters, currently being examined by ROBERT FORTE; the two scholars also
met at Graves' house in Mallorca and on the 31st January 1960 they experimented with Mexican
mushrooms in Wasson's New York apartment. In the course of these encounters, Graves gave a
series of ethnomyco-logical information to Wasson. For example, and as far as GRAVES'
confirmation a series of articles that he sent Wasson at the beginning of the 1950's, opened the way
for his research and discovery in Mexico and his investiga-tions on the "Kuma's madness" in New
Guinea. Graves was a great help also in Wasson's Greek studies and various ideas usually attributed
to Wasson were in actual fact elaborated with Graves. He also reports that Wasson was of the
opin-ion that the kykeon was based on Amanita muscaria, whilst Graves thought that at a certain
point this was substituted with psilocybinic mushrooms, as it seems happened in In-dia with the
Soma: "It is said that the secret that Demeter divulged to the world from Eleusis through her
protected Triptolemos was the art of sowing and harvesting barley. On his chariot pulled by serpents,
he went from village to village revealing his secret. Here something does not fit. Triptolemos belongs
to the II Century BC and the corn (bar-ley), we now know, was cultivated in Jericho and in other
parts of the world 7000 years before Christ. Therefore, Triptolemos' news would not have been
news. In actual fact, I think he was announcing a discovery and, because of this, a modification to the
ritual (..) Triptolemos' secret seems to refer to the hallucinogenic mushrooms and the high priests of
Eleusis had discovered another hallucinogenic mushroom which was easier to use than the Amanita
muscaria". Graves is thinking of the Panaeolus papilionaceus (P. campanulatus) and he insists on this
identification in revised versions of his old essays. One must not forget that Graves was the first
scholar of the Eleusinian entheogens that presented and discussed the Pharsalus bas-relief. (page 25)

… Hofmann comments further: "The admixture of mint fits well into the ergot hypothesis of the
kykeon, because it is well known that ergot preparations produce light nausea which can be
counteracted by mint." (page 26)

The ergot is toxic if ingested, but it also contains psycho-active compounds and, if prepared
correctly, can transform itself into a purely entheogenic agent. It is no accident that we can start
synthesising the most powerful entheogen known to us, LSD, from the alkaloids in the ergot.
Hofmann points out three ways in which the Greeks of classical an-tiquity would have been able to
discover a psychoactive bev-erage from ergot: 1) collect the sclerotia of the most com-mon species
of ergot (Clavicepspurpurea), grind them col-lecting a watery solution in which the psychoactive
alka-loids are found and not the toxic ones; 2) use the sclerotia of a particular species of ergot
(Claviceps paspali) which grows on certain species of Gramineae, amongst which the Paspalum disti
chum L., and which has shown itself producer only of psychoactive alkaloids, therefore directly
usable (in-gestible); 3) the third possibility is based on the specific properties of ryegrass - in
particular Lolium temulentum L. and L. perenne L. - common Gramineae of the whole
Medi-terranean basin. Known since antiquity for their ergotic and intoxicating properties, their
biochemical and pharmaco-logical characteristics are still not fully understood (cf. be-low).
According to Hofmann, it is possible that in ancient Greece there existed a particular type of ergot
that grew on ryegrass and contained only psychoactive alkaloids.

The ergot was known to the Greeks, who referred to it as erysibe, and it is no accident that Demeter
took the epiteth of Erysibe. THE0PHRASTUS reported that barley was considered particularly
prone to its infection. (page 29)

The plant of the Lesser Mysteries which, according to the documentation handed to us, seems to be
the most prob-able psychoactive source, is the "winter bulb" of the narcis- sus. In the field of
Persephone, the narcissus is often with the iris and the lily. They are all bulbous plants which flower at
the beginning of spring or also in late winter, especially in temperate climates like Greece's.
According to Esychius, a variety of narcissus- today difficult to identify - was called "Demeter's
flower'. (page 31)

Merlin goes further in the association between opium and ergot: they could have both been present in
the kykeon beverage, in as far as opium contains properties which function as antidote to the
poisoning of the ergot alkaloids. In fact, papaverine, alkaloid of opium, is consid-ered an efficient
antidote to ergotic intoxication, equal to the atropine present in psychoactive solanaceous plants. The
author referring to the ergot hypothesis, continues with the following reasoning: "Although Hofmann
has demonstrated that the toxic ergot alkaloids are not soluble [in water], these poisonous substances
might have contaminated the sacred) beverage by dropping into the hallucinogenic drink along with
broken fragments of the fungus during the processing of the potent kykeon. Such a dangerous
possibility would have made the use of the suggested antidote a necessity". It is quite improbable
that, the opium in the kykeorz preparations was necessary to avoid the dangers of broken fragments
of sclerotium ergot in the beverage. The Greeks had sufficient knowledge of filtration techniques to
resolve this eventual technical problem. All the same, the hypothesis of the presence of opium in the
Eleusinian ritual is not to be excluded. Representations of the opium poppy capsules, too often
confused with the fruits of pomegranate, are countless in the Minoan, Greek and Roman art. It is an
image associated with the cult of the Mother Goddess of the Bronze Age, if not even in previous
periods (neo-lithic), or in those cults from which the Eleusinian Myster-ies originated and other cults
of Demeter of classical antiq-uity. Next to the ear of corn, the opium poppy capsule, is the vegetable
emblem most portrayed in the representa-tions of Demeter. (pages 31 - 32)

The strict relation which has manifested itself in all places and times between Graminaceae and
phytopathogens, toxic or psychoactive, must also be highlighted. In other words, the problem of the
ergot as the psychotropic agent of the Eleusinian Mysteries comes into the context of a wider
ques-tion: the ergot is a parasite that existed before cereals cultivated by man, appearing firstly on the
ears of wild Graminaceae; therefore, ever since man fed himself on wild Graminaceae and
subsequently began to cultivate and se-lect them, he encountered the "ergot problem' with all its
toxicological and or psychotropical consequences.

