Date.created" content="Thu, 14 Oct 1999" Date.Modified" content="Mon, 5 Mar 2018"
Myers Briggs personality testing A waste of time and unethical.
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Believer in a theistic God of miracles have impeded science forcenturies. The Roman Inquisition tried Galileo in 1633 and found him "vehemently suspect of heresy", sentencing him to indefinite imprisonment. Galileo was kept under house arrest until his death in 1642 for saying the moons of Jupiter went around Juliter and not the earth.
Drug use seem to have some innate repugnance to many Christianity. "Body and blood of Christ" says the priest as he gives believers a wafer to eat which contains zero percent Christ.
Religious lobby groups and law enforcemnt are still, even in more enlightened times censoring the internet and slowing down networks. The whole IT newtwork suffers in misguided security efforts. The Christian dominated Labor party with the very nominally pragmatic atheist leader: Julia Gillard was intent on internet censorship The Communications minister known as the "alter-boy" Senator Conroy won an international award Internet Villain of 2009 Stephen Conroy.
By 2016, ISPs are required to preserve metadata on every Australian internet access. 425 Terabytes a day, for one larger ISP. A new 1 Tb hard disk every three minutes! If it were gold mining you would expect a few grams per tonne. Payable gold can be as little as 0.02%. This data retention strike rate would be millions to one against finding security related information. As little as 0.000001%. With so much information, it is difficult to quickly collate vast loads of rubbish data. It would be logical, faster and cheaper to gather the full data of individuals of interest, fully monitor the 0.000001%. The data retention laws are a knee-jerk reaction to crime which are worst practice for real world computing and criminal investigation. Mathematical literacy, CPU has to write the data, disks for storage cost, data takes time and processor power, the IT networks slow and data capacity and etc. etc. Luddites. "Never has so much information been retained on the many to catch so few".
Dumping Rudd that allowed the Greens to stop Labor implementing censorship. Labor panders to lobby groups to ban anything championed by rich lobby groups. The Christian and Jewish lobby groups in particular have many Labor MPs in their pocket outlawing whatever they want. Gillard & Labor do not support free speech or Julian Assange.
An archive of this Labor party "Discussion Paper"
Protest emailed to Minister O'Connor 23rd Febraury 2011. "The traditional standard of criminal guilt required an "actus rea" and a "mens rea", a guilty act and a guilty mind, O'Connor planned to throw away these ancient standards of proof to make crimes requiring no criminal act and no criminal intent. It is possible that the plants he wanted to outlaw could spring up in someone's backyard making them guilty of a crime with no guilty act and no mental intent. This is an abomination to make laws like this, crimes of strict liability like speeding are usually limited to small fines, Labor plans to make new crimes of strict liability with up to 25 years jail".
Minister O'Connor was only listening to his working focus group. He was not listening to the public or gardeners or concerned about making innocent people criminals. He did not even publish objections to these proposed laws. The Labor party and their "working parties" are focus group driven. Who was is in this "working party", more high paid postions for Labor mates perhaps!
Yet another medical use for Marijuana.
Will they also ban information about these plants and make this webpage illegal?
The dose is what makes the difference between a remedy and a poison. The Australian labor party were planning to regulate nature itself.
Labor were deeming that people are criminals just for possessing many plant species, even if the owner does not even know what the plants are? Is every Australian expected to identify thousands of species of plants to comply with the proposed laws?
The aborigines might need some expert help to make a submission, they have some sacred plants known by local names and not the botanical name. I am informed that one of them is referred to as "Yarndi" Has the Labor party and the Attorney General and Minister O'Connor considered any native aboriginal religions and dreams? Silly question. Of course they haven't. Body and blood of Christ that is what they believe a wafer of bread is.
The use of poisons, stimulants, sedatives or hallucinogenics to alter your perception could:
Classification of drugs should be based on the harm they cause rather than Criminal Legal codes. Prohibition has not worked and criminalises children. The Portugal example, decriminalise and decrease the harm and stigmatism while saving billions in policing, jail time, replaced with an offer of therapy.
Appropriate treatment may be refused without criminal punishment. The Portugal experiment reviewed. "Judging by every metric, decriminalisation in Portugal has been a resounding success".
