This is rather old news, but seeing how few people know of it and even fewer people have an understanding of how this applies to current debates on the benifits of semi-synthetic compounds I felt it would be appropriate to write on the subject.
I will not give a history of 2CB or spend a lot of time explaining what it is, I suggest reading Thanatos to Eros and PIHKAL for more information there. What I will point out however is that as the linked article points out for the first time in hisotry traditional shamanic healers choose a semi-synthetic ( meaning a compound made in a laboratory but based on a natural occuring chemical, in this case mescaline) over their traditional plants.
I have had the honor of knowing individuals in South Africa, who will not be named to protect their privacy who have intimate knowledge on this occurance and so I will fill in the blanks on the subject, based on what I have learned from them.
2CB was maketed as a visionary trance producing medicine to traditional South African healers who traditionaly worked with visionary plant medicines, the chemical was sold to them in traditional herbalist shops as Ubulawu Nomathotholo, which is a traditional name for these visionary medicines. From what I understand the traditional visionary medicines where expensive, rare, and potential fatal if taken in the wrong way or in the wrong amounts. The intention that traditional Sangoma's had in working with these plants was to consult their ancestors for divination and curing of peoples problems and ailments. Due to the advantages of working with a cheaper, safer and more easily available visionary medicine the plants where left behind by some Sangomas and 2CB became the preffered medicine to work with.
This was a historical moment.... traditional healers choose 2CB over their traditional plants! One was quoted by my informant as to saying, " it brings us to the place of our ancestors, just as the plants do."
I beleive that this is important knowledge today to pay special attention to. Many people have a very strong bias against any lab made chemical, any semi-synthetic. People also have a strong bias against chemicals extracted from plants such is the case of DMT extracted from plants for smoking, adding to changa blends or taken in a capsule or in water along with a harmala alkaliod to produce the "ayahausca effect" as Ott called it. Often those that debate the practice of even working with extracted alkaliods confuse these natural occuring alkaliods as being synthetic, or synthesized, when in actuality they are simply naturally occuring alkaliod extracts.
What is fascinating however about this historical choice of a semi-synthetic coumpond ( a product of nature AND mans tinkering, Sasha Shulgin to be exact!) over a natural occuring plant, is that it shows us something that these personal and perhaps uninformed bias's against such compounds may be over looking. "They take us to the place of our ancestors," these chemicals can infact offer us a way of doing healing work that is equal; at least in the eyes of traditional shamans, to that of natural alkliods extracted via hot water from plants. What appears to be the basis of these notions that the chemicals are in some way sacriligous to the work of shamans if shamans themselves choose them over their traditional plants?
I recall years ago reading some work by Claudio Naranjo who gave LSD to traditional amazonian healers... they of coarse loved it and asked him to bring more next time he came to visit. This has always seriously resonated with my personal experiences in both my relationship with traditional plant teacher curanderismo and circle work with peers. My peers and I could never understand the bias as have any real basis in reality, the arguements seemed to be moot point.
What seems to me to be lacking in many of these debates and arguements over which is better a chemical or a tea (filled with chemicals BTW) is an emphasis on intention and how we relate to the experience. Set and setting has always been pointed out in the entheogen community as importance. The inner set is often times our expectations as to how an experience will go or why. if we beleive in other words that a chemical is profane or inferior in comparision to a plant, plant extract, or the chemical extraction from a plant, we create a 'set', a self fullfilling prophecy.
We live in a world in crisis and we need as many allies as we can get in the cultivation of awareness. The personal growth and healing we need, we need badly, and the earth needs us badly to have this healing for its sake as well. Why create limitations when we need more options to be succesful?
Another point of contention is that these plants are made with polluting chemicals (which is always an interesting arguement seeing how so many pollute the earth via importation and travel to distant lands for work with entheogens), but what we are seeing today is the advent of green chemistry. Solvents made from distilled oranges are actively being used by ecologically and socially aware chemists these days... and the more people explore the alternatives the more we discover we can do ethically and in ways that truly benifit the whole.
It is interesting to point out that the Sangoma's choose the 2CB over the traditional plants because they where growing scarce and where increasing in cost. This ment that the need had increased and they had over harvested these traditional plants, ie. the need for them created an destructive ecological and social impact. It may very well be that semi-synthetic chemicals such as 2CB may be an answer to providing people with the ability to find the answers and healing they need while reducing the social and ecological impact. We don't know if this is a possability because the bias people are developing creates a block to discovering these answers.
My question is... if traditional Sangoma's choose 2CB over their plants... what do they know that we do not?