Due to the fungicides of this century, in ancient times the ergot was more widespread through the
cultivated ce-reals than today, and it was the same origins of cerealiculture - various millennia ago -
which gave a strong push to the diffusion of the ergot and other cereal parasites. (page 48)

Being able to feed oneself, unharmed, from cereal grains and its flour necessitated a knowledge of
the toxic sclero-tium of the ergot and of the elaboration of a strategy to avoid it, in particular to
separate it from the cereal grains. Certain accidental intoxication with the ergot and the at-tention that
was given to avoid it could have brought about the discovery of its firstly medicinal, secondly
psychoactive properties or vice versa. Reconsidering the omnipresence of ergot next to cereal flour,
and therefore next to man, the above hypothesis not only appears possible, but is highly likely. The
discovery of the entheogenic potential of ergot (or of other phytopathogens of the Graminaceae) -
occur-ring maybe in different places and times, during the Neolithic period or the Bronze Age -
would have given origin to religious cults and rituals of a collective or elitist use of the intoxicant, as
always has happened following the discovery of a psychoactive vegetable. And in the symbol-ism
associated with these cults the host plant of ergot, the cereal, will always be involved. (pages 48 -
49)

Similarly to cults based on the use of psilocybinic mush-rooms which grow on the dung of various
quadrupeds - in which also the animal on whose dung the mushrooms grow are revered and
considered in a certain way "divine parent" of the "sacred food" -, those cults based on the
knowledge and the use of the ergot would have considered the ear sa-cred and divine "parent" of
ergot. But the ear of corn and cereals were already considered sacred according to the mythological
and symbolical codes that originated at the time of the discovery of the cereal growing culture. There,
where the discovery of the entheogenic potentials of the ergot took place, the new sacredness of the
"ergotised ear of corn" overlapped and syncretised itself with the sacred-ness of the simple ear of
corn widespread in the context of ancient cults of a cereal growing character. This appears to be the
situation which happened at Eleusis, where mytholo-gies and rituals of the cereal cycle and of the cult
of the "harvested flowering ear of corn" cohabited.

The mystery cult of the ear of corn is widely attested also in other locations and cultures such as:
Egeoanatolic, Mice-naean and Greek, as well as Egyptian. The ear of corn is the emblem of Osiris,
symbol of its death and of its resurrec-tion, and of its Mysteries. There are innumerable cults in which
the ear or grain of cereal take central roles, as there are innumerable "goddesses of corn" or "mothers
of corn associated with the cults and rituals of the cereal growing cycle, of which an echo has
remained in the Eurasian agri-cultural folklore (see the famous study of FRAZER 1922). It is
possible that in some of these cults not only the simple ear of corn was worshipped, but also the
"mysteric ear of corn," "the flowering ear of corn," the ergotised ear of corn.

In the Eleusinian Mysteries a psychoactive agent alone was not used. During the Lesser Mysteries
the initiates ritu-ally ate and drank something ("I fed from the timpani, I have drank from the cymbal,"
Firmicus Maternus), there-fore it is possible to hypothesise the presence of one or two psychoactive
agents. During the Great Mysteries the mystes drank the kykeon and maybe ate something, and
conse-quently it is possible to hypothesise also here the presence of one or two psychoactive agents.
If then we should follow the commonly held opinion of one section of scholars, which sees the
epoptia as a separate initiation, carried at least a year after the first initiation to the Great Mysteries,
the question naturally arises as to whether in this ritual the same type of kykeon was used during the
first initiation or if a different psychoactive agent was used. Furthermore, given that in the two
preceding rituals the initiate ate and drank something, it is possible to hypothesise that in the epoptia
there were present two psychoactive agents, same or different to the ones involved in the first
initiation into the Great Mysteries. (page 49)

Adding up all these possibilities, at the height of the complexity of the Eleusinian Mysteries we find
ourselves facing a "psychopharmacological complex" involving at least up to six different
psychoactive agents. If ergot came into Eleusinian hieratic pharmacopoeia, it was not the only active
principle. There was at least another psychoactive agent present (in the Lesser Mysteries), the most
probable of which is the fly- agaric or a psilocybinic mushroom. At the current state of research the
opium poppy cannot be excluded, as ulterior psychoactive agent, even in association with the ergo
potion of the kykeon, as MERLIN suggested. Following FOUCART thesis, based on which the
Lesser Mysteries were at least partially influenced by Dionysos, the Great Mysteries were influenced
by Demeter and the epoptia also influenced by Dionysos, one could hypothesise the presence in the
three rituals of respectively: fly-agaric (or psilocybinic mushrooms), ergot and psilocybinic
mushrooms (or fly-agaric), maintaining open the possibility of the combination of the ergot potion
with the opium poppy.

As far as the only critic of a certain validity in regards the Wasson and colleagues' ergot hypothesis
or rather that there is no knowledge of a potion sufficiently psychoactive and non-toxic obtained from
the ergot, the data in the previous paragraph - espe-cially the etnobotanical ones - should be
sufficient to demonstrate the reality of their possibility and to highlight the absolute insufficiency in the
research - self-experiments in-cluded - carried to date on this matter. Ergot scares us. Even the most
self-experimenters have fear of approaching er-got. This is the principle reason for which until now in
Western culture a secure psychoactive potion made from ergot is unknown, or is still not known.

