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Datura-lily: how widespread have
entheogens been in religion?
Alcoholics Anonymous was started
via Belladonna inspiration
Nutmeg as psychoactive/entheogen
Effects/dose of eaten hash;
'Visionary plants' > 'entheogens'
So which plant is the Christian entheogen?
Trumpets of Heaven: The Datura
Annunciation
Harmful Effects of Psychedelics?
Which drugs/how often, for
deterministic enlightenment?
Entheogen combinations common?
When I
first saw José Alfredo González Celdrán's Datura-lily article "Daturas for
the Virgin" ( http://www.entheomedia.org/Entheos_Issue_2.htm ), I wasn't
interested, because the topic was entirely unfamiliar. However, after I looked at the article
later, and then thought about it and saw Mexican Catholic retablos (oil paint
on tin) ( http://www.egodeath.com/retablos.htm ), I have come to consider the
article to be a key piece of evidence for the entheogen theory of the origin
*and ongoing* basis of religion.
Most
scholarship treats the entheogen influence on religion as occurring only rare
and a long time ago, and as isolated instances. Even the entheogen scholar-advocates tend to inadvertently
portray entheogens as usually *not* present in religion. I have deliberately formulated the opposite,
truly radical or rather extreme hypothesis ("the maximal entheogen
hypothesis"), helped by the Datura-lily article, that entheogens have been
present in all religions in all eras in all areas, in all social groups.
Of course,
after thesis, antithesis, and finally reaching synthesis, the truth must be
actually somewhere in the middle: "the semi-maximal entheogen hypothesis";
entheogens have been present in many religions in many eras in many areas, in
many social groups. Entheogens in
religion are neither ubiquitous nor rare -- they are common and standard,
though not official, and not quite ubiquitous.
The question
of the present phase of scholarship is, exactly how widespread have entheogens
been in religion? What religions, which
eras, which areas, which groups of people?
>>Celdran
is author of an article in Entheos about the lily in Christian art as symbol of
the visionary plant Datura. Datura-lily
of the Annunciation to Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, that she bears Christ.
>>Daturas
for the Virgin
>>Full
Article in Spanish in MS Word
>>http://www.entheomedia.org/Daturas_art/Daturas_Spanish.doc
>>José
Celdrán and Carl Ruck
>>Online
gallery of ancillary illustrations
>>http://www.entheomedia.org/datura_gallery.htm
José
Alfredo Celdran wrote on July 26, 2003 (paraphrased/edited):
Thank you
for your comments on my lily-daturas.
How
widespread have entheogens been in religion? I plan to write my theory on the
subject, but I'm first collecting more evidence and data.
The
important question is not whether entheogens were widespread across religions
and eras. The important question is
whether religion *began* from entheogens.
We must answer "Yes."
Conventional
speculation about the origin of religion imagines that primitive man was
astonished by the celestial phenomena and then he invented or deduced gods to
explain the movement of stars, the rain, and so on. This sounds comfortable to moderns, but it is insufficient and
incorrect.
Mysticism
was the origin of religion because religion is the product of an emotion
(feeling, experience, sense), not the product of thinking. The first man being religious felt and experienced
divinity, but didn't try to invent or deduce a divinity. In the first moment of religion, it entered
into the spirit of the man exactly in the same way that the mystics of every
culture feel and sense their gods, that come to be the same with different
names -- as Joseph Campbell would say, gods with different masks.
When
religion become an organization, not a personal experience, than the mysticism
is abandoned and priests come to be even more important than god himself. This is something we can see every day since
the dawn of time: the mystics perceive god in a way very different than their
churches. The mystic language is
similar in every religion, while the institutions and their rulers are
different and disparate.
The only
problem among the mystics comes when they, influenced by their cultural
education, decided that in their experience they have specifically felt and
experienced God, Allah, or Yahweh; that is to say, when they forget the
experience itself, to baptize it into the bureaucratic difference and
distinction of every church. Then you
have discussions, fights, and wars.
How could
a primitive man become a mystic?
Thinking about a god who he doesn't know, and whose existence he can't
imagine because he cannot understand the idea of "god"? No.
He became a mystic, as Wasson thought, through the casual consumption of
some entheogens -- we don't know which.
In his entheogenic experience, he felt and experienced that he was in
contact with something that wasn't himself: it was another thing, something
superior. Then he tried to explain and
show this experience to his friends.
Then the
rulers and churches appear, and control the entheogen, and even eliminate it
from the cult, but little groups preserve the ancient ritual and practice it in
secret, converting into "mystery cults", always concealed in a great
secret to be safe, until the rulers/churches cannot remember that there was
once an entheogen. But even when the
church and rulers have forgotten that the entheogen is the origin and basis of
the religion, the mystics must act in secret if they want to be safe and enjoy
the sacred entheogen by themselves, not ruled by others.
How can we
support this hypothesis and model? It
is difficult. We must find and study
clues in myths, rituals, and texts, to find the evidence for the use of a
specific entheogen. Myths were not
only, as modern philosophers claim, an ancient way of explaining the universe
before science arrived. Rather, myth
was a conceptual or experiential language itself, so we must try to recognize,
decipher, and translate this conceptual language, to understand the hidden or
occluded meaning and reference of fantastic stories of gods, heroes and
monsters in different and exotic places around the world.
If we want
to understand the role of entheogens in every religion, we must study their
myths without assuming that they are merely and only fantastic stories, because
they are not; they are descriptions of mystic-state experiencing -- sensed and
felt experiential phenomena. We need to
find and identify entheogens in many religions; that is the right strategic
path to enable us to state one day that entheogens were the basis, origin,
wellspring, and fountainhead of everything in religion.
-- José
Alfredo
That is
the current predominant paradigm and approach of entheogen scholarship, which
diminishes and weakens the role of entheogens in religion in the name of
defending the presence of entheogens.
It is strange, perhaps indicative and typical, to claim that "The
important question is not whether entheogens were widespread across religions
and eras. The important question is
whether religion *began* from entheogens." That is the exact fundamental mistaken premise and
starting-assumption that must be reevaluated.
I used to
hold the above view or interpretive framework, which I now call "the
entheogen theory of the (temporal) origin of religion". That framework concedes far too much to the
currently dominant paradigm, which holds that entheogens have only a minor,
deviant, incidental, or extremely outdated role and presence in religion.
Today's
entheogen scholars maintain, without even stating their basis for this
assumption, that it's only important that entheogens are the temporal origin of
religion, and that it is not important to find whether entheogens have been
widespread across religions and eras.
This is both historically dead wrong, and strategically completely
self-defeating. I have to argue
*against* the supposed defenders of entheogens in religious history, who labor
to demonstrate that entheogens are 1/10 of a percent present and important in
religion.
Against
today's entheogen scholars, who are holding back and diminishing the role and
presence of entheogens in religious history, I have to argue that entheogens
were not 1/10 of a percent present in religious history, but rather, were more
like 50% present in terms of commonness and influence. Like Classic Rock/Acid Rock lyrics,
mysticism is an entheogen-oriented conceptual language or experiential language
which entheogen scholars must learn to decipher and use.
When we do
so, though, the conventional entheogen theory of the late 20th Century is
disproved, as being far too conservative in its estimate -- like back when I
thought that two or three Rock albums referred to acid mysticism phenomena --
now I recognize that acid mysticism reference is the rule, not the exception;
that Classic Rock lyrics are, first of all and above all, a body of entheogenic
religious poetry.
Classic
Rock is the authentic mystery religion of the late 20th Century, because that
is where entheogens were present in greatest concentration in modern culture,
from 1965 to present. The dominant view
about psychedelics in Classic Rock is that they were present only in 1967 --
not 1965 or 1985, but only during the era of Psychedelic Rock, 1967-1968 --
that's all.
Against
that view which diminishes the presence and influence of psychedelics in
Classic Rock history, I have had to argue and prove that psychedelics were
ubiquitous and clearly predominant all throughout the history of Classic Rock,
from John Lennon's song "Help!" in 1965 (shortly after his first LSD
sessions with Michael H. http://www.egodeath.com/johnlennonhelp.htm ) through
almost all the great Classic Rock bands, on into Metallica's 1985 album Ride
the Lightning and later; and in Pop Classic Rock such as Eddie Money, The Cars,
and Tom Petty.
