ancient use of psychedelics

[Youkai]

Thats the first I ever heard about that. Hmm. I have seen the same image used by Paul Stamets and Christian Ratsch, including the image of the mushroom headed figures running.


I havn't seen the original but if you read the book "Shroom" (crap book to be honest) it says that Terence Mckenna's wifes drawing isn't really accurate.

I think psychedelic use is ancient in south america. I'm not convinced about any of the eulesian mysteries claims, I think that could have been a dozen different things.

I remember someone saying "We could only get our religious feelings from entheogens" and another guy saying "Come off it, there are millions of people who get feelings of wonder and awe just from looking at a sunset".

life is magical, dont presume you can analize it and enjoy it in ist splender.... find your terrapin and work with it. psychedelics dont revial anything that cantbe experienced in normal realty) if thayt exists) thpogh try can analixe it/// Im spun!

 

[swilow]

I havn't seen the original but if you read the book "Shroom" (crap book to be honest) it says that Terence Mckenna's wifes drawing isn't really accurate.

That book is utter crap isn't it? But it did tie in with some my own thoughts about how important these drugs really were....

As to the rubber-ball thing, it is pretty obvious that they are mushroom figurines, but the point is that reasearchers like Wasson never even considered such options. Even the mushroom cult at Oaxaca wasn't religious; it was about healing of physical ailments, not seeing god.

 

[fastandbulbous]

life is magical, dont presume you can analize it and enjoy it in ist splender.... find your terrapin and work with it. psychedelics dont revial anything that cantbe experienced in normal realty) if thayt exists) thpogh try can analixe it/// Im spun!

Life is magical, but for me part of the magic is in analysing how something works them being amazed at how everything runs together so smoothly to give the final perceived effect.

Never been fascinated by clocks & taken one apart as a kid? I get that 'fuck me, that's incredible, amazing' feeling from so many things in life, all of which impart that looking in awe, magical feeling...

 

[demons]

Back to the original topic... there was a cult in ancient Hellenistic culture based on the nature Goddess Persephone aka Demeter. One researcher named Joseph Campbell suggested that the holy beverage used in initiation rites into the sacred, secret society was ergot. This secret group of intellectuals was called the eleusinian mysteries. http://users.erols.com/nbeach/eleusis.html

Personally I doubt it was ergot because although some fungus is good, the fungus that grows on rotton moldy bread can kill you and give you St. Anthony's Fire. Unless they had some way we don't know about to extract the active ergolines or render safe the poisonous parts of the rye mold (which is quite possible since it was a secret society and most of the documents from that time period that the writers WANTED people to know about are not accessible to us due to destruction by invaders, decomposing over the years, etc) it could not have been ergot that they ate. It's possible but I think very unlikely because you would have to eat a lot to get any effects.

I think it's much more likely the ancients had no better way than we do to render bread mold safe, and ergotaline tripping was probably no more than a confusing auxiliary to St. Anthony's Fire before Hoffmann came along. In my opinion the sacred initiation drink was probably based on psilocybin mushrooms, since we know those have always been plentiful in Europe and the near east.

Whatever it was, there's no doubt to my mind that it was psychedelic, since Persephone was unique among Hellenistic gods in disapproving of alcohol. And since it got so many brilliant men to take it so seriously and revere it and keep it secret it had to be something significant. If you read Plato's allegory of the cave, it's hard to believe it could be about anything other than psychedelic awareness awakening.

 

[Ptah]

"why did they go on eating if it tastes (& feels) so vomit inducing?"

Starvation can be very motivating.

 

[swilow]

Back to the original topic... there was a cult in ancient Hellenistic culture based on the nature Goddess Persephone aka Demeter. One researcher named Joseph Campbell suggested that the holy beverage used in initiation rites into the sacred, secret society was ergot. This secret group of intellectuals was called the eleusinian mysteries. http://users.erols.com/nbeach/eleusis.html

Personally I doubt it was ergot because although some fungus is good, the fungus that grows on rotton moldy bread can kill you and give you St. Anthony's Fire. Unless they had some way we don't know about to extract the active ergolines or render safe the poisonous parts of the rye mold (which is quite possible since it was a secret society and most of the documents from that time period that the writers WANTED people to know about are not accessible to us due to destruction by invaders, decomposing over the years, etc) it could not have been ergot that they ate. It's possible but I think very unlikely because you would have to eat a lot to get any effects.