Other countries, often deeply rooted in religious ideology have not had the courage to follow the example and results from Portugal. Expert medical advice and statistical support for decriminalisation is subordinate to the bias of political lobby groups who provide funding for political parties. Political lobby groups buying political favour in Australia. Nepotism and jobs for the boys. A study published in the Lancet Medical Journal proposed that drugs should be classified by the amount of harm that they do, rather than the sharp A, B, and C divisions in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act. Alcohol is the most harmful drug.
The new ranking places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table. These socially accepted drugs were judged more harmful than cannabis, and substantially more dangerous than the Class A drugs LSD, 4-methylthioamphetamine and ecstasy.
(Almost all hallucinogenics, sedatives and stimulants cannot be legally consumed in Australia) They are all illegal to ingest in any way. What is illegal, is usually culturally specific, alcohol is probably the most widely used drug, but it is illegal in some countries. It is a capital offence to use drugs in some countries.
The cultural bias of each culture to different drug use makes objective information difficult to find with some exceptions. STOP the drug war. The Good Drugs Guide. There are some intelligent people calling for harm minimisation rather than harsh law enforcement in Australia, but some people like former liberal minister Bronwyn Bishop prefer to jail Australians for illegal drug use, than to help them with health problems.
The major way some natives safely ingested stimulants, sedatives or hallucinogenics, was by drinking the urine of their shaman or native priest who had ingested the drug. Drugs were used in divination ceremonies where the oracle often took the drug, not the patient.
This is intended as a history of the use of drugs in divination and religious ritual pre Christian times. Many of the drugs described below are toxic, Oracles used them to poison and kill anyone not paying them proper respect. We have no medical expertise on drugs, just some observations about the historical different use of drugs being tied to medical and religious ritual divination, rather than egocentric naval gazing.
We survive under a repressionist, prohibitionist and judgmental state government in Victoria Australia, where people are evaluated as criminals by their biochemistry. Testing drivers for THC and amphetamines We wrote an earlier editorial on civil liberties and the Victorian government changing the common law elements required to prove a crime so they can evaluate drug users as criminals by a simple but inaccurate saliva test which requires a blood sample for further analysis. Refuse to give police a blood sample. We do not advocate the use of drugs, but we also righty resist any attempt to judge all illegal drug users as criminals. Judge people by their action not their biochemistry. Common law notions
The juice of a couple of berries of some plants can be lethal and Heretic Press does not advocate the use of any drug to alter your perception. We do advocate hard work, self observation; of physical, emotional and mental habits, meditation and breathing exercises. Most vision in drug induced states are wishes unfulfilled through drug induced inaction. We prefer to create and "DO".
NEVER TAKE UNKNOWN DRUGS ALONE. Always have a sober person with you to check your condition.
Some provocative questions please? What chemical you are taking, will this chemical have any bad side effects for you as an individual, (contra-indications with any medication) or on your personality. Could there be a latent mental illness trying to get out of you, taking drugs could be like opening a Pandora's box of mental illness. Is there any family history of mental illness, bi-polar depressive disorder or schizophrenia, could you be encouraging an otherwise latent problem, a madness encouraged by taking drugs. Drug induced schizophrenia or psychosis can occur after one dose!
One common reason that many people try drugs is through peer-group pressure, because others are taking them. You should try and be more aware of possible dangers if you have an external locus of control and are easily influenced. Locus of control. Many people you meet who will give you bad advice and some could endanger your life. It is very easy to conform to bullies and many people go along with the group when they should say No to very bad behaviour, The Stanford Prison experiment. the Lucifer Effect. Peer pressure in the workplace.
Are you an addictive personality? Could you become easily addicted to stimulants like, cocaine or heroin, millions of others have! Don't just go along with a group for a potentially fatal ride. What is your personal reason for wanting to take drugs? Could there be some emotional pain you are trying to forget?
People have experienced early age onset of Parkinson's disease symptoms, like tremors from only one dose of an impure drug or even a pure one for that matter. The effect on your body or maybe your mind is unpredictable? Neuroscience introduction Many drugs have an immunosuppressant effect, so they may not kill you themselves, but they will weaken your immune system so other diseases could kill you. Ecstasy can suppress the immune system 30 minutes after taking the drug.