There are
three paradigms:
o The entheogen-denying official view:
Entheogens were not significantly present in the history of religion -- they
were only used by deviants during a short early period.
o The entheogen theory of the origin of
religion: Entheogens were significantly present in the history of religion --
they were only used at the beginning, and later were used only rarely and by
fully suppressed individuals.
o The maximal entheogen theory: Entheogens
were significantly present throughout the history of religion -- they were not
only used before the beginning and at the beginning, but were also used
commonly, in great abundance, by mainstream and only slightly suppressed
individuals and groups. Only starting
with the Reformation and scientific Deism in the 1500s do we have a significant
drop in the commonness and influence of entheogens.
Today's
entheogen scholars argue against the entheogen-denying official view, insisting
that entheogens were present at the origin of religion. Against today's entheogen scholars, I argue
that No, once you learn the symbolic language of entheogen mysticism, it is
plainly clear that entheogens were present all throughout the history of
religion, especially before the Reformation era or modern era.
Today's
entheogen scholars urge us to learn the symbolic language of entheogen
mysticism to recognize and perceive that entheogens were present at the
beginning of religion, but their instruction produces a result that contradicts
that assumption that entheogens were restricted to the temporal beginning and
to later rare, suppressed deviants.
When you
take the advice of today's entheogen scholars, it produces results that
contradict their entheogen-diminishing paradigm, showing instead that
entheogens were more like 50% than 1/10% present and influential in the history
of religion.
Clark
Heinrich's Strange Fruit serves as a framework for tracing the maximal
entheogen theory throughout Western history, filling in the blanks in various
eras, locales, and religions. Dan
Merkur's book Psychedelic Sacrament provides a valuable case for several
leading mystics using entheogens. James
Arthur covers entheogens in Bon shamanism and Vajrayana Buddhism, and ancient
Egypt.
Still, the
entheogen theory strongly tends to be merely the entheogen theory of the
temporal beginning of religion, resulting in a puny and feeble, self-defeating
case, contradicted by the evidence that is spoken loudly to us through the
language of entheogenic mystic symbolic reference.
Against
"How widespread have entheogens been in religion? ... The important
question is not whether entheogens were widespread across religions and eras. The important question is whether religion
*began* from entheogens."
The
important question is *not* whether religion temporally began from entheogens,
but rather, whether entheogens have always been the perennial wellspring,
fountainhead, timeless origin, and continuous beginning of religion. The main focus of the field of entheogen
scholarship should not be the temporal beginning of religion, but rather,
deciphering the language of entheogenic mystic symbolic reference and allusion,
to recognize the ubiquity of entheogens in all religions, eras, and locales
throughout religious history and practice.
_____________
Background
information about Datura:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/datura/datura.shtml
-- Datura (Solanaceae Datura spp.), also known as Jimson Weed, Devil's Apple,
Thorn Apple, Stinkweed, Mad Apple, Devil's Weed, Malpitte, Moonflower, or
Witch's Thimble.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/datura/datura_info3.shtml
The
Solanaceae Family: Datura, Belladonna, Brugmansia and Brunfelgia -- These are
varieties of the Solanaceae family.
Species formerly classified as "Datura aurea, Datura candida,
Datura sanguinea, and Datura suaveolens" are now classified as
"Brugmansia aurea, Brugmansia candida, Brugmansia sanguinea, and
Brugmansia suaveolens".
Atropa belladonna
(deadly nightshade), which is native to Europe, contains the psychoactive
alkaloids atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine. The Daturas are a closely related cousin to Atropa belladonna.
Datura inoxia (sacred datura) is native to the American Southwest, and has a
long history of shamanic use among the Zuni, Navajo, and several other tribes.
Most recently, it has been made infamous by Carlos Castaneda who wrote about
its use by his Yaqui teacher Don Juan. Datura stramonium (thornapple, jimsonweed)
is a mostly eastern species and was probably introduced to the Americas from
the West Indies.
Brugmansias,
also known as tree daturas, are tropical varieties which also have a long
history of shamanic use in South America. They are often included as admixture
ingredients in traditional Ayahuasca and San Pedro brews. Brunfelsias are another species native to
South America and the West Indies.
_______________________
Background
information about Jose Alfredo:
>José
Alfredo González Celdrán's Datura-lily article "Daturas for the
Virgin" ( http://www.entheomedia.org/Entheos_Issue_2.htm ) I have come to consider the article to be a
key piece of evidence for the entheogen theory of the origin *and ongoing* basis
of religion.
>Mexican
Catholic retablos (oil paint on tin) ( http://www.egodeath.com/retablos.htm )
>Celdran
is author of an article in Entheos about the lily in Christian art as symbol of
the visionary plant Datura. Datura-lily
of the Annunciation to Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, that she bears Christ.
>Daturas
for the Virgin -- Full Article in Spanish in MS Word --
http://www.entheomedia.org/Daturas_art/Daturas_Spanish.doc
>José
Celdrán and Carl Ruck -- Online gallery of ancillary illustrations --
http://www.entheomedia.org/datura_gallery.htm
_______________________
I give
much credit to José Alfredo González Celdrán's Datura-lily article
"Daturas for the Virgin" as inspiring my maximal entheogen theory of
religion; a key piece of evidence for the entheogen theory of the ongoing basis
of religion, as opposed to religion only having entheogens way back at the
beginning.
Yet
ironically, Alfredo himself backpedals or rejects this emphasis on the ongoing
origin, the ongoing wellspring for religion, and conceives of the history of
entheogens in religion according to a model which I reject: the model of
"early foundation and later minor continuation" of entheogen
influence in religion.
Alfredo
discovered a thriving use of entheogens in middle-ages religion, and yet
positions that as of little significance for the entheogen theory of religion
-- no fundamental significance -- and instead continues the predominant
entheogen scholars' position of putting all emphasis on the issue of how
religion got started by entheogen use in prehistory.
I have a
seemingly small, yet actually fundamental, key quarrel with this way of
conceiving of entheogen history, and a significant concern about strategy for
rejecting the status-quo spiritual Establishment which diminishes the
importance of the role of entheogens in religion. I consider time from a timeless point of view: the timeless
ongoing perennial origin of religion via entheogens is much more important than
the temporal origin of religion via entheogens.
I have a
huge argument against Alfredo; we must not brush it aside as a minor quarrel of
no real import. It makes all the
difference and is not a quarrel over a minor detail. It amounts to two conflicting paradigms, of which only one can
stand; the other must fall.
I reject,
as what actually happened and for strategic reasons, the conception that
separates the temporal beginning of religion in entheogens from the ongoing
role of entheogens. Today's dominant
paradigm maintained by most entheogen scholars severs the temporal origin apart
from the ongoing history, and permits entheogens to be present more importantly
in the temporal beginning of religion than in later religion.
Despite
his finding evidence for important entheogen use in medieval Christianity,
Alfredo treats that as having significance can't stand on its own and must
depend fundamentally on what happened more than a thousand years earlier. Alfredo says that medieval use of entheogens
cannot be significant *if* entheogens weren't the basis for earliest religion. He makes the significance of later entheogen-religion
fundamentally *dependent* and *conditional* upon the much earlier
entheogen-religion.
He
repeatedly asserts that the later significance is dependent upon the earlier
significance, but offers no substantial defense of why we should consider there
to be a dependent and conditional relationship. The only defense offered is an analogy that is a doubtful and
easily debatable assertion: "you cannot explain a tree if you don't first
study its seed". Here again I
advocate whole all-at-once paradigms of understanding rather than fragmented
stories of "first pick your foundation methods and then afterwards, gain
resulting conclusions".
One
understands a tree by degrees by studying all various aspects of it; one does
*not* "first" study a seed and only after understanding the seed,
then gain understanding of the tree.
For me, studying entheogens at the early start of religion is just one
more *minor aspect* of a full study of the maximal entheogen theory of
religion. There are merely minor interconnections
and minor dependencies between early entheogen inspiration of religion and
later entheogen inspiration in religion.