In conclusion, I retain that Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck's hypothesis on the implications of ergot in
the Eleusinian Mysteries continues to be plausible, even though it has to be amended to correct the
imprecisions caused by the im-possibility of the presence of the Paspalum species and of the
Claviceps paspali parasite in ancient Greece. Furthermore, the ergot hypothesis relative to the
Eleusinian Mys-teries should became part of larger hypothesis, extended to other cults and
civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean centred on the sacredness of the ear of corn and of cereals.
(pages 49 - 50), author/editor

================================================================================
Ergot Beer?

One theory about the advent of agriculture is that grains were grown, not originally as a food source,
but as a source for fermentation. (Alternately, the beer making may have followed closely on the
food uses.)

In the 2000 issue of the journal "Eleusis" Giorgio Samorini points out that ergot was probably mixed
with grains throughout its growing, harvesting, threshing, processing, and in all uses. If so, then
wouldn't ergot have also sometimes have gotten into grains that were used for brewing beer?

Does anyone know how ergot might have interacted with grains, water, and alcohol during the
brewing process?

It seems to me this process ought to be considered and may help explain the possible original (or
early) uses of grains for entheogenic alcohol.

Since the connection between ergot and its psychological effects seems not to have been recognized
until the 18th century, is it possible that a great deal of beer had been accidentally "fortified" with
ergot over the millennia?

This bud's for you.

Happy Ground Hog Day Eve to All!

Tom Roberts

====================================================================================
New University Course