The descriptions below are of the historical drug use by Oracles who had perhaps a thousand years experience in the use of poison.
Biblical stories of the ark of the covenant seem to indicate that the Hebrews had a large medical knowledge of plants. They also practiced ritual widespread poisoning, but the main Oracles centers were Etruscian and Greek and they used stimulants, sedatives and hallucinogenics for religious ritual that could kill and were never taken light-heatedly or for fun outside the Oracle's advice.
To take drugs in the ancient world was a religious ritual, that you might not survive. Today, stimulants and sedatives seem to be taken for any shallow reason, amusement and entertainment. There is no possibility of personal growth using drugs for amusement and there is always a chance of causing your own premature death.
Drugs that cause an altered sense of perception are related to natural neurotransmitters in the human brain. The nerve cells in our brains have small gaps between the ends which are filled by chemicals that can transmit a nerve impulse from one cell to another.
The nervous system is divided into the somatic nervous system which regulates homeostasis of the body and the autonomic nervous system which has two sub-branches each with ascending and descending connections with lower cerebral structures, the sympathetic and para-sympathetic.
The neuron is the basic unit allowing electro-chemical energy to pass across its synapses, it is not joined directly to other neurons, there is a gap that must be breached by chemicals capable of transmitting energy.
There are over 50 major known neurotransmitters. To intefer with your brains natural balance of dopamine or seratonin can be the start of complicated problems from schizophrenia to Parkinson's disease. Some side effects of older anti-psychotic medication like chloropromazine and haliperidol, can be worse than the psychosis, the extrapyramidal side effects can sometimes include, sever muscle ache and spasms, tremor and Parkinsonian symptoms, restlessness, Tardive dyskinesia for long term patients who have involuntary tongue and mouth movements as a result of using antipsychotic drugs.
Certainly it is best to stay mentally healthy and avoid anti-psychotic drugs even used under medical supervision, hallucinogenic drugs or stimulants of unknown purity and toxicity are far more dangerous like some adverse physical or mental reactions to Psilocybe mushrooms, Ecstacy or LSD Sometimes it may only take one dose of a drug to profoundly affect a person's mental health for the rest of their life.
There are other ways for people to satisfy that hunger for an enriched life experience, hard work, personal development, self knowledge and altruistic service to others being the preferred way.
Gurdjieff's ideas on self observation; physical, emotional and mental habits.
Self Observation
For a sustained life long-term high, try meditation.
Buddha Some translations
For some ideas on personality and coping with stress.
Personality and stress management
Posion used by the ancient oracles
Drug use in the Underworld
Many monkeys use plants for medicinal purposes. Robyn Williams in an article entitled Nature's Medicine Cabinet, cites the research of Richard Wrangham and Professor Elroy Rodriquez who recently told an astonished press conference in Chicago that Medicine may be over 6,000,000 years old and have a non-human origin.
They discovered that African apes used the leaves of Aspilia not for food, but to fight viral infections and parasites such as the nematode worms. Chimps also use the leaves of a fig to kill nematode worms. Ugandan chimps getting drunk and causing trouble eating Rubia cordifolia, Brazilian female Muriquis monkeys can reportedly trigger ovulation by eating certain plants and Tanzanian chimps eat the pith of Veronia which contains terpines. Monkeys use many medicinal plants, but unlike humans do not seem to eat anything for the effect of heightening their awareness that we can discern, there is no beer, dope or LSD in the animal world.
The history of the ingestion of plants is related to religious superstition and a lack of knowledge about science and natural causes. We have a rational explanation for many natural phenomena. Our intimidated ancient ancestors mainly used toxic drugs to try and communicate with supernatural forces. Thales of Melitus was the first to propose a natural philosophy rather than attributing everything to the will of some God.
Mostly, in the ancient world, hallucinogenic drugs were taken by the shaman, priests or oracle. The making of an enquiry to an oracle, or the initiation into a religious cult were also occasions for drug use. Apart from the God Bacchus in Latin or Dionysius, in Greek, the God of wine promoted drinking as the only ancient party inebriant. The use of hallucinogens was for very serious occasions, generally limited to the purpose of divination.