Entheogens
in religion are a timeless tradition -- yes, it is valuable to emphasize that
entheogens in religion were present at the start, but it is *just as important*
to emphasize that entheogens are present at *all* times. The later does not essentially depend upon
the earlier, even though the earlier does offer some support and confirmation
of later legitimacy.
Alfredo
seeks to erect a cult of temporal antiquity which is misguided and a
vulnerability. I think this is due to
accepting the logic of religion, making a religion out of the mere fact or
claim of antiquity: "We are old, therefore we are true. If something is not old, it cannot be
true." We must treat early use of
entheogens in religion as being merely one *among many* justifications and
confirmations, *not* the sole and only basis upon which later entheogen
legitimacy wholly depends and is based.
Modern
entheogen religion doesn't *depend on* early entheogen religion in a
significant and wholly dependent way; presence of entheogens in early
Christianity does *not* offer a substantially crucial confirmation that is any
better, any more crucial than finding entheogen use anywere else in
religion. Early use of entheogens is
not magically somehow greater at conferring legitimacy on entheogen religion
any more than any other, later use of entheogens.
This cult
of earliness, making today absolutely dependent on yesterday, is a serious
strategic error and a distortion of the exact role and legitimacy of entheogens
throughout history.
This may
appear to be a minor difference between my entheogen history and Alfredo's
story of entheogen history, but listen to him:
"It is not important by itself that a particular image of mushrooms
is found in a particular religious artwork or manifestation." I greatly disagree!
It is
*very* important, even in isolation, that mushrooms are found here, and that
they are found there, and in each other individual place, and altogether,
putting equal weighting on each find no matter whether early or late, the end
result is more overwhelming evidence and justification than the approach of
saying that all significance conditionally derives from early evidence.
We have a
fundamental argument about the nature of significance of evidence: Alfredo
holds that the significance of late evidence "derives from" the
significance of early evidence. What
basis does he assert for this "deriving" of significance, that the
significance of the later evidence must derive wholly from the significance of
the earlier evidence? He has no
argument for such dependent derivation of significance, only the incorrect
assertion, which is of unclear relevance, that "you cannot explain a tree
if you don't first study its seed".
That's not
a defense of the claimed dependent derivation of significance; it's merely a
doubtful analogy of doubtful relevance.
Alfredo has repeated his assertion that the later depends on the earlier,
but he still has not addressed the key question: *why*, *on what basis*, can we
assert that the significance of later entheogen use in religion is dependent
upon and derives from, the early use of entheogens in religion?
Entheogen
use is everywhere in religion and is everywhere significant in religion; the
significance derives from the efficacy now and now and now, ongoing, of
entheogens in religion. The early is
not magically more important just because it is temporally first. If we make the legitimacy of entheogen
religion conditionally dependent upon the temporally early
"foundation", and then find that the evidence fades away into
ambiguity in hazy prehistory, we are left with no way to defend timeless
legitimacy of entheogens in religion!
What a
needless dismissal of a ton of perfectly valuable and significant evidence for
the central, timeless, perennial role of entheogens all throughout religious
history.
This cult
of earliness, in which all later significance is wholly dependent on and flows
strictly from the early, is nothing but the Catholic fake and impressive church
history, rewritten to apply to entheogens, in which the authority and power of
the Catholic church is founded on the temporal chain of restricted transmission
of authority from the (actually nonexistent) Historical Jesus through Saint
Peter the first pope, strictly through the other popes.
"Our
religion is legitimate for one reason only: it is very old. If it weren't very old, it could not
possibly be legitimate. Any other
religion that's not the first, that's not old, cannot be legitimate. Our social-political authority derives
strictly from one source, one restricted source: our antiquity." But studying the history of the Catholic
church, that authority crumbles into late fabrications based on a cult of
literalism.
The
Catholic church is based on today's pope's authority, which is based on
yesterday's, based on pope Peter, based on Jesus -- but when we kick out pope
Peter, who never literally existed, together with Jesus who never literally
existed and the apostles who never literally existed, that Catholic church
comes crashing down to the ground in total catastrophe. That catastrophe is exactly what the
entheogen theory of religion could suffer if it were actually dependent on the
details of what the first religionists happened to do.
My
position, my model of history instead is, it doesn't crucially *matter* whether
the first religionists used visionary plants.
It so happens that they did, but even if they didn't, it would still be
true to say that the main legitimate religion has always been based on
visionary plants as the ongoing perennial wellspring; the significance of
entheogens in religions flows from each and every instance of entheogen use in
religion, which in no way "derive" from earliest use.
Earliest
use is not one bit more important than later use; the sigificance of entheogen
use derives from all instances together, regardless of time. My theory, inspired by Alfredo's discovery
of late daturas in Christian art, is more durable and robust than
Alfredo's. Away with this distortion
which is just a liability, this distortion of the nature of sigificance and its
origin. Significance doesn't flow from
the early; it flows from the perennial.
Arguing about
this point is vastly more worthwhile and valuable than collecting yet more
pieces of data. It is crucial that we
work through this debate.
José
Alfredo wrote (paraphrased to enable the best reply to the points):
>>My
angle of research poses the main question as whether religion began from
entheogens. It is not important by
itself that a particular image of mushrooms is found in a particular religious
artwork or manifestation.
>>We
can conclusively see the mushroom on an ancient Greek vase or the architectural
works of Gaudi, and with reasonable certainty conclude that it is there, where
we look at, and that this probably means that the author, the church or the
cultural group in question are or were using the mushroom for some unknown
and/or deducible purposes -- but nothing more.
>>If
we pay attention only to the fact that the mushrooms appear but don't question
ourselves why, we'll never understand the real essence of the entheogen, that
is to say, as its etymology explains, its religious use, its capacity of
inducing an experience of the deity.
Going to mine and Carl Ruck's article "Daturas for the
Virgin", we could argue that a use of this solanaceous plant took place in
some Christian rituals; the Datura was there, concealed under the disguise of a
supposedly innocent flower, the lily -- but *why* is Datura there?
>>Datura
is represented in medieval Christian art because the image of Datura reveals a
psychoactive rite that was alive much earlier than the era when the painters
put the stramonium in his or their paintings.
Why such
focus on emphasis on "earlier"?
>>In
fact, as we revealed, the use of Datura is for a previous use of entheogenic
mushroom, so that the plant is a substitute for a more ancient botanic
species.
Why such
focus on emphasis on "more ancient"?
Why is "more ancient" of such crucial importance that it must
be placed at the center, as the all-dependent foundation?
>>Therefore,
the entheogenic rite is older than the paintings, so much that you can go
backwards and find more mushrooms in religious contexts even centuries before
Christ, even when History could not be written. But why? May Christian,
Pagan and Tribal art be absolutely different, or better the separate
manifestation of a reality that joins all of them in an only link? In other words, why did every culture in
every time to represent a psychoactive plant used in religious rituals and
generally in a misty way, so that you cannot understand or see the plant unless
you spend a lot of your time searching it or be an initiate?
>>Why
not paint Jesus with a fly agaric in his hand, or even hung from a fly agaric
during the Crucifixion, or put a fresh Datura in the Virgin's lap? Because every church wanted to control their
faithful and the best way to get it was preventing from a personal, individual
and free way of feeling the spirit, what was much times translated as
preventing from the use of the entheogen.
The latter
is a valuable and true explanation, but it doesn't support the supposed
all-primacy of finding entheogens in earliest religion; it doesn't support your
assertion that finding entheogens at the temporal beginning of religion is
significantly more important than finding entheogens all throughout religious
history.
You are
confusing the issue of "why suppression" with the issue of
"earliest use" -- there is no great connection between the two
issues, and you haven't really defended your repeated assertion that there is
such a great connection. You are firmly
pressing the two issues together, but they are actually distinct issues. You jump arbitrarily from the "why
suppression" issue to the separate, "earliest use" issue, and
you never actually justify this jump from the one issue to the other.