"M. Bryan" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Last summer, I sent out a request to the MAPS list, asking for ideas and
> suggestions for what list-members thought might make an interesting
> psychedelics-related university course. Thank-you to everyone who was
> wonderful enough to reply and encourage me. After a lot of work and
> obscene quantities of coffee, I finished my proposal to the UBC (Vancouver)
> powers-that-be, and my course was one of the six Student-Directed Seminars
> chosen to run. After a bit of politicing (mainly concerning the course's
> title), and a lot more work, I am pleased to say that the course is up and
> running (we started at the beginning of January). The idea behind the SDS
> program is that 4th year BA students who think that UBC is lacking in a
> particular area they feel passionate about may propose, organize and run a
> for-credit course for 3rd/4th year students, so long as it strives to be
> more learner-centered than the usual teacher-at-the-podium style of class.
> So far so good...i'm using a discussion group format, which seems to be
> most conducive to engaging everyone in some rather unusual (at least for
> UBC) discussions and debates...
>
> Anyway, I thought that some of you might be interested in seeing what
> materialized out of your suggestions, so the outline is included below,
> plus the marking scheme the class agreed on.
>
> Thanks especially to Tom Roberts, Ken Tupper, Rick Doblin, and the folks at
> Alchemind...
>
> Mark Bryan.
> --------------------------
>
> Psychedelic Perspectives (3 credits)
> PHIL 486-003
> No Prerequisites (other than 3rd or 4th year standing)
> Tuesday & Thursday 4-5.30pm
> Coordinator: Mark Bryan
> Contact: [email protected]
>
> Intro: General Description of course and goals
>
> Both archaeological and physiological evidence suggests that the
> intentional altering of consciousness by chemical means is far older than
> written history (for example, the human brain has receptors that react only
> to THC, found solely in cannabis, and there is evidence of mushroom cults
> at Catal Huyuk, a Neolithic site in central Anatolia). The Greek Elusinian
> Mysteries, mentioned by Cicero, involved the imbibing of a psychedelic
> brew, probably not too dissimilar from the Soma of the Rig Veda or the
> Haoma of the pre-Zoroastrian Iranians. When we go to sleep (usually a
> voluntary act), endogenous dimethyl tryptamine (DMT) - one of the most
> potent psychedelics, also used in the South American shamanic ayahuasca
> brews - is released into the brain by the pineal gland, and is now
> considered to be the cause of our shift from waking consciousness to that
> of the dream state, wherein the rules and boundaries encountered in normal
> day-to-day physical reality do not necessarily continue to operate. To
> fall asleep and dream is to make use of a drug that has been legally
> scheduled as being of the most dangerous kind (along with heroin and
> cocaine), with no potential medical uses, before any significant research
> was carried out (Dr. Rick Strassman is one of the few to have been allowed
> to explore this chemical in the last few years). Considering our current
> views on evolutionary theory and adaptive strategies to be at least
> reasonably accurate, it seems doubtful that our bodies would produce a
> 'dangerous' consciousness-altering chemical - otherwise found only in
> certain toads and plants - for no reason at all. Not only during waking
> hours is it natural for (some) humans to wish to alter their cognitive
> frameworks, whether by such methods as meditation, psychedelics, excessive
> dancing, isolation tanks (such as that in the REST lab at UBC), fasting, or
> sweat lodges, but during sleep, the body naturally does so.
>
> In North America, we enjoy the belief that we are free individuals, that we
> can act pretty much as we wish, so long as we avoid breaking the law. But
> what is it to be free? Assuming (perhaps dangerously, but nevertheless)
> that we are not causally determined beings, we have the ability and
> responsibility to exercise choice in any situation we are confronted with.
> Choice, in order to be valid, must come from within, and necessarily
> involves one's reasoning. The concept of liberty, upon which the rights to
> religious freedom and freedom of speech are based, requires that the agent
> be free to operate his or her brain in whatever manner desired. The study
> of cognitive liberty (i.e. of issues pertaining to mental freedom) involves
> an investigation into whether or not we actually are allowed to think, and
> thus act, as we wish. The outlawing of psychedelic drugs, not only from
> public consumption, but also from psychotherapists, and researchers present
> the interested student of cognitive liberty with evidence suggesting that
> we are not the free people we like to think we are. The simple fact that
> the Native American Church uses peyotyl sacramentally, or that Siberian
> shamen enter ecstatic trances via Amanita mushrooms in order to reach
> culturally important insights, shows that there are realms of human
> (mental) experience that our culture has deemed off limits that are
> directly related to how we conceive of the universe around us. In other
> words, we are free to choose any religion, so long as it is socially
> sanctioned: ergo, freedom of religion is not available to us. Without the
> ability to have certain experiences, one cannot speak of the things
> contained within such experiences: ergo, freedom of speech is limited, too.
>
> The angle of approach for this course will therefore be from the
> philosophical direction of cognitive liberty. As the course is to be a
> general introduction to the issues surrounding psychoactives, the intention
> is to cover a wide range of psychedelic-related topics, beginning the
> course by examining the subject of cognitive liberty (i.e. do we have the
> right to autonomy over our own consciousnesses, and if not, which
> restrictions are and are not acceptable? Are the contents and actions of
> our minds private, public, or a mixture of both?). It is well recognized
> that we are highly influenced by our environments, including advertising
> and propaganda, and that total personal total personal control over what
> enters one's mind is nearly, if not totally, impossible; that given, we
> must ask how much control over our minds we are prepared to relinquish. We
> will then cover a wide range of psychedelic-related topics, including such
> areas as: possible dangers, religion, anthropology, psychology,
> psychedelics as educational tools, and the war on drugs - relating
> everything to cognitive liberty. The question to ask at all times is 'What
> are be being protected from - allegedly dangerous substances, or our minds
> - and is this protection legitimate?'
>
> After looking at a fairly broad spectrum of topics over the semester, the
> course will be concluded by revisiting the cognitive liberty aspect
> (although it will maintain a presence throughout), seeing where what was
> learnt over the semester has led our thoughts with respect to it.
>
> Important Considerations (aka. Warning!)
>
> As a member of this class, you are free to discuss your thoughts on any of
> the topics we are contending with (respecting, of course, your classmates).
> However, it is vital that you understand that the classroom setting does
> not mean you have 'privileged' communication. What this means is that you
> must recognize that what ever you are saying is being communicated in the
> context of a public forum, and that your expressions are thus not private
> or confidential, as would be with a lawyer or clergy member: if one wishes
> to discuss elements of a psychedelic experience had either by oneself or an
> acquaintance, it may be prudential to protect your / their identity by
> changing names.
>
> A Word From the Wise: Dr. Tom Robert's "Psychedelic Warning Label."
> "From my own experiences and through readings, I have become increasingly
> respectful of the power of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Like any
> powerful thing, they can be destructive or constructive depending on how
> skillfully they are used. Among other things, they can concentrate your
> attention on the most vulnerable, most unpleasant parts of your mind.
> Therefore, psychedelic drugs should be explored only under the guidance of
> a qualified therapist, one who has extensive psychedelic training. If you
> need assistance, most mental health professionals, as they are currently
> mistrained concerning psychedelics, may be of little help; some could even
> worsen your state. Furthermore, street dosages are of unknown strength and
> questionable purity. Until the time you can explore your mind using
> psychedelics drugs of known strength and purity under qualified guidance,
> within the law, I urge you to limit yourself to studying the literature and
> working within professional and other organizations for the resumption of
> legal, scientific, religious, or academic research."
>
> Grading & Assignments
>
> In terms of evaluation, students should choose a book (or a selection of
> articles) of their own to read on top of the required readings - see the
> suggested readings list for ideas (separate handout), and look in the UBC
> library. Part of the idea behind SDS is to make classes more of a group
> experience, with shared learning, so we can broaden our knowledge by having
> individuals or groups do projects / presentations on either a book or
> relevant topic of their choice. Involving a variety of extra sources, will
> expand the information-base available for discussion, will enable
> participants to tie readings in to their personal or academic foci, and
> will promote the concept of self-determined freedom of thought and
> education. Instead of taking up valuable class time with presentations, an
> option would be to see if we can do our presentations in a public setting
> on campus at the end of the semester, where other students, faculty or
> members of the public can come along and learn something too. These would
> be evaluated on relevance, depth of information, and original thought, as
> well as any other criteria deemed relevant by the class. There will
> probably be two essays set, also with a wide degree of freedom of topic
> choice. Importantly, all views are acceptable, whether for or against