Hoffman discovered that a CWE removes the toxic ergot compounds. Its not far fetched to think someone could have done that 2000 years ago. Its also not far fetched to think that they intentionally grew crops for the ergot strain Ergot Paspali, which is native to the region around the mysteries.

I think it's much more likely the ancients had no better way than we do to render bread mold safe, and ergotaline tripping was probably no more than a confusing auxiliary to St. Anthony's Fire before Hoffmann came along. In my opinion the sacred initiation drink was probably based on psilocybin mushrooms, since we know those have always been plentiful in Europe and the near east.

Always the mushrooms!!

Whatever it was, there's no doubt to my mind that it was psychedelic, since Persephone was unique among Hellenistic gods in disapproving of alcohol. And since it got so many brilliant men to take it so seriously and revere it and keep it secret it had to be something significant. If you read Plato's allegory of the cave, it's hard to believe it could be about anything other than psychedelic awareness awakening.

As secret as it was- the kykeon was used for fun. I mentioned it earlier; somebody- and I can find the name if anyones interested- was caught 'celbreating' the mysteries at dinner parties, and was banished to SPARTA. Very secret indeed. But I suppose a lot can be said about the fact we know nothing about the Mysteries or the potion they drank (I think it was most likely psychedelic)- because we don't know all that much from those times, and a lot gets lost in translation.

 

[Ismene]

Whatever it was, there's no doubt to my mind that it was psychedelic, since Persephone was unique among Hellenistic gods in disapproving of alcohol. And since it got so many brilliant men to take it so seriously and revere it and keep it secret it had to be something significant. If you read Plato's allegory of the cave, it's hard to believe it could be about anything other than psychedelic awareness awakening.

I don't think so. If you read the bible you can find countless examples of psychedelic type things - the burning bush, hearing the voice of God etc. I don't believe any of these stories came from psychedelics but from people with nothing better to do other than make up wild and entertaining stories all day. I think people downplay the importance of the imagination and story-telling to early people.

 

[B9]

I dunno I wasn't in the past , at least not in my 'right mind', so I guess it's all guesswork, still nice daydreams are time well spent.


Oh Youkai your link unfortunately won't function for me, however I think it's my browser rather than your link. Hence I aint read it.

 

[demons]

I don't think so. If you read the bible you can find countless examples of psychedelic type things - the burning bush, hearing the voice of God etc. I don't believe any of these stories came from psychedelics but from people with nothing better to do other than make up wild and entertaining stories all day. I think people downplay the importance of the imagination and story-telling to early people.

So you're saying there's even more examples of this than I mentioned (which I agree) but you're saying ALL of them are pure coincidence? Isn't that a little farfetched? It had to be based on something? What's more likely someone burned a bush and saw a vision and the exact words got confused over time, or someone just completely made something up out of the blue and it happened to be very similar to the actual way to communicate with god over and over by sheer coincidence?

 

[fastandbulbous]

I don't think so. If you read the bible you can find countless examples of psychedelic type things - the burning bush, hearing the voice of God etc. I don't believe any of these stories came from psychedelics but from people with nothing better to do other than make up wild and entertaining stories all day. I think people downplay the importance of the imagination and story-telling to early people.

While I agree that a lot of it is just metaphors taken to an extreme ie literal interpretation, the book of Revelations has all the makings of a psychotic break type psychedelic experience seen from a medieavil mindset (most likely a Claviceps infected rye/wheat/barley used for foodstuff).