>>And
once more, why? It doesn't matter if
you study the Eleusinian rites or the Christian mystic: every time a experience
of god is present, the entheogen is floating in the air and you can smell its
scent, though not its shape, only its silhouette if you're lucky. When the artist wanted to express the way of
acquiring a divine experience through the entheogen, he had to be obscure,
dark, even twisted, giving clues perceived only by others like him, initiates
too. And why did the artist have to
veil the entheogen portrayal?
>>Answering
this question means to go more and more backwards in time,
No, I
don't see that point at all. Please
stop here and explain exactly why answering the question "why did the
artist veil the entheogen?" requires, above all, that we look back in time
to try to discover an era without suppression of entheogens.
>>travelling
to the moment when there was not an open persecution of the entheogen, because
we all know that before a prohibition there is a free use of the forbidden
thing, act or rule. Freedom is previous
to tyranny, and tyranny obliges to communicate in a secret key.
>>But
this raises the question of whether the free [non-suppressed] state of free use
of the entheogen in an individual or social religiously free [permissive]
context was at the beginning of religion itself.
Yes, the
question is raised, or is present, but that's merely one question among many,
in the quest to comprehensively find *independently significant* instances of
entheogen use in religion.
>>This
is always the main question, because if you can ever answer this and find the
truth, you'll have the answer of whatever human [artistic?] manifestation that
decides to engrave the entheogen in itself as seil. [veiled?]
No, the
earliest use of entheogens at the start of religions is *not* the main question
-- I have specific arguments to justify my position. Do you have specific arguments, or merely debatable arbitrary
analogies (of building floors, and seed/tree) which merely amount to further
bald assertions out of the blue, to support your assertion that the earliest
entheogen use is the "main question"? The seeming train of logic implied by the use of the word
'because' in your paragraph above doesn't actually make any sense.
Your
argument goes: "There is evidence of late use of entheogens in
religion. To find the significance of
this late use and its veiling, we must look to earliest use. Late suppression implies early
non-suppression. It raises question of
whether there was a time before suppression.
The question of whether there was a time before entheogen suppression is
the main question, upon which understanding late use of entheogens in religion
is crucially dependently based."
What are
you implying -- that if earliest use wasn't entheogenic, or isn't provably
dependent, then late, suppressed use of entheogens throughout two thousand
years of religion then all becomes illegitimate? What needless folly and needless weak, invented vulnerability for
the entheogen theory of religion!
We must
reject this assertion that two thousand years of entheogen religion would
collapse the moment we find that earliest religion wasn't openly entheogen
based -- or to assert that the legitimacy of two thousand years of
entheogen-inspired religion must remain forever in doubt just because it is
impossible to prove that earliest religion was openly entheogen based.
>>This
is the basement of the building, the point, the part that sustain the whole:
you can destroy the first, second or third floor, but if the basement is firm,
the building will stay there, though in ruins; if you destroy the basement,
nothing remains.
You
provide no argument, no basis, no evidence that earliest entheogen use in
religion must be thought of as the "basement", no evidence or even
argument for the particular point asserted above, that late use is dependent
upon early use, that there is such a relationship of dependency. On what basis do you assert that the
legitimacy of late entheogen use in religion is dependently *based on* earliest
use, and must collapse if entheogens aren't found in earliest religion?
Why
exactly must late entheogen use be considered as an upper floor of a building
that must collapse if the ground floor, earliest use, is disproved or
unprovable? Why is a
"building" a correct analogy?
It is not a correct analogy, and it cannot be justified as a fitting,
accurate, helpful analogy. A building
does not serve as a correct analogy; late use is *not* like a higher floor that
wholly depends on and rests on early use; early use of entheogens is *not* like
a ground floor of a building upon which the remainder of the building is
dependently based.
You
advocate a cult of earliness and the only thing you can find to defend it is
bad, doubtful, unjustified analogies, never actually addressing the key point,
which is: why must we treat the legitimacy of late entheogen use in religion as
deriving solely and entirely from earliest entheogen use in religion?
Could you
please say why you think and assert that there exists such a relationship of
substantial dependency of the later use of entheogens in religion upon the
earliest use -- not just asserting yet another debatable analogy that amounts
to merely another bald assertion that such dependency exists, but instead,
directly address this specific point, explaining why you think there exists
such a dependency of the later upon the earlier?
>>Was
the entheogen at the beginning of religion?
We don't really know. We must
study to discover it and try to find every entheogen represented in religious
art to elaborate a sustainable and reasonable theory that let us, perhaps,
sometime to state not a theory, but a truth.
You seem
to be asserting that we can only have a sustainable and reasonable entheogen
theory of religion *if* we find entheogens at the temporal beginning of
religion. I maintain that instead, we
should avoid a needless strategic vulnerability, which is both harmful to the
cause and simply untrue; the legitimacy and influence of late entheogen use in
religion does not in fact derive from or depend substantially upon earliest
entheogen use in religion.
The most
sustainable and reasonable entheogen theory of religion treats each instance of
plant-induced mystic experiencing as independently legitimate as well as
legitimated by each other instance of mystic plant use, regardless of the
detail of when each instance happened to occur -- earliest, late, or modern.
>>So
we must follow the crumbs to return home, and the crumbs are scattered over all
human period in some specific places that we must investigate as detectives,
using our glasses to discover the exact clue.
>>The
entheogens we see in Art are clues to decipher a mystery that lays in a crime
committed before the investigation, never after.
No, the
crime is ongoing, a series of repeated instances, all throughout known history:
the perennial semi-suppression of entheogens.
With your article as evidence, I also reject the status quo history
according to most entheogen scholars, who are their own worst enemies because
they always portray entheogens are being rare and highly suppressed throughout
the main religions.
Using your
article on Daturas in Christian art, I now perceive that entheogens were used
very frequently all throughout all religions in all eras in all locales --
against the current dominant paradigm which is asserted by most entheogen
scholars.
>>We
are studying to understand our past and the question "did religion began
with entheogen?" is a working hypothesis which tries to explain why we can
dedicate ourselves to search for mushrooms and other psychoactive plants in
paintings and engravings.
>>I
guess that the entheogen was at the beginning of religion, but I can't prove
it. I am working on getting the answer,
including by examining the present in order to understand the past, because you
cannot explain a tree if you don't first study its seed.
The goal
is to understand entheogen use all throughout history, not only to understand
the remotest past. Discovering
entheogens at the temporal start of religion is not all-important; it is merely
one instance among many of the perennial philosophy and how the perennial
philosophy has always, within each era and locale, derived from current use of
entheogens. The late legitimacy does
not derive from the early legitimacy; it directs always directly from the use
of visionary plants now and now and now, within each era.
Terrible extreme bodily fatigue for several hours (with no mental effects).
Such fatigue is reported by Hofmann and company for LSA.
Then fear of loss of control, and no real perceptual distortion.
Extract experiments were a waste of time -- no effect. Simply grind the seeds with a Turkish coffee grinder, then gelcap, then take some.
The
original Alcoholics Anonymous founder, Bill Wilson, was inspired to stop
drinking alcohol by use of a visionary plant, a deliriant.
Gnosis
magazine, issue #34 (Winter '95): Healing
http://www.lumen.org/issue_contents/contents34.html
News &
Notes: The Forgotten Father of the Twelve Steps, by Caetano Salomone, M.A.,
M.Div., contributor to the Journal of Rational Recovery (p. 9-10)
p. 10 -
"Wilson overcame his drinking after tripping on belladonna. Thereafter he had a voracious interest in
all things spiritual."
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Journal+of+Rational+Recovery%22
http://www.google.com/search?q=belladonna+%22bill+wilson%22
Info about
belladonna:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/belladonna/belladonna.shtml
AA: The
Way It Began
Bill
Pittman, Daniel J. Anderson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0934125082
http://www.aabacktobasics.org/archives/archive6.html
-- Page content:
Tom C.
asked the following question...
"What
exactly was the belladona treatment that Bill Wilson underwent?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
belladona treatment is described best in Bill Pittman's book: AA The Way It
Began, ISBN 0-934125-08-2, available from Hazelden books.