> cognitive liberty or psychedelics, so long as they are argued effectively:
> the goal of this course is not to convince students to think in a
> particular direction, but rather to think carefully and critically. Essays
> and presentations will be peer-evaluated, by a system to be determine in
> the first classes. As participation in discussion groups is critical to
> the course, a percentage of the final grade will reflect the amount of
> effort each of us puts in. The course will be graded on the usual
> percentage scale used by UBC, enabling students to be able to use the
> course towards their GPA.
>
> The classes themselves will be based around discussion groups; depending
> upon the knowledge base of the participants, the number of seminars will be
> determined early on. Depending on what the students want, we could either
> have: class discussions; smaller group discussions led by different
> students, with an opportunity for all to do so over the semester; or a
> combination of the two, where we have small groups, and then discuss the
> main points as a class. As the class is to be a seminar, most of the time
> will be spent on exploring assigned readings or topics brought up by
> students (and sharing papers plus discussing peer grading), and, should we
> have a video or guest speaker, engaging in discourse with or about them.
> When available, guest speakers will be invited - should you have any
> suggestions, please let the class know, and if deemed relevant, we will try
> to fit them in.
>
> Core Texts
>
> Cheryl Pellerin "Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain". 1998. USA:
> Seven Stories Press.
>
> Thomas B. Roberts "Psychoactive Sacramentals". 2001. USA: Council on
> Spiritual Practices.
>
> John Stuart Mill "On Liberty" (available free online or in most good
> second-hand bookstores)
>
> + various handouts
>
> Suggested Outline / Schedule (to be amended via student input during first
> week)
>
> WEEK 1 (Jan 7-11)       What is Cognitive Liberty?
> This week will be an introduction to the course, during which we shall
> determine the actual structure of the course by group input. Topic-wise,
> we shall be dealing primarily with conceptions of liberty.
>         Readings
> Richard Glen Boire, Esq. "On Cognitive Liberty" (Handout)
> Thomas B. Roberts "Academic and Religious Freedom in the Study of the Mind"
> (handout)
> John Stuart Mill "On Liberty", Chapters I and II
>
> WEEK 2 (Jan 14-18)      Psychoactive substances and their relation to
> cognitive liberty
> A continuation of our look at liberty issues, bringing the relevance of
> psychoactives into the topic - why psychoactives and not other drugs?
>         Readings
> John Stuart Mill "On Liberty", Chapters III and IV
> Cheryl Pellerin "Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain" Part I
> internet: visit <www.alchemind.org>
>
> WEEK 3 (Jan 21-25)      Religious uses of psychedelics as sacraments
> (i.e. the Native American Church's use of peyotyl). Are such experiences
> genuine religious experiences? If so, what does this mean? If not, are
> they potentially of any use?
>         Readings
> John Stuart Mill "On Liberty", Chapter V
> Thomas B. Roberts [all in "Psychoactive Sacramentals"]
>         "If I Could Change Your Mind", Rev. Mike Young 1-8;
>         "Do Drugs Have Religious Import? A 35 Year Retrospect", Huston
> Smith 11-16;
>         "LSD as a Spiritual Aid", Albert Hofmann 121-3;
>         "An Entheogen Idea-Map - Future Explorations", Thomas B. Roberts
> 233-43.
>
> WEEK 4 (Jan 28-Feb 1) Getting to know you
> Examination of specific drugs, their effects, how they work, potential
> benefits and dangers.
>         Readings
> Cheryl Pellerin "Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain" Part II
> Thomas B. Roberts [both in "Psychoactive Sacramentals"]:
>         "Unitive Consciousness and Pahnke's Good Friday Experiment", Paula
> Jo Hruby
>         59-66;
>         "Strychnine and Other Enduring Myths: Expert and User Folklore
> Surrounding
>         LSD", David Presti and Jerome Beck 125-135.
> internet: visit <www.erowid.org>
>
> WEEK 5 (Feb 4-8) Psychoactives in (distant) history and non-Western cultures
> Anthropological perspectives, examining aboriginal uses of plant-based
> psychedelics.
>         Readings
> (to be determined)
>
> WEEK 6 (Feb 11-15)      Psychedelic drug cultures
> Psychedelic drug culture and cultural movements (past and present),
> including their icons (such as Leary, McKenna, Shulgin), the role of the
> internet, the rave scene (and the shifts in preferred substances that have
> occurred with the commercialization of the scene in the last eight years or
> so). Harm reduction, current strategies, good and bad.
>         Readings
> internet: visit <www.deoxy.org>, <www.dancesafe.org>
> Tara McCall "This is Not a Rave: In the Shadow of a Subculture" (excerpts,
> as handouts).
>
> SPRING BREAK (Feb 18-22)
>         Readings
> Cheryl Pellerin "Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain" Part III
>
> WEEK 7 (Feb 25-Mar 1) Scientific research around the world
>
>         Readings
> Thomas B. Roberts [both in "Psychoactive Sacramentals"]:
>         "The Potential of Entheogens as Catalysts of Spiritual
> Development", Stanislav
>         Grof 27-45;
>         "The New Psychotherapy: MDMA and the Shadow", Ann Shulgin 197-204.
> [TRP magazine Spring 1999: Interview with Dr. Rick Strassman]
> [essay #1 due Feb. 28th]
>
> WEEK 8 (Mar 4-8) Psychotherapeutic uses and potentials
> The potential use of psychedelics as educational tools, as therapeutic
> agents, as self-reprogramming catalysts.
> ---possible guest lecture: Ken Tupper, from SFU.
>         Readings
> Grof , Stanislav. "LSD Psychotherapy" (on reserve) 17-42.
> Lilly, John C. "Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer"
>         Introduction + Chapter 1 (reserve)
>
> WEEK 9 (Mar 11-15) The War on Drugs, past, present, and future, Part I
> Including the history, economics and politics behind it. Although
> controversial in some circles, this topic is highly relevant, as it not
> only determines how all of the other possible topics are currently
> approached by governments, researchers, and the public, but also the degree
> to which we can consider ourselves cognitively free.
>         Readings
> Ott, Jonathan. "Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and
> History",       Proemium, p19-77 (reserve room)
>
> WEEK 10 (Mar 18-22) The War on Drugs, past, present, and future, Part II
> A continuation of last week, focusing more specifically on how ideologies
> operate and perpetuate.
>         Reading
> Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", excerpt,
> p158-183.
>         From "Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays". (reserve)
>
> WEEK 11 (Mar 25-28, No school on 29th, GF) Cognitive liberty: reflections
> Where has our exploration taken us? Is cognitive liberty a worthy cause?
> Does the status of psychoactive substances really have import on this
> issue? Can cognitive liberty ever be realized?
>         Readings
> Leary, Timothy. "The Fifth Freedom", Chapter 3 in "The Politics of
> Ecstasy" (reserve)
>
> WEEK 12 (Apr 2-4, NS on 1st, Easter, NS on 5th) Cognitive liberty:
> reflections (cont)
> General wrap-up.
>         Readings - none.
> ----------------------------------------Marking Scheme for PHIL 486-003
> Cognitive Liberty: Psychedelic Perspectives
> As decided by class members during first week.
> Spring Semester, 2002
>
> There will be two options available to class participants:
>
> Option A:
>
> 20% - Participation.
> 80% - 1 Essay, to be completed by the last class, for the presentations at
> the end of the semester. This paper must be 17-20 pages, and be presented
> (either in brief or as a whole) during the presentations.
>
> Option B:
>
> 20% - Participation.
> 30% - 1 Essay (due Feb. 28th) 5-7 pages.
> 50% - Presentation to be done during the last week of class (unless class
> reaches a consensus on a preferable time). This is intended to reflect the
> participant's interests and enable them to show what they have learnt over
> the semester. The presentation can either be (a) another essay (to be
> submitted by the last class) of length 12-15 pages or (b) a presentation
> of the participant's choosing (anything that is sufficiently relevant to
> the class, in whatever format desired, thus allowing for creative
> interpretation).
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> nb. I would appreciate it if you could approach me with your essay topics
> and presentation topics ahead of time, so that I can either help by
> suggesting ideas, or discuss whether the topic is relevant to the class.
> 'Relevant' means that the topic directly refers to and engages in the
> cognitive liberty concepts that we will discuss over the course of the
> semester (critiques of the idea are, of course, just as acceptable as work
> upholding the concept), and relates this issue to some aspect of the case
> study of psychedelics we are going to be studying. There is great scope
> for interpretation here, which is why I'd appreciate at least some
> consultation before you start.
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Marking will be done on a peer-marking basis. This means that we will all
> read the other class member's papers and discuss the merits and problems
> with each, and arrive at a grade for each paper by consensus. Everyone
> will have an opportunity to defend their paper, so that they might clear up
> any misunderstandings (we have a wide range of scholastic backgrounds, and
> some of us may not, for example, be totally clear about certain terms or
> ideas that are, in the composer's discipline, common knowledge) before
> grades are worked out.
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> All of the undersigned are in agreement with this marking / assignment scheme:
>
> --------------------
>
> ------------------
> [email protected], a member service of the Multidisciplinary Association
> for Psychedelic Studies (to become a member, see www.maps.org/memsub.html).
> To [un]subscribe, email the message text,
> [un]subscribe maps-forum youraddress to [email protected]
> List archives: www.cerebral.org/~law/Maps.html
> Guidelines for authors: www.maps.org/guidelines.txt
> MAPS Forum is supported by a generous grant from the Promind Foundation.