 

[Ismene]

So you're saying there's even more examples of this than I mentioned (which I agree) but you're saying ALL of them are pure coincidence? Isn't that a little farfetched? It had to be based on something? What's more likely someone burned a bush and saw a vision and the exact words got confused over time, or someone just completely made something up out of the blue and it happened to be very similar to the actual way to communicate with god over and over by sheer coincidence?

There's a big problem in trying to work out why people you've never met and havn't got the faintest clue about are saying what they say. It certainly hasn't got to be based on anything real - it could be nothing more complicated than someone realising that when they made up a dramatic religious story people stared at him in wonder and gave him a free meal. Charlie Manson realised something very similar 2000 years later.

Mediums like Doris Stokes have made fortunes from reporting conversations they had with the dead. Was Doris tripping on psychedelics?

 

[Ismene]

While I agree that a lot of it is just metaphors taken to an extreme ie literal interpretation, the book of Revelations has all the makings of a psychotic break type psychedelic experience seen from a medieavil mindset (most likely a Claviceps infected rye/wheat/barley used for foodstuff).

Couldn't medieval peeps get themselves in into a state of mind where they could come up with those images by other methods tho? All nostradamus did was look into a bowl of water and he saw the third world war in the ripples.

 

[Ptah]

Don't forget the Bible's (Genesis 30:14) "love apples" that supposedly refer to Mandrake fruits.
Mandrake is a solanacaeous plant and iirc contains all the usual nightshade "ingredients", and it was used in ancient Egypt to "spike" brews in a religious context (probably for fun as well).

Mandrake root is a old remedy, the Greek doctor Theophrastus wrote 2,300 years ago that for either mandrake root to be effective as an aphrodisiac
(a love apple too many will wreak havoc on your spelling and syntax).
The plant is indigenous to the entire Mediterranean area.
Mandrake root is also known as:
Satan's Apple, mandragora, love apple, Circe's plant, Dudaim.
Mandrake's root is known as a aphrodisiac and also had a bad reputation for increasing fertility. Later it was used as a narcotic and as an anaesthetic for crucified criminals. As Satan's Apples it was thought to cause madness.

And now for something not-quite-entirely different: Thunder God Thor's war hammer Mjolnir doesn't look much like a war hammer.
In fact it wouldn't be very useful in a fight, and useless in battle. The stem oops I mean handle is way too short.
Associate away.

 

[PsyGhost]

And now for something not-quite-entirely different: Thunder God Thor's war hammer Mjolnir doesn't look much like a war hammer.
In fact it wouldn't be very useful in a fight, and useless in battle. The stem oops I mean handle is way too short.
Associate away.

Also, in Germanic mythology, stories associate Wotan (Odin) with the fly agaric. Legend says that the fly agaric would appear after Wotan rode through the clouds on his horse at the winter solstice. The following autumn, fly agarics would grow from the soil touched by the foam of the mouth of Wotan's horse.

 

[swilow]

Later it was used as a narcotic and as an anaesthetic for crucified criminals.

Now that is true kndness, offerring deleriant like mandragora to someone being crucified....

It say more about US then THEM, that we see so much of OUR psychedelic culture in the past. And as far as I know, Robert Graves was one of the first to mention the use of fly-agaric by Berserkers, but please remember that this is not a widely accepted viewpoint- and is pretty much irrelevant.

 

[B9]

^ I think you may have been a 'beserker' in a past life willow.

 

[squerll]

I will interpret the bible or any other ancient documents into anything you want for $60 an hour (or psychedelic drugs) right now it’s all about space aliens. The burning bush (when a space craft lands and burns the under growth) Noah’s arc (total space craft).
This can all change with a little support from the psychedelic community.

 

[swilow]

^ I think you may have been a 'beserker' in a past life willow.

I think I may still be.

 

[fastandbulbous]

^ Well zophen would know about such things from first hand experience...

 

[EntheoDjinn]

^ I think you may have been a 'beserker' in a past life willow.

I think I may still be.

Jeeeez - I am right in thinking you're training to be a psychotherapist Willow? What model of recovery will you be using with your clients?

E