I will
quote that section:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Upon
Wilson's arrival at Towns Hospital, he was placed in a bed and the
Towns-Lambert Treatment was begun. Dr. Lambert described the belladonna
treatment as follows:
Briefly
stated, it consists in the hourly dosage of a mixture of belladonna, hyoscyamus
and xanthoxylum. The mixture is given every hour, day and night, for about
fifty hours. There is also given about every twelve hours a vigorous catharsis
of C.C. pills and blue mass. At the end of the treatment, when it is evident
that there are abundant bilious stools, castor oil is given to clean out
thoroughly the intestinal tract. If you leave any of the ingredients out, the
reaction of the cessation of desire is not as clear cut as when the three are
mixed together. The amount necessary to give is judged by the physiologic
action of the belladonna it contains. When the face becomes flushed, the throat
dry, and the pupils of the eyes dilated, you must cut down your mixture or
cease giving it altogether until these symptoms pass. You must, however, push
this mixture until these symptoms appear, or you will not obtain a clear cut
cessation of the desire for the narcotic... (17, p. 2126; 209,p.186)
The exact
contents of each ingredient is outlined below:
Belladonna
Specific
Tincture
belladonnae = 62. gm.
Fluidextracti
xanthoryli.
Fluidextracti
hyoscyami = .31 gm.
(210)
Belladona
- Atropa belladonna
Deadly
nightshade; a perennial herb with dark purple flowers and black berries. Leaves
and root contain atropine and related alkaloids which are anticholinergic. It
is a powerful excitant of the brain with side effects of delirium (wild and
talkative), decreased secretion, and diplopia.
(211,p.112)
Xanthoxylum
- Xanthoxylum Americanum
The dried
bark or berries of prickly ash. Alkaloid of Hydrasts. Helps with chronic
gastro-intestinal disturbances. Carminative and diaphoretic.
(211,
p.269)"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's it.
All the references from Bill's book. The numbers in the (brackets) are page
number references from the sources that Bill used from the sources he has.
Hope this
does it.
God bless
you and in the Fellowship of the Spirit,
Ellie P.
These are
excerpts focusing only on the psychoactive potentials of nutmeg.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/nutmeg/nutmeg.shtml.
Here is an
amazing, creepy photograph of nutmeg suggesting Attis' testicle.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/show_image.php3?image=nutmeg/myristica_fragrans2.jpg
Nutmeg was
a very important trade item in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was a precious
commodity due to the enormous medicinal properties of its seeds. Slaves on the
ships bringing nutmeg to Europe got in trouble for eating part of the cargo. A
few large kernels of nutmeg would bring a pleasant, euphoric feeling, and
relieved their weariness and pain.
Convicts
and sailors sometimes have recourse to nutmeg. Results are vaguely similar to
cannabis.
It is
common knowledge in drug culture that taking nutmeg is a potent way of
tripping.
There are
a number of narcotics of the nutmeg family in use among the Indians of South
America. They are usually administered by sniffing a dried powder of the plant.
The medicine men take these noxious substances, and go into convulsive states.
Their twitchings and mutterings are thought to have prophetic significance.
... the
psychic experiences of adult prison inmates following the ingestion of powdered
nutmeg. Nutmeg has been mentioned as one of the substances now prominent in
illegal or quasi-legal use among adolescents.
Euphoria
and hallucinations.
Blurred
vision, dizziness, tingling, and feelings of depersonalisation and remoteness.
Light-headed,
slightly disorientated.
Saw faces
and the room appeared distorted, with flashing lights and loud music. She felt
a different person and everything seemed unreal. Time appeared to stand still.
She felt vibrations and twitches in her limbs. When she shut her eyes she saw
lights, black creatures, red eyes and felt sucked into the ground. Her mood was
one of elation. For the next week, however, she felt that she was walking in a
cloud and complained that her thinking was confused and she found it difficult
to follow what people were saying.
Has been
known to have psychotropic effects.
Things
went funny. He felt as if he had stayed awake for two days without sleeping and
things started to look unreal. His head shook back and forth, and when somebody
said something to him, he could not see the connections between the sentences.
He said he remembered that he spoke up and nobody understood him either.
Feeling as
though he had drunk fifty cups of coffee. He could not stop shaking, he was
giggling, he was saying stupid things he would not have said otherwise. His
friend became aware of the change in him. The patient remembered she asked him
whether or not he felt all right. Peoples' voices appeared to come out of a
porthole above my head. He felt a tingling in his hands, and presently his
whole body felt numb. He opened his eyes, looked at the lights on the ceiling,
and felt they were cylinder-shaped. He raised his hands, grabbed one of those
cylinder light beams, and sat up, pulling himself up by that beam. He was still
aware of his surroundings and noticed that people were watching him. His heart
was beating fast, he was breathing hard, and his throat felt dry. He felt as
though he was floating but he knew that in reality he was not floating. His
legs felt numb and as if he was walking in a lake with the water up to his
waist. His hands appeared white and wrinkled to him.
At that
point, he started feeling as if he was in a trance, and it was the first time
that he did not know that people were around him. As he gradually came out of
the trance, he could feel a ball in his hands; this ball would expand and contract
as he moved his hands, but he could not see the ball. His friend said, Touch
something real! He then touched the table and felt real again.
Subsequently,
he felt he kept going in and out of a trancelike state and could, on several
occassions, even induce it himself. As he was walking, he felt that the floor
was bow-shaped, and he had to hold on to the wall.
He would
sit on a couch and he would drift away completely, a great fog would be closing
in on him, and when he was surrounded by this fog everything would turn black.
Spots of color, blue and red, would shine through this black cloud. Beyond the
cloud, there seemed to him to be infinity. He heard a massive confusion of
sound, although to his knowledge there was no one talking and there were no sounds
of any other nature at that time. But, again, when his friend called his name,
he came out of it. At times he felt excited, at times he felt relaxed.
When he
looked at the picture of a countryside with deer in it, he felt as though he
were floating into the picture and it took on a three-dimensional character.
The deer were alive, the trees had shape. He started feeling everybody in the
world could hear him. When he went out of the house and stepped onto the lawn,
he anticipated that he would fall into it, as if into an ocean. He started
writing in mirror writing, Help! I'm trapped behind the world.
He played
a few notes on his recorder and felt that each note was a brown disc. He then
played a record; the sound of music made a pattern of color. There was a
central color and lines around it. The center was composed of the low notes,
the bass, and the high notes were on the periphery. He remembered that sound
made by cymbals were silvery. This configuration kept changing, beating, and
throbbing. Finally, he could not stand it no longer, and he turned the music
off.
By this
time, some eight or nine hours had elapsed from the ingestion of nutmeg. He
started becoming confused, and memory became very poor.
He felt
high or sometimes weird; music sounded better although it did not sound louder.
Feelings
of depersonalization and unreality, changes in perception, as well as illusions
and hallucinations, especially visual.
... A temporary break with reality which he experienced with nutmeg.
>>DXM
is a supreme entheogen. DXM hasn't
reached the recognition it sbould deserve in entheogenic circles.
I have no
opinion on the entheogenic utility and efficacy of DXM. A glance at Erowid provides inadequate
information. Reading everything there
would be required. Erowid is the best
source of information, yet often is not good enough. http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm.shtml
Chris,
I can't
find info on this. Does hashish produce
LSD-like or psilocybin-like mental effects after eating a significant amount,
such as 4 grams?
It would
be interesting to combine opium, eaten hashish, and ephedra. The category of "entheogens" is
somewhat misleading. Usage method and
combinations largely determine whether something is entheogenic. This is why lately I prefer "visionary
plants" to "entheogens".
For example, henbane is classed as a deliriant, but surely belongs with
LSD and psilocybin and cannabis in the broader category of "visionary
plants". Also keep in mind various
2-plant ayahuasca combinations in South America.
I read
that space-cakes are prohibited in Amsterdam due to common panic reactions -- a
sign of entheogenic effects.
With 6
grams, for a first-timer experience (thus much less value) with strong dose of
eaten hashish, Weil reports:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_writings5.shtml
- A Hashish Overdose, from The Natural Mind, Andrew Weil, p. 50-51
Onset 40
minutes, pleasant but strong for the next 30 minutes, then confusing.