====================================================================================
Stairways to Heaven

More will appear about this book later on this list, but in the meantime, it deserves a place on
entheogenists' book shelves. It's probably especially handy as an introductory reading for, say,
students and others who have little background in the interplay between the history of American
religions and entheogens. It's more than a summery, however, as Fuller brings his expertise in religion
to shed philosophical light on entheogens and to see them in a larger context.— TR

=======================

Fuller, Robert C. (2000). Stairways to Heaven: Drugs in American
Religious History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

ISBN: 0-8133-6612-7

Description: Hardcover, first edition. x + 237 pages.

Contents: Preface, 6 chapters, chapter notes, bibliography, index.

Excerpt(s):
Preface.
The subject matter in this book is one of the most fascinating in all of religious history. It is also one of
the most controversial. The fact that even a tiny amount of LSD or mescaline can trigger mystical
rapture raises challenging questions. What, after all, is an "authentic" religious experience? Is it
possible that religious experiences are nothing more than aberrations in our brain chemistry? Or is it
possible that the Kingdom of God is truly within us, but awaiting release through whatever means we
can discover? Given the widespread cultural support for our government's "war on drugs," how far
can we go in tolerating drug use under the banner of religious freedom? And, legal issues aside, how
can we go about assessing what may or may not be the legitimate role of mood-altering substances in
the development of mature spirituality? These are all issues that have a great deal of scholarly
importance. They are also issues that have a great deal of relevance to the person and public
controversies that continue to be debated in our families, legislatures, and courts. For this reason I
have tried to write a readable introduction to the topic that academic specialists will find of interest,
but that nonspecialists will find enjoyable as well. (pages vii - viii).

=====================================================================================
With thanks to the MAPS Forum for originally publishing this. - TR

=============================================
Ibogaine

Reply-to: [email protected] (Jon Freedlander)

hello everyone,

the following is a term paper i wrote for my addictions class last
semester...i thought some of you might find it interesting, so here it is

Ibogaine: A Review of Contemporary Literature
By,
Jonathan Freedlander
PSYC 485 - Prof. John Allen, PhD
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Introduction and History:

     Banzie (the members of the Bwiti, properly, "those of the chapel")
     ...say that eboga [sic] enables a man or woman to return to infancy
     and to birth - to life in the womb...by returning initiates to the
     uterine condition, a condition in any case very close to life in
     the land of the dead [and so] restores them to their own integrity
     - their pristine conditions. (Fernandez, 1982).

Ibogaine is a naturally occurring indole alkaloid found in a
variety of tropical shrubs of the Tabernanthe genus, the most well
known of which is Tabernanthe iboga (Shulgin and Shulgin, 1977). In the
western world, extracts of iboga root, which contain some 12 known
active alkaloids, including ibogaine, have been used medicinally for
over a century (Popik, and Skolnick, 1999). Ibogaine was first extracted
from the iboga root in 1901 by Dybowsky and Landrin (Goutarel,
Gollnhofer, and Sillans , 1993), though its chemical structure was not
determined until 1957 (Taylor, 1965). Complete synthesis of ibogaine
from nicotinamide is possible by way of a 13 or 14 step process;
however, this process is rarely used as a source of ibogaine, as
extraction from the root is a considerably less work intensive means of
obtaining the compound, and there are no known advantages to the
synthetic method (Shulgin and Shulgin, 1977).