King of Pontos who held out against the
expanding Roman Empire for many years, often in hiding and
disguised was so in fear of his life from both the Romans and his
own family who capitulated with the Romans. He practiced
making himself immune to poisons. Medical tolerance to most drugs
is normal, larger and larger doses are required to achieve the same
effect. Mithridates as well as testing drugs on condemned prisoners and devising antedotes, achieved his immunity to poison by taking very
small amounts of a poison and increasing the dose slowly allowing
the body to adjust to larger normally lethal doses. This is a dangerous approach that he was lucky to survive. Some toxins have a cumulative effect, Cadmium may be just one very dangerous lethal drug contained in some mushrooms like Anita Muscaria. Some things you do build up a tolerance to they slowly kill you the more you take.
Mithridates was lucky to survived this increased dose tolerance approach which might work for some drugs and poison but not for all drugs and poison. In unethical crude research on animals scientists referred to the Lethal DOse 50 LD50 which was how much of that drug or substance was needed to kill 50% of the laboratory animals by a measure to bodyweight.
His sister did try to poison him and survived again and had his sister executed. Ironically the Romans,
great builders they were, their knowledge of chemistry and poisons was almost nil, they made extensive use of led in their
aquaducts and plumbing. Water was free in Rome, but watch out for the led content,
fertility rates for females were declining rapidly by the end of the Republic
and some notable Roman rulers were as mad as Lewis Carol's mad hatter, but
hatters were commonly affected by mercury poisoning used to roll felt smooth.
Paracelsus, A Swiss chemist and physician who
founded modern chemical treatment methods stated that, "It was
only the dose that determined whether a substance acts as a
remedy or as a poison." Paracelsus was at odds with the traditional accepted Roman views of Galen's medicine, mainly because he used mercury as a cure for syphilis.
The use of poisons for healing, intoxication and as a means of political execution was prolific in the ancient world. Albert Hoffman from favourable accounts by prominent ancients initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries(1400-400 B.C.) such as Cicero, Plato and Homer, identified ergot as the likely active ingredient they were given in an initiation ceremony. The reason that hallucinogenic drugs can alter our sense of awareness is that they are all without exception close chemical analogues of natural neurotransmitters chemical substances in the brain. Drugs that affect us mentally have natural counterparts in the brain or act on those natural brain chemicals like Stimulants, sedatives or psychedelics.
(List Ergot, Thorn Apple, Atroppa Belladonna, Appolinaris Jupiter Beans, Henbane, Opium)
LSD Ergot is a fungus which can affect cereal crops especially wheat, rye and barley. Ergot milled into the flour caused poisoning which was the scourge of the middle ages. Two types of ergot poisoning were known the first gangrenous ( ergotismus gangraenous ) and the second convulsive form (ergotismus convulsivus). Colloquial terms referring to "mal des ardents", "ignis sacer", "heiligues Feuer" or "St Anthonys' fire" refer to the gangrenous form. The order of St Anthony were associated with treating the victims. Outbreaks of St Anthony's fire decreased with improvements in agriculture, but ergot was used medicinally in the 1800's to help uterine contractions during childbirth, but was still regarded as dangerous, if too much was administered uterine spasms could harm the baby.
More potent concentration of the psychologically active ingredients came with the synthesis of lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938, but its active effects were discovered by the chemist Albert Hoffmann in 1943. He began to feel a "not unpleasant intoxication characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination" which later on led to visions of demonic possession. Albert Hoffman realised that the material he had been making LSD must be very powerful for the tiny amount he was preparing to have active psychological effects on him. No other know substance has such psychic effects at such low doses.
Drugs and LSD acts by stimulating the centers of the sympathetic nervous system in the midbrain causing pupillary dilation, increases in body temperature and blood sugar levels. It has a seratonin blocking effect and acts to activate dopamine related receptors which are also implicated in studies of Schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Non hallucinogenic forms of LSD available under Trade brand names such as Deseril and Sansert as often prescribed for migraine headaches, especially where other acidic pain killers can have side effects on a fragile gastro intestinal system. LSD is absorbed through the intestine and is soon eliminated via the liver and bile, but the effect persists long after most of the LSD is eliminated, it is as if the LSD is just a trigger to a state of mind that can exist independently of the drug.