Inability
to understand what was said to the subject
Felt
physically sick
Unable to
do anything but lie in bed and wait for morning
Strong
auditory hallucinations
Threatening
voices that rose in volume to a crescendo, the faded out
For 12
hours, a state of consciousness between sleeping and waking
Vivid
nightmares
Lucid
intervals rare
For much
of the time subject did not know where he was, and thought he was six years
old, sick from measles.
By
morning, most of the worst symptoms had disappeared
Powerful
hangover that left subject prostrate for another twenty-four hours
Merkur shows that ergot is the Christian entheogen.
Bennett shows that cannabis is the Christian entheogen.
Heinrich shows that Amanita is the Christian entheogen.
Please directly address, critique, and refute the assertions of the other entheogen theorists that claim a particular plant as the Christian entheogen. I hope you can provide a full critique, not just a footnote, regarding the plausibility of other plants for which complete theories have been published.
I wish to find more than a footnote by Merkur responding to the Amanita and cannabis Christian-origin hypotheses, more than a footnote by Bennett responding to the Amanita and ergot Christian-origin hypotheses, and more than a footnote by Heinrich responding to the ergot and cannabis Christian-origin hypotheses.
Why would it matter which entheogen Jesus is? The theories have been laid out, but the theorists have not refuted each others' work, so far as I have seen.
Merkur's second book on the subject is still forthcoming, and I have not read all the journal articles on the subject of identifying the Christian entheogen. We can feel assured, as the most simple and reasonable bet, that Chrisitianity has entheogenic origins -- the only real question is the specific identity of the Christian entheogen.
I would like the various researchers to critique the theories which postulate a different plant as the Christian entheogen. I hope Merkur's new book discusses the Amanita theory, and I would like to read a critique by Heinrich of the ergot theory.
I consider Jesus to be the Amanita, where the Amanita, like the venom-possessing skin-shedding snake, represents all psychoactive plants (an association covered by Dan Russell). Eleusis and the threshing floor are associated with ergot and the scriptures may allude to ergot in addition to Amanita.
My current feeling is that Amanita is the main Christian sacrament and that ergot and cannabis (see Chris Bennett) are secondary Christian sacraments. The most profitable question is which is the main entheogen and which are the secondary entheogens.
o Chris Bennett says the main Christian entheogen is cannabis and he's willing to consider other entheogens as secondary Christian sacraments.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1949.html
o Dan Merkur says the main Christian entheogen is ergot. I suppose he might be willing to consider other entheogens as secondary Christian sacraments.
http://www.promind.com/bk_mym.htm
o Clark Heinrich says the main Christian entheogen is Amanita and he's willing to consider other entheogens as secondary Christian sacraments (he considers ergot).
http://www.promind.com/bk_stf.htm
o James Arthur says the Christian entheogen may well be a mixture. The picture on the cover of Mushrooms and Mankind depicts mushrooms but they might represent other plants.
http://jamesarthur.yage.net/book2.html
http://www.promind.com/bk_mma.htm
o Dan Russell talks of the Gnostic Plants of Truth, in the plural, and portrays the phallic mushroom as the main of multiple sacraments. Early Christians would no more have restricted themselves to a single entheogen any more than we would. If you use one plant, you use the pharmacopoeia -- multiple plants.
Russell is the most consistently pluralist theorist of Christian sacraments.
http://www.promind.com/bk_sdp.htm
The idea of symbolic replacement is essential. The word 'represent' and the phrase "is like" are centrally useful in allegorical exegesis of entheogenic plants and experience.
What about the mystery-religions and other sacrament-centered mystic schools in general? Did they all mainly use ergot? Did they all mainly use cannabis? Did they all mainly use Amanita?
We've read that the mysteries of Demeter used ergot, and the mysteries of Christ used Amanita or ergot or cannabis, but what about the identity of the sacrament or sacraments used by the many other mystery religions and mystic groups?
As suggested by a glance at the http://www.erowid.org home page, I think the safest bet is the entire pharmacopoeia.
>> Ergot is very different from Muscaria and all knowledge [including specific Christian entheogenic origins] is good.
>What does it mean *about Christianity* for it to have been one or the other? In what way(s) does it change the cult, the history, the mysteries; how would an "ergot Christianity" be different from an "amanita Christianity"? I'm not saying it wouldn't be interesting to know the truth of the matter.
>I'm asking why the emotional investment in all this, the importance of "being right"? *So what* if it turns out to be ergot, amanita, neither, or nothing at all?
>--prism--
>> Where are the references to Amanita Muscaria in the New Testament - and please no repetitions of Allegro's philological gymnastics. Real proof please...
>If ergot was the body and blood of Christ, where does that leave the liquid form and red color of blood? Ergot sclerotia are hard, grey-black, low-moisture fungal bodies.
>Does ergot "die on a cross"? No, but Muscaria does.
>Does ergot "bleed from the forehead with a crown of thorns"? No, but Muscaria
does.
>Does ergot "rise again in 3 days" No, but Muscaria does.
>Does ergot lift away stones upon its resurrection? No, but Muscaria does.
>Does ergot have the exact profile of the crucified Christ, of the common chalice of the Eucharist, of the familiar image of the robed Christ with outstretched arms, or of the familiar image of angels with outstretched wings? No, but Muscaria does.
>Does ergot's natural shape, consistency, and aroma remind one of a wafer of unleavened bread used in the Eucharist? No, but Muscaria does.
>Muscaria more readily leaches its chemicals into water, and turns the water a wine-red color.
>The mature form is a cross (profile), at which point is dies/rots.
>the Tree of Life, which also has obvious relationships with the sacred mycorrhizal mushroom (coincidentally, Trees of Life's were usually [always?] potential Muscaria-host tree-species).
>When the muscaria's cap gets faded in the sunlight, it turns a golden brown and wrinkles a bit to look just like a loaf of baked bread, with the semi-glossy caramelized crust. Touching it will feel just like the consistency of that same loaf. Smelling it will astound you in its similarity to sweet bread.
>-Mark, cloque at iquest-net
According to my theory of what ego death is *really* all about, the apple represents the potential of various plants to kill you as naive ego without killing you bodily. Ingesting this type of plant causes a mental trial about morality and a subsequent punishment by death, but a death that leaves one alive.
The apple is the plant of species "ego killer". The main meaning of the garden of Eden is the entheogenic meaning, where I define 'entheogenic meaning' as the discovery of the illogic of the ego as moral control-agent held responsible for originating the person's actions as a would-be prime mover.
Judgement in a legal court and punishment by death for eating the apple are entheogenic allegories for what experiences occur and what insights are gained through the entheogen.
Sexual morality in the garden story is not just a red herring, a false distracting issue. Sexuality is connected to self-control enlightenment due to the inability to stop or *control* erection.
Elaine Pagels suggests looking along these lines, but I am pointing out that the inability to stop sexual arousal is a sign or allegory for the philosophically problematic -- fatally problematic -- nature of the ego *as* a would-be time-mastering self-controller.
I define the concept of cybernetic enlightenment -- enlightenment is, above all, a discovery about our cybernetic nature and limitations, where cybernetics means self-control cybernetics and the collapse of the metaphysical illusion of being prime movers.
It is only half a discovery to find that the sacrament is entheogenic. That in itself is not the inner secret. The entheogen is the key, but the key is merely the way of opening the door to the inner sanctum.
What do you find in the inner sanctum of the maze of self? Self-control and its overthrow -- I here give away my scepter. King Ego is reduced to a helpless slave of the Ground. *That* is the secret greater than the entheogen-key secret. I put down my life and am able to pick it up again. I put down my scepter of self-command and yet pick it up again.
>From there, we hope there is some way to transcend this untenable situation of experiencing the absolute nullity of the accustomed self-controller agent. We regain practical self-control and retain our life after this death, including our egoic life as practical self-controller as well as our mere bodily life.
This suggests that we can discover our metaphysical slavehood and yet continue to walk as kings, as masters, as authors of our own future, and as self-controllers. In this way, we have evidently conquered time and escaped the prison of the spacetime block, with Mithras (David Ulansey).
A psychological theory of entheogenic ego-death is not enough; we need a philosophical theory of self-control and metaphysics of the apparently time-voyaging continuant agent (Quentin Smith).