The root of the Tabernathe iboga has been used for centuries by
various indigenous cultures of western Africa, as first reported by
French and Belgian explorers in the nineteenth century (Popik and
Skolnick, 1999). Depending on the specific culture, the root is either
chewed whole, or prepared in a mixture, with or without other
psychoactive ingredients (Fernandez, 1982). These cultures use the iboga
root as a catalyst for spiritual discovery, primarily involved in Bouti
initiation rites. In these rites, the initiate must venture into the
spiritual world, guided by those already initiated, in a complex ritual
that is centred around the effects of ingestion of the iboga root. The
effects of the ingested root propagate a voyage of self-discovery, which
is heavily imbued with Jungian archetypes, involving a return to the
womb and a journey through the domain of the tribal ancestors (Goutarel,
Gollnhofer, and Sillans, 1993). Other preparations of the iboga root in
smaller quantities are also used throughout western Africa as a
stimulant, particularly before a hunt, and as an aphrodisiac (Lotsof,
Della Sera, and Kaplan, 1995).

Ibogaine was first introduced to the Western public in France in
the 1930's, in the form of Lambarene, an extract of the Tabernathe manii
plant. It was described as a mental and physical stimulant and contained
about 8 mg of ibogaine (Popik and Skolnick, 1999). The drug was
"...indicated in cases of depression, asthniea, in convalescence,
infectious disease, [and] greater than normal physical or mental
efforts by healthy individuals," and aroused a great deal of interest
amoung post-war athletes. Eventually, Lambarene disappeared from the
market, and the sale of ibogaine was prohibited in 1966 (Goutarel,
Gollnhofer, and Sillans, 1993).

In the 1960's, a Chilean psychiatrist named Clauido Naranjo began
experiments to study the potential of ibogaine as a catalyst for the
psychotherapeutic process. He found through case studies that, with a
dosage range of between 3 and 5 mg/kg, ibogaine elicits an oneirogenic
condition which facilitates long term memory retrieval and closure of
unresolved emotional conflicts (Naranjo, 1974). The word "oneirogen"
(from the Greek, meaning "dream") is used rather than "hallucinogen" in
referring to ibogaine's psychological effects, because ibogaine is not
truly psychomimetic; it does not produce loss of consciousness or any
formal deterioration of thought (Goutarel, Gollnhofer, and Sillans,
1993).

Naranjo noted, as did ethnographers who have studied the cultures of
western Africa, that the imagery produced by ibogaine is largely Jungian
in content. That is, it involves archetypes common to all humans,
imagery that provides the basis for the human psyche. In a therapy
session, this archetypal imagery is used as a medium for mitigating
emotional insight in relation to memories most significant to the
individual's condition (Naranjo, 1974). Indeed, from a psychological
perspective, it would seem as though this relationship is likely to be a
primary factor in ibogaine's therapeutic effects.

Ibogaine was first reported to be effective in treating chemical
addictions by H. S. Lotsof, when he introduced Endabuse (NIH 10567)
(Popick and Glick 1996). He began studying the effects of ibogaine in
treating individuals with addictive disorders with a series of focus
group experiments in the early 1960's (Lotstof, Della Sera, and Kaplan,
1995). In 1985, Lotsof patented Endabuse for use in the interruption of
opiate dependence disorders (U.S. patent 4,499,096), in 1986 for use in
cocaine dependence disorders (U.S. patent 4,587,243), and in 1992 for
poly-drug use dependence disorders (U.S. patent 5,152,994) (Lotsof,
Della Sera, and Kaplan, 1995). Lotsof also developed a specific
procedure for the use of Endabuse (aptly named the Lotsof ProcedureTM),
which involves comprehensive short and long term physical, psychiatric,
psychological, and social care of the patient (Lotsof, 1994).

Pharmacodynamics :

Ibogaine's physiological actions are particularly complex, and are
still far from being fully understood. Structurally, ibogaine is a
derivative of serotonin (Dhahir, 1971). It has specific affinities for
many binding sites within the CNS, including NMDA
(N-methyl-D-aspartate), kappa, opioid, sigma, and nicotinic receptors
(Alper et al, 1999). It is known to act on many different
neurotransmitter systems, sometimes in seemingly paradoxical ways
(Popick and Glick, 1996), and does not appear to be a conventional
dopamine or opioid agonist or antagonist or and amine uptake inhibitor
(Alper et al, 1999). Noribogaine (12-hydroxyibogamine) is a metabolite
of ibogaine created by the activity of liver enzymes, and is thought to
be responsible for at least some of ibogaine's psychological effects,
which goes to further complicate the study of ibogaine's
pharmacodynamics (Mash et al, 2000).

It has long been thought that dopaminergic pathways are involved in
the reinforcement effects of addictive drugs, and ibogaine has been
shown to have some unusual effects on this system. Ibogaine does not
appear to affect binding at dopamine receptors, nor does it seem to
consistently affect dopamine transport systems. However, under certain
experimental conditions, ibogaine results in a reduction of dopamine
concentrations and an increase in dopamine metabolites DOPAC
(dihydroxyphenyl-acetic acid) and HVA (homovanilic acid) (Popick and
Skolnik, 1999). Noribogaine is likely to be involved, at least in part,
in ibogaine's dopaminergic effects, particularly that of reduced
dopamine turnover for an extended period of time after administration;
however, this relationship remains unclear (Mash et al, 2000).