In the late 1950's interest in LSD was stirred by reports from prominent actor Cary Grant, in 1959 Look Magazine September Issue that using LSD was a better experience than hypnosis, yoga or mysticism. The patents held on LSD by Sandoz who Dr Hoffman worked for when he discovered it expired in 1963. Thereafter there was a big increase in its use, culminating in the mid 1960's with a polarization into two groups. Those such as Timothy Leary a Doctor of Psychology at Harvard encouraged its therapeutic for self discovery at parties which degenerated into "love ins". A well quoted statement from Tim at the time was "Turn on, tune in, drop out" The opposing camp claimed LSD caused suicides and bad trips. Leary lost the battle and was jailed for a considerable period of time, LSD was outlawed in America and almost everywhere else.
Morning glory seeds were used by the Aztecs as their second preference hallucinogenic when mushrooms were not in season. Albert Hoffman was surprised in 1959 to isolate Lysergic Acid amide, Lysergic acid and hydroxayethylamide all close relatives of LSD but less potent from seeds supplied by natives. This plant is the common morning glory vine, but its seeds are like tough black nuts that taste bitter and are difficult to keep down. The American government did go to the trouble of coating these seeds with a mild poison in the 1960's to discourage their growing use among the hippy culture.
Cortez really could have been strung up when he arrived. In 1519 Cortez landed at Vera crus with 11 ships full of syphilitic men, himself included. The Aztec empire contained approximately seven million well organised citizens with sophisticated communication channels across the nation via a western style cob and co coach run with stations, except they didn't have horses, they ran on foot. When they first saw Cortez mounted on his steed they thought the beast and man were one. But Cortez was incredibly lucky that he had arrived then, they were expecting him or someone like him to return and be their divine ruler again.
Quetzacotl the winged serpent dressed in quetzal feathers was expected by the Aztecs. They had some contact with either a European, Phoenican or Carthagian before who they say departed for the east in about 950 AD. Missionaries to Mexico and El Salvador and Guatemala discovered ancient stone statutes of mushrooms dating to 500 BC. The missionaries fresh from the inquisition hell bent on torturing some heathens followed Cortez, they destroyed almost every cultural artifact they could find and treated the natives as slaves for two hundred years.
The bishops of Yacatan and Mexico reported that the natives "grieved most keenly and were greatly pained" when they burnt the native books which they described as nothing but lies and superstition. Expelled Jesuit Siguenza was able to show the European traveller and author Careris had hidden native manuscripts on accurate planetary calculations and time keeping. Careris's book describing the once great cultures he witnessed was suppressed by the Inquisition because it conflicted with propaganda that Montezuma lived in a hut and that the natives were only barbarians who before the Spanish arrival made human sacrifices to the sun.
A more famous world traveller Baron Friedrich von Humbolt in 1803 was the first to popularise the information that a once great culture had been destroyed. A handful of beautifully crafted codex with complex glyph type symbols survive. The codex Mendoza was put together by the Aztecs at the insistence of Viceroy Mendoza as a collection of the last fragments of a civilisations writings which had not been destroyed by the Spanish missionaries. The first part depicts the founding of Tenochtitlan in 1325 were in a similar fashion to Cadmus the natives settled a new city where an omen was foretold by an animal. In Cadmus' case it is was where a cow law down to rest that he founded Thebes, in this case the Aztecs founded what was to become Mexico city where an eagle perched on a cactus that grew out of a rock.
The Aztecs drank a liquor from fermented juice of the maguey plant which was an intoxicant. They culturally had a tradition similar to our modern drink driving laws, only so many glasses were permitted until the age of seventy when you could drink freely to maximum intoxication. It was often mixed with other hallucinogenic drugs. The Spanish considered it an abomination and taxed it heavily.
Some fragments of native culture were recorded in chronicles which described the natives eating mushrooms with honey and chocolate at festive occasions to make themselves intoxicated. When Montezuma II was crowned free mushrooms were given out to the crowd to make the spectacle of Montezuma's pomp and ceremonial parade appear more majestic. One Friar recorded a more specific use of a red colored mushroom likely to be Amanita muscaria.