Without the central focus on the problematic nature of self-control in light of time, the psychological theory doesn't add up to any more than a theory that merely asserts that the entheogen is the ultimate secret.
The ultimate secret is the principles about self-control illusion that the entheogen reveals. The entheogen is the (secret) key to the (ultimate inner) secret.
Ego death is logical self-control cancellation. That is my theory. The forbidden apple is any plant which is an entheogen. An entheogen is any plant which logically kills ego after revealing its nature and enabling the mind to judge it as a false sovereign, a delusion of self-command.
Certain scriptural allegories may allude to cannabis or ergot or Amanita, but trying to identify the plant can miss the point of the plant, miss its primary action -- what is the judgement and death sentence all about, in terms of metaphysics principles?
Eating this kind of plant causes a judgement and death-sentence followed by life in a transformed mode. The judgement is specifically a condemnation of the seeming potency of the illogical egoic self-control structure.
The death-sentence is specifically the cancellation of the self-concept of the person as a metaphysically free, sovereign control agent that authors its own not-yet-established future.
Cannabis can be, by the definition I've formulated, a true entheogen. Strong doses of cannabis, such as the now-illegal space-cakes in Amsterdam, can cause panic attacks -- a hallmark of the ultimate religious experience, which is insight into the self-control delusion, along with perceiving the ego as self-controller to be cybernetically void in its efforts to control or truly create its future actions. A panic attack can indicate the highest religious experience, because it can indicate a revelation of self-control cancellation.
After discussing this question with several authors, and reading their latest works, it seems that the scholarly consensus is that there was more a use of a class of plants, entheogens, rather than the existence of an uber-plant that towered over the rest in Judaism, Christianity, and the Mystery Religions.
I tend to say "Amanita" as a symbol of all psychoactive and especially entheogenic plants; Merkur uses the term "manna" that way. He insists that there is no question about it: manna is psychoactive; it reveals the glory of God.
Once that is established, that manna is something psychoactive eaten, it becomes relatively irrelevant which exact plant or plant complex was used; manna could just as well be an extinct entheogenic plant. The only thing that really matters for those trying to find a more sensible understanding of the scriptures is that manna is entheogenic. That is enough to explain everything that matters.
Picture of
a trumpet of Heaven:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/show_image.php3?image=datura/datura_inoxia_flower4.jpg
Datura
info:
http://entheogen.com/datura/links.html
Good
Egyptian picture of Daturas:
http://members.tripod.com/~parvati/datura.html
- "The light is the light of Horus, realized in the psychoactive flowers
of Datura which "illuminate" Tuth-Shena in allegorical fashion. It is
the power of Horus before which she throws up her hands in awe. Vitis,
Nymphaea, and Datura are the intoxicating elements portrayed in this scene of
shamanic manifestation."
http://www.entheomedia.org/Entheos_Issue_2.htm
-- Daturas for the Virgin
Annunciation
n 1: a
quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland [syn: Annunciation, Lady Day,
Annunciation Day, March 25] 2: (in Christian religions) the announcement to the
Virgin Mary by the angel Gabriel of the incarnation of Christ [syn:
Annunciation] 3: a formal public statement; "the government made an
announcement about changes in the drug war" [syn: announcement,
proclamation, promulgation]
Source:
WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
Is Gabriel
a chick angel or a dude angel? The
orthodox say dude, the esoterics say chick -- like the Beloved Disciple.
>What does it do to your brain? I don't mean while you're tripping, I mean what are the negative effects? Does it really make holes in your brain?
According to trustworthy experts such as Bob Wallace of Mind Books promind.com, the only lasting side-effect, for a minor but significant percentage of people, is fairly long-term, gradually decaying visual artifacts - a variety of artifacts, as I recall. Other alleged side-effects are propaganda and false urban legends. However, science does not know whether or not there is some correlation between tripping and schizophrenia -- it's completely tentative and hypothetical at this point, due to prohibition of scientific research on the subject.
I've seen enough reports to warn that temporary yet serious depression can result, as part of an induced manic-depression. Few people recognize this, but I've been a trend-spotter here.
Generally, such intense transcendent experiences can destabilize one's overall mundane living and make mundane life difficult.
There definitely are not holes formed in the brain from the standard kind of trips.
The first and fastest place to find about substances is http://www.erowid.org.
Ken wrote
(paraphrased for clarity of reply):
>>If
the only way to follow the one true path is to routinely take mind-altering
drugs, could you tell us what drugs, and how often one needs to take them?
Classic
entheogens such as psilocybin or modern equivalents such as LSD, some 8 times,
necessarily interspersed with study of perennial philosophy. This one true path -- that is, the original
and main path of religious initiation and maturity by far -- is the fastest and
most effective way to experience, explore, and experientially and
intellectually grasp and secure one's understanding of determinism. The end result is not literal heaven or
magically and automatically solving all the world's problems.
The end
result of this original and main path of religio-philosophy is a change of
one's own mental worldmodel from freewillist thinking (which is the original
sin we all start out with during our social training as responsible agents) to
no-free-will thinking.
_________________
Below are
details and development of the above conclusion.
Yes, after
reviewing my reply, I didn't feel I had focused enough on addressing your
specific question. Let's see, which
group am I in: No Historical Jesus? Gnosticism?
Hellenistic Religions?
Entheogens? Philosophy? Theology?
Quantum Theory? Oh, this is
called the Determinism group.
Consider
the one true path in terms of determinism, attending to the surface description
of determinism, the study of determinism as a finite-length path which is
neither instant nor endless, determinism as a peak/core experiential insight,
and determinism as a final state of one's mental model. Which mind-altering drugs are well-suited
for providing a series of experiences of determinism? Visionary plants, entheogens, psychotomimetics.
For ease
of discussion, can we simply say "drugs", or generally say
"mind-altering drugs"? No, we
need to be more specific. However, the
category of "entheogens" is too specific; it oversegregates the ideal
classic psychedelics from other plants that have been used in religion to
experience determinism: it incongruously removes opium, cannabis, and
datura. I could use the term
'entheogens' and define what I mean as opposed to the current narrow view of
which plants are "legitimate" members of this category.
I define
'entheogens' in a broad sense and sometimes equivalently write "visionary
plants", which are centered around the classic hallucinogens but not
strictly limited to them, paying attention instead to historical usage of
various plants in myth-religion-mysticism.
Another problem is the notion of "poison", as in "Don't
eat Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, they are poisonous". (The latter half-truth is reminiscent of
"Don't eat of the apple, for you shall surely die that day.")
Consider
the question of "what drugs are the classic, effective path to realizing
the deterministic truth" as a loose "family resemblance"
question, and also consider the usage context and the combination of multiple
drugs. So it is not just a matter of
using particular plants; but rather, the usage context; one's approach to
psychoactive plants in general. Which
plants, plant combinations, and usage contexts are the classic, effective path
to realizing the deterministic truth?
Another
complexity or detail is the relation between plants and chemicals. There is no need to labor the point at
length, but just to clarify for a reasonable audience: some psychoactive
chemicals are not found so far in plants, or a different version is found so
far in plants, and other chemicals are found in plants -- so there is a hazy
overlap between the categories of 'psychoactive chemicals' and 'psychoactive
plants'.
It is
futile and unrealistic to think that a single simple label is adequate, given
these details and distinctions. A
disadvantage of the term 'visionary plants' is that is leaves out chemicals
that have not yet been exactly found in any known plants, such as LSD (LSA *is*
found in plants, such as Morning Glory and Hawaiian Baby Wood Rose). So I will use the term 'entheogens' and
'visionary plants' but will also use other terms, and define a core of classic
entheogenic plants and chemicals while also defining a very important outer
ring of similar plants including opium and datura.
Datura,
henbane, brugmansia, hemlock, scopalamine, thorn apple, may be categorized as
"deliriants, not entheogens/psychedelics" but that's just true when
one is being highly precise, discussing fine subdivisions. The witches' plants such as Datura -- given
by the archangel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven -- straddle the core
'psychedelic' category and the outer, 'semi-visionary' ring in which opium
resides.