Like dopamine pathways, NDMA receptors have often been sighted as
neural components implicated in addictive disorders. Ibogaine acts as an
NDMA antagonist, a competitive inhibitor of [3H]MK-801 or [3H]TCP
binding at receptor coupled NMDA ion channels (Sweetnam et al, 1995). In
support of these findings, ibogaine produces a voltage dependent block
of NDMA invoked currents in hippocampal cultures, and inhibits
glutamate-induced cell death in neuronal cultures (Popik et al, 1995).
NDMA antagonists acting at the glutamate, open channel, and glycine
binding sites have been shown to suppress symptoms of morphine
withdrawal in rodents, and attenuate drug self-administration (Trujillo
and Akil, 1991).

Ibogaine binds only mildly to opioid receptors, though its
metabolite noribogaine has a considerably higher affinity for opioid
receptor binding (Popick and Glick, 1996). Ibogaine has been reported
not to affect [3H]carfentanil or [3H]enkephalin binding at mu or delta
opioid receptors (Popick and Skolnick, 1999); however, Sweetnam et al
(1995) demonstrated that it does inhibit radioligand binding to mu
opioid receptors. In addition, ibogaine has been shown to inhibit other
compounds from binding at opioid sites, including naloxone, an opioid
antagonist (Popick and Skolnick, 1999). This may be related to the
phenomena of reduced opiate withdrawal symptoms seen in addicts treated
with ibogaine.

As is the case with many tryptamines, ibogaine's effects on the
serotonergic system are particularly complex. It has no effect on
[3H]serotonin binding (Popick and Skolnick, 1999) and does not displace
ligands acting at 5-HT1a, 5-HT1b, 5-HT1c, 5-HT1d, 5-HT2, or 5-HT3
receptors (Deecher et al, 1992). However, ibogaine does inhibit binding
of 5-HT1a, 5-HT2a, and 5-HT3 ligands with low affinity (Repke et al) and
inhibits radioligand binding to 5-HT2 and 5-HT3 receptors (Sweetnam et
al, 1995). Furthermore, ibogaine's effects on the serotonergic system may
have a role in its regulation of dopamine release (Popick and Skolnik,
1999). Clearly, there is need for much more research on ibogaine's effects
on the serotonergic system, and on its pharmacodynamics in general.

Anti-addictive Properties:

As mentioned earlier, ibogaine was first introduced by H.S. Lotsof
as an aide in breaking the addictive cycle. This claim has been
supported by numerous empirical and clinical studies. Ibogaine has been
shown to attenuate signs of morphine withdrawal in rats (jumping,
rearing, digging, head hiding, chewing, teeth chattering, writhing, and
penile licking), and to reduce self-administration of heroin, morphine,
and cocaine (Glick, Rossman, and Steindorf, 1991). Similar results have
been seen in experiments examining ibogaine's effects on morphine
addicted rats and monkeys (Alper et al, 1999). Ibogaine has also been
shown to reduce cocaine-induced motor stimulation in the mouse (Lotsof,
Della Sera, and Kaplan, 1995).

In humans, administration of ibogaine resulted in fewer
self-reported cravings for both heroin and cocaine addicts, and reduced
self-reported depressive symptoms (Mash et al, 2000). Sheppard (1994)
found that ibogaine treatment seems to remove an addicted individuals
desire to seek and use opiates, and that after treatment, several
subjects who did use heroin again found the experience to be
unsatisfying. Additionally, multiple reports have sighted that ibogaine
reduces or eliminates opiate withdrawal symptoms within 1 to 2 hours
with a complete resolution of symptoms within 24 to 48 hours (Alper et
al, 1999). Judd (1994) observed that ibogaine has significant advantages
over traditional treatment methods with respect to what she considers
the three major obstacles in addiction treatment; fear of
detoxification, lack of insight, and the inability of addicts to control
their urges to use drugs.

It is important to note that when using ibogaine in the treatment
of addictive disorders, the methods involved are considerable different
than those used in conventional addiction treatments. Often, only one
treatment of ibogaine is necessary to break the addictive pattern, while
sometimes multiple treatments are needed (Goutarel, Gollnhofer, and
Sillans, 1993). In any case, ibogaine treatment involves a more intimate
relationship between the patient and the clinician (or, more
appropriately, the team of clinicians), involving a greater level of
trust and compassion than is generally seen in typical addiction
counseling (Lotsof, 1994). This is due to the deeply personal nature of
the ibogaine experience, and the fact that at the dosage commonly used
for addiction treatment ibogaine's psychotropic effects last
approximately 24 - 38 hours (Sheppard, 1994).

Conclusion and Commentary:

Ibogaine represents a truly novel approach to the treatment of
addictive disorders; one which involves a more holistic approach,
involving simultaneous treatment from physiological, psychological, and
even sociological perspectives. Though clinical research on this
compound's anti-addictive properties is still in its infancy, at this
stage there is significant evidence to suggest that ibogaine has the
potential to address many obstacles that often prevent the successful
treatment of addictions. As one patient stated, "ibogaine is a much more
humane and dignified approach to detox [sic]" (Judd, 1994). If this
notion proves to be true, ibogaine therapy would be a major step forward
for addiction treatment, which at it's present state (particularly in
the United States) is at best often ineffectual, and at worst seriously
degrading to the addicted individual.

This is not to insult the dedicated work of countless researchers
and therapy providers, but is rather a statement to illustrate our current
lack of understanding of the addictive process in general, and more
specifically, the insurmountable difficulties that current approaches to
addiction treatment inherently possess. With standard addiction
treatment models, it typically takes 4 to 7 attempts on the part of the
patient to reach sobriety, or even temporary abstinence ( Anderson,
1996). If ibogaine does prove to be safe and effective after further
rigorous clinical investigations, and the previous findings are proven
stable in their repeatability, ibogaine will truly represent the next
step in the ever-present dilemma of the chemical addiction phenomenon.

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