Amanita muscaria is the beautiful bright red mushroom with white spots that sometimes grows around birch and conifers in cool mountainous zones. It is often naively depicted as an innocent species in children's fairy tale books. It contains muscarine and ibotenic acid. It is so poisonous that the medieval Europeans used it to kill flies and called it fly agaric. They were unaware of its hallucinogenic properties or that some of the deadly toxins could be washed away with water rendering it a survivable experience. I say survivable, be warned, even the ancient natives didn't eat this species directly but indirectly through a spiritually purified tribal shaman who had developed a tolerance to taking the mushroom from repeated doses.
Amanita is the same mushroom that was also used by the Aryans in ancient India 4,000 years ago called Soma (mainstay of the sky). Hymns in their religious text the Rig Veda refer to Soma as a representation of the world, the mushroom cap is the heavens which can be reached by ingestion of the mushroom from the ground stem to the top cap. In India the use of hallucinogens was replaced with Hinduism which emphasised other means of altering consciousness, singing, chanting, fasting and meditation. John Allegro in, The Mushroom and the Cross proposed on linguistic grounds that Christianity originated from a cult which ingested Amanita muscaria, they considered they were eating the flesh of God in the mushroom. The ingestion of mushrooms was the original sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge the archetypal sin of wanting the knowledge of God. Allegro claims that current religious practices are pail imitations of the ancient intense religious experiences brought about by hallucinogenic drugs.
"For a novice selecting any species of Amanita is like playing Russian roulette," it contains many poisonous chemicals as well as hallucinogenic ones. Amanita can absorb cadmium (one of the top 10 most hazardous pollutants) in large amounts. Cadmium is a cumulative poison that can lead to kidney failure. Natives take the mushrooms by drinking the urine of a shaman who has eaten the mushrooms. It is thought that only someone spiritually able can eat the mushroom directly and others drink the hallucinogenically "purified" urine. The hallucinogenic effect can last through many generations of urination because the drugs are so quickly excreted in the urine within an hour of ingestion and very little is left in the brain even when the mental effects appear to be at their greatest.
From ancient times there has been an conquest of native hallucinogenic cults by military might. Even though Rome did have its own very secret hallucinogenic cult in the Elysian mysteries, Marcus Agrippa, chief henchman of Augustus Caesar went to great trouble to fill up the underground tunnels used by the Oracle of the Dead in Baia. The Oracle of the Dead in Baia possessed detailed knowledge of poisons and the use of drugs to cause illusions. Rome also suppressed the cult of Bacchus in 186 B.C. which was strongly associated with alcohol, and orgiastic wild feminine behaviour that would in the middle ages, be identified with witches.
The Spanish religious bigots fresh from flushing out witches and heretics in Europe found their hearts desire in brutally suppressing native American and Mexican cults. The priests taught the natives that the mushrooms were tabu (mycrophobia) and that they could intercede with their God on behalf of the natives. A native church still survives which practices the use of hallucinogenics but still has to combat the recent outlawing in 1992 of a central tenant of its creed, the ingestion of hallucinogens.
The only modern power to actively encourage the use of a potent drug was England, who having nothing to trade with China in return for its riches was morally bankrupt enough to try and insist that Chinese should become opium addicts and they would supply the drugs.
Institutionalisation of the access to hallucinogenics, shamans and priests have deprived the average citizen of direct religious experience and institutionalised ritualised dogma in the form of Body and blood of Christ" when they give you a piece of wafer bread.
Some modern mushroom cults that survive are so corrupted by Christianity that the original meaning of the ritual is almost lost. There are beliefs that the mushrooms only grow where Christ's blood feel and the drug is associated with Christian visions. This species is likely to have been Psilocybe mexicana which contains psilocybin and psilocin both of which are similar in chemical structure to LSD and were isolated as the active compounds by Albert Hoffman in 1958. The dose required for intoxication is between .004 - .008 milligrams.
The original mushroom ceremony involved a payment to a wise tribal elder who was consulted like a modern doctor except the doctor takes the drugs, not the patient. The mushroom are ingested by the elder to aid the diagnosis of whether the patient will survive and what remedies might be appropriate. The elder was also consulted in a similar manner to the oracle of Delphi on general matters.