Cannabis
too is both inside and outside the strict core family of 'entheogens'. For one thing, eating a large amount of hashish
will cause religious experiencing of determinism, but so will smoking a little
cannabis kick in the peak overdrive during a psilocybin or acid session,
bringing a sudden insight into determinism and no-free-will. Like Terrence McKenna, my favorite perfect
example of the definitive psychedelic plant is psilocybin mushrooms.
Amanita is
relatively dirty and very unreliable as to whether any psychoactive effects at
all will be induced -- an extremely fascinating plant in its lifecycle and
mythic metaphors, but actually a poor entheogen, and those who have only a
basis of experiencing using Amanita are hardly qualified experts on entheogens
or visionary plants in general. I would
sooner trust the pronouncements from one who raises cows, providing psilocybin
mushrooms from the "mud, dirt, and clay" thereby produced.
If a
philosopher were so illiterate that they had experience with only one
entheogen, I would most readily trust psilocybin mushrooms, or in the 20th
Century, LSD or perhaps, somewhat hypothetically, synthetic psilocybin
capsules. Leary, who had synthetic
psilocybin capsules before LSD, considered LSD to be superior to
psilocybin. In fact, LSD -- commonly
combined with smoked cannabis -- *did* produce a great deal of discovery of
determinism in the late 20th Century.
Classic
Rock and related Popular music has a house religion of entheogen-based,
specifically acid-based determinism.
Who used the most LSD? Rock
artists. What group of artists and
poets produced the most dedication to determinism? Rock artists. Entheogens
and determinism are hand in glove.
The core
entheogens or psychotomimetic hallucinogenic poisonous intoxicants include
psilocybin, LSD, and Salvia Divinorum.
Slightly outer are the so-called 'deliriants': solenaceous plants -- the
witches' plants -- containing scopalamine: datura, brugmansia, henbane, and
that plant that screams when you pull it, so loud it can 'kill you'. And also cannabis and Amanita. Slightly outside that ring is plants that
are useful in combination with the inner plants, such as opium, which can also
be visionary in its own right.
As a
popular reference point, Erowid's main page, mostly emphasizing entheogens,
lists these groups:
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml
Core
classic psychedelics or entheogens: Ayahuasca, LSD, Cacti, DMT, Ibogaine,
Mushrooms, Peyote, Salvia, 5-MeO-DMT, 2C-T-7, Mescaline. I would also add 4 ACE (4-HO-DiPT)
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/4_acetoxy_dipt because it appears to give
classic psychedelic effects for an ideal unit of duration: an hour.
Near-core
classic psychedelics or entheogens: Datura, DPT, Ketamine, 2C-B
Peripheral
but effective psychedelics or entheogens: Inhalants, Nitrous, 5-Meo-DiPT
Peripheral
psychedelics or entheogens: Morning Glory, Nutmeg, Cannabis, Absinthe,
Amanitas, DXM, Opiates, GHB (don't know), AMT (don't know)
Peripheral
visionary plants and augmenter plants: MDMA (Ecstasy), Alcohol, Caffeine,
Cocaine, Heroin, Kava, MAOIs, Methamphetamine, Tobacco
The more
effective the plants one uses, and the more one studies perennial philosophy,
the fewer visionary-plant sessions will be required, to experientially
transform one's thinking to the determinism worldmodel. As a guideline, most traditions pose around
8 levels of spiritual development leading to "saintly" knowledge of
determinism and "purification of sin", suggesting a reasonable number
of initiations: a series of some 8 visionary-plant sessions.
For
example, if one studies perennial philosophy and good modern philosophers such
as Richard Double, Reformed Theology and the history of theological debate
about the regeneration of the will, and most of all my own compact and
ergonomic systematization (the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Death), one would
typically need to use a strong dose of psilocybin mushrooms during some 8
sessions spread over at least the duration of a university course, more likely
a year, in order to explore the direct experience of timeless determinism and
no-free-will well enough to basically learn determinism at a deep level,
resulting in transforming one's mental worldmodel from freewillist thinking to
determinist/no-free-will thinking.
One could
hypothetically meditate in a cave but this is a minor, ineffective derivative
from the original and highly effective and percentwise efficacious technique of
simply ingesting the sacred, divine food and drink that brings change of
thinking, for purification from and transcendence of the old self: visionary
plants.
>>>Is
there any place on your site that describes the exact kind of shamanistic
plants that you use for ego-death enlightenment?
One should
avoid attributing drug use to others in online discussions, due to the
conditions of prohibition. If someone
states they use visionary plants, that's their perogative; otherwise, one
shouldn't speculate publically on others' use.
For a list
of plants and chemicals, and discussion of the construct 'visionary plants' as
opposed to the narrow term 'entheogens', see:
Which
drugs/how often, for deterministic enlightenment?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/2740
>>>Where
is one supposed to be able to obtain these plants should one decide to
experiment?
How to
procure visionary plants is outside the bounds of this discussion group. What's more on-topic is drug policy reform
and the history and dynamics of drug prohibition -- though this is not an
activist discussion group to directly support drug policy reform. Instead, this discussion group supports
reform by revealing the actual role and history of visionary plants as the real
origin and perennial wellspring of religion.
News articles about drug policy reform directly related to religion are
on-topic.
Mark
Hoffman wrote (excerpts/paraphrase):
>The
Door article is only a half-page 'article' (I'd call that a mere 'comment') and
do consider the 'satirical' source. If
it is smart and influential then we can hope the readers (who probably also
subscribe to Adbusters and UTNE) are smart enough to enjoy the 30 seconds of
clever prose, and consider that a B.U. classicist takes it seriously. Cannabis was discussed in chapter 5 of
Ruck's book Apples of Apollo.
>It's
unfair to take your statement "The entheogen theory has been communicated
by being publicly satirized." at face value. Who cares if one hackneyed
idiot posts a few inane, inflammatory, unsupported or uninformed lines? That
kind of nonsense happens all the time, even among most vocal advocates of the
hypothesis - for instance when the discussion turns to conspiracy theories,
UFO's and the other compulsory -- yet totally unrelated -- talk of Atlantis and
the pending apocalypse of 2012.
>You
suggest fuller discussion of other entheogens used together. It's likely that combinations have been
used, but we are reduced to rewriting and filling in where the pseudo-science
we call 'history' has failed. It's
clear to the satisfaction of a rational and objective mind that certain
substances were used. The evidence to
support these conclusions has survived and slipped through the veils that has
kept the 'mysteries' true to their name.
We've dealt mostly with the historical religions which instituted
secrecy (shamanism is instead characterized by tabu) and are defined by the
'rigidity' of a specific dogma, doctrine and ritual.
>When
your unspecified 'scholars' 'grossly underestimate the extent of use of
entheogens', perhaps you grossly exaggerate the role of combinations of
multiple entheogens when it comes to the historical religions and Hermeticism.
>Have
you ever tried to get an NAC member to switch to the almost identical San Pedro
- because their eating peyote out of existence in the wild? Forget about it!
They would sooner kill their God than abandon Her; now THAT'S a historical
religion for you!
>In
shamanic cultures more entheogens are known, used, and ascribed a sacred/tabu
position, but they are rarely combined in one sitting. Individual shamans usually have specific
power plants with whom they have made a very serious commitment and contract which
they are loathe to betray by consulting other visionary plants. Shamans often
take heroic doses of their favored plant. They consider other plants can offer
equally 'valid' and powerful spiritual paths, though it's not theirs. But the
hierarchy among plants, animals, clans/kindship groups must be addressed. For
instance one Huichol shaman is a kieri datura initiate and may accept that
peyote is a valid sacrament, but due to the introduction of the now dominant
peyote religion, a peyote shaman might not accept the validity of datura: many
peyotists feel that kieri is mainly for use by 'sorcerers'. On the other hand
the most esoteric and respected shamans, those who have learned to become a
wolf and act as functionaries to perpetuate the tradition, are associated with
A. muscaria, but also consider kieri a 'wolf food'.
>I
doubt your premise of common combination of entheogens. It is only through vigilant consideration
and documentation of both sides of this important argument that dialectic can
be achieved and lasting progress realized. You should write up an argument.
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)