These mushrooms are used by the Zapotec and Mazatec Indians of Mexica and can be brought by tourists pickled in honey. It is considered to be the mushroom of sacred reason. Another hallucinogenic Mexican mushroom Psilocybe zapotecorum has become corrupted by Christianity being called Christ's crown of thorns.
The most well know modern advocate of mescaline was Aldous Huxley after taking mescaline from Aleister Crowley, he wrote in the Doors of Perception claiming that, it allowed visions normally only seen by mystics and saints. There is a touch of ungenerous irony in Huxley's regular drug habit with mescaline, wanting to see mystical visions. His grandfather had argued with Bishop Soapy Sam Wilberforce who represented the creationist view that humans were descended from apes and evolution was correct, but the grandson craves the mystical visions of saints.
Mescaline and related compounds are derived from a variety of cactus primarily Lophophora williamsii (Peyote), Trichorereus pachanoi (San Pedro) and Ariccarpus fissuratus. The active alkaloid in these cacti, mescaline is about 2% of the dry weight of the cactus and was first isolated in 1896. Mescaline produces effects similar to LSD, but it is one hundred times less powerful and requires much larger doses to induce intoxification. Modern indigenous Americans still have a strong association between their religious belief and ingestion of Peyote buttons and claim that it is a ritual integral to their belief and communication with spiritual forces.
Also called furry thing "peyotl" (Peyote) is found in the deserts of Mexico and America. It has over 50 active chemicals the major one being mescaline. The Spanish could not stamp out its use, although it was made illegal for the Native American church to use it again in 1992.
Contains a mescaline analogue and is thought to be more potent than Peyote. It was used by the Aztecs to combat fatigue and hunger in a way similar to cocaine was used in Peru by the military, who could march for days chewing coca leaves. It is still used by some Indians in Mexico and some Californian churches consider it a sacred sacrament.
Is a small cactus that grow in shapes similar to a brain mass of twisted convolutions. It contains macromerine an analogue of mescaline and is still used as a ritual sacred hallucinogen. Atropa Belladonna or the deadly nightshade contains atropine and scopolamine. It was used in Europe as a cosmetic to dilate the pupils and make women appear more attractive to men. Its more potent use was in a flying ointment applied to a broom handle and put up the vagina and rectum to produce the classic picture of a witch flying on her broom.
Contains tropane alkaloids, atropine, scopalamine, hysocyamine and belladonna alkaloids. Historically it was used by the natives of Mexico and Southern America in curing rituals. An ointment was applied to the feet, hands and genitals to produce a sensation of flight. The Spanish called datura innoxia "hurba del Diablo" devils weed. This plant was also used in Europe as a witches ointment applied to the genitals and legs.
Contains Belladonna alkaloids, atropine and hyoscyamine. It was used by the Aztecs. Datura metal was used in the East Indies, Africa and Asia and also as an additive to Marijuana. Datura Stramonium often called thornapple or Jimson weed a corruption of Jamestown contains tropane alkaloids. Jimson weed was used by the Aztecs, as an additive to witches ointment and by the Thugis in India to drug their victims.
Is not hallucinogenic but has effects on the Central Nervous System, its use was first observed by Columbus in 1492, but it was introduced to the western world by Sir Walter Raleigh who considered it to be an aphrodisiac. It is still used in South America in divination ceremonies. Peganum Harmala was also claimed to the Soma of the ancient world contains harmine, indole alkaloids and harmine. It was used as a healing herb and to make a purple dye. Purple was a sacred colour in ancient Rome, only senators were allowed to wear purple togas.
Sweet flag was an additive to witches flying ointment. North American Indians chew the root to induce hallucinations.
Hemp probably the oldest drug in use today. Also used to make rope and fibres. Seeds have been found in Egyptian pyramids and its use for fiber rope and for intoxification is still ubiquitous. It was probably introduced into Americas by Poenecian traders as it was already there when the Spanish arrived. Testing drivers for THC and amphetamines
Cocaine,Opium and Marijuana in American.
Scientific American
July 1991.
John Allegro
The Mushroom and the Cross
R.Schultz and A.Hoffman
Plants of the Gods
MacGraw-Hill (UK) 1979
Robyn Williams
Natures Medicine Cabinet
21stCentuary Issue 7 page 26
