If weed isn't a "real" psychedelic how do you explain arabesque/hindu art?

[swilow]

^I agree that weed is a psychedelic, and quite a powerful one too. Because of the way many people use it (me included) tolerance sort of forbids getting really deep into the stoned headspace, but I have had experiences (during low tolerance) that rivalled the classics in terms of thought loops, visualising music, CEV's, etc.

There are serotonergic psychedelics that have really differring effects to those of classical psyches. Consider DiPT; the auditory effects are not all that present in the majority of other psychedelics. Mescaline feels different to, say, 4-Ho-DiPT, and ayahuasca is pretty far removed from 2C-D. I think weed sits comfortably in there somewhere.

 

[jason7]

I explain the Arabesque art by the fact that it is simply decorative patterns. You don't even get visuals with THC. In fact, I don't think there are any psychedelic plants in that part of the world. Those patterns don't even resemble psych visuals much. Now if you look at pictures of British Columbian native art, like totem poles, you'll see that it's exactly like shroom visuals and shrooms grow plentifully in BC. I think the Arabs actually copied most of their art and building styles from India anyway. They would have traded with India and seen their carpets and stuff. I don't know if any psych plants grow in India. Their designs are probably just decorative too. You pretty much need a pattern to make something look decorative. It just so happens that serotonergic psychs also produce patterned visuals. Probably simple coincidence. I think psychedelic plants are an American phenomenon, both North and South. They have the shrooms, the cacti and the morning glories. All people had in the eastern world was soma, presumably Amanitas, which are not a serotonergic psych and don't produce those type of visuals.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

Psilocibe mushrooms grow in most parts of the world, as do DMT containing plants, here's one used in Indian traditional medicine... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmodium_gangeticum

So the theory they didn't have access to 'real psychedelics' is probably false too.

 

[Ismene]

Not like Mexico tho DrGreen - in mexico if you bend down and pick a strange mushroom it's more than likely to be psilocybe - there's at least 35 different kinds of psilocybe growing there. If you bend down and pick up a mushroom and eat it in most parts of the world you're more likely to die an agonising death. That's why I tend to think most genuine psilocybe history is limited to parts of Mexico and South America.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

Not like Mexico tho DrGreen - in mexico if you bend down and pick a strange mushroom it's more than likely to be psilocybe - there's at least 35 different kinds of psilocybe growing there. If you bend down and pick up a mushroom and eat it in most parts of the world you're more likely to die an agonising death. That's why I tend to think most genuine psilocybe history is limited to parts of Mexico and South America.

Yeah, whatever. I don't go & pick them in England every year. I don't see them depicted on churches from the middle ages. They've never used them in Africa or Asia. You Americans are in a world of your own. Why don't you do a little research before posting such ignorant stuff on the internet? A simple google search or two will prove you wrong, or you know, you could travel & see for yourself.

 

[Ismene]

How many types of psilocybin mushroom grow in England? And how many types of mushroom grow in England kill you or make you seriously ill? What are the odds a guy in England 300 years ago would pick the right one? Remember - they didn't have the internet.

Nobody in North America even realised psilocybin mushrooms existed outside Mexico till after Wassons article in 1957. Why do you think Africa or anywhere else would be know any better?

 

[Vurtual]

Ok i'll bite again ismene (hi) - i've said it before but any person even vaguely connected to their environment in the british/welsh countryside couldn't miss the little buggers - and there are no mushrooms that look even close to them that are actually deadly - the poisonous ones are usually quite obvious to anyone with any rural knowledge ('toadstools' like death caps are big white fuckers that look like dicks - if the gills are white, not tonight; if the gills are brown, wolf it down (well not quite)).

When i was young i'd often hear people (usually 'townies') say when picking "watch out for death caps - they're just like normal liberty caps", and bad trips were frequently blamed on them (they'd usually be referring liberty caps' much weaker cousin 'mowers mushroom' that looks similar). I've yet to come across a uk mushroom that looks anything like liberty caps that will kill you (give you a slight bad belly maybe). These aren't very easy to mix up with liberty caps. (they grow in totally different places too)

It's difficult to prove 'historically', but i personally just can't believe that the 'witches'/herbalists of our past, given thousands of years of accumulated lore, wouldn't have noticed and heavily utilised such a powerful magic tool (being much more connected to their environment than us); i mean we know they tripped out on henbane so they were into that sort of stuff. That's not to say everyone in the past was sitting about tripping - most 'normal' people would have known about them but avoided them ('don't take those ones, they make your head go funny') - but the shamans/witches/druids would have made a beeline for them, cos that's what they do.

 

[ddrreeff]

About weed as a psychedelic, I was thinking about what Henri Michaux wrote (my rough translation, from memory) : "one who takes hashish after mescaline, leaves an electric locomotive for a pony".

 

[Ziiirp]

So hashish is only for ladies, then ?

OT : This thread is a stereotypical example of "a wrong implication always leads to a wrong conclusion". Who said, that the Hindu created that blissful art because of the ingestion of a drug ? Maybe they were spiritually established and just happened to smoke weed as an inspiration. But I would never go that far and claim, that the weed was responsible for the oriental art.

What comes next ? "One chimpanzee ate a psylo, so it became a homo sapiens (McKenna salutes). Besides an orang-outang ate some fly agaric with spinash and became a Neandertaler." ??? You must be kidding.

 

[McTavish]

Psychedelics are inspiring drugs, artistically.
It seems obvious that a place that had a history with a psychedelic drug would be influeced by it in their art and culture.

Of course there are other things a culture's art could be influenced by. Like their environment, language, food, lifesyle, and things like that. Where a culture is located and the resources that are available to it are things that that culture is stuck with, and obviously would leave those culture's people with a certain impression, attitude, and style.
But I think that drugs always make a huge impact on the way cultures see the world. Probably more than anything else.
And those places obviously do have a long tradition of cannabis use. There'a no denying that.

 

[ddrreeff]

So hashish is only for ladies, then ?

That's not what he meant at all. If I remember well he referred to the unpredictable and funny aspects of hashish.

 

[Ismene]

It's difficult to prove 'historically', but i personally just can't believe that the 'witches'/herbalists of our past, given thousands of years of accumulated lore, wouldn't have noticed and heavily utilised such a powerful magic tool.

I don't know what witches and herbalists did in the past to be honest. Do you? In Shakespeare they put together eyes of newt and chant spells - nothing particuarly psychedelic about that. Why do we assume that they would like tripping on boomers? Because some hippies dressed a bit like them in the late 60s?

Surely there'd be some evidence of it - I mean, if you can find evidence for it among dirt poor natives in Mexico why can't you find it in England?

There's an interesting book about it called "Shroom". He concludes the same thing - the only place in the world with reliable evidenc of psilocybin use is a few areas of Mesoamerica - because that's where they're abundant.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

How many types of psilocybin mushroom grow in England? And how many types of mushroom grow in England kill you or make you seriously ill? What are the odds a guy in England 300 years ago would pick the right one? Remember - they didn't have the internet.

Nobody in North America even realised psilocybin mushrooms existed outside Mexico till after Wassons article in 1957. Why do you think Africa or anywhere else would be know any better?

There are quite a few psychedelic mushroom species growing in England, at least 13 - http://www.shroomery.org/12259/Europe If you look around that site you'll see they grow in Africa, Asia & Australia too.

Liberty caps are especially common & grow on almost any open area of grass above about 200m between September & November. They are one of the most common wild mushrooms here very easily identified & not easily mistaken for any deadly species. Anybody who has been to any grassy hill in England can't miss them at the right time of year.

You're forgetting how old I am, I didn't have the internet when I started picking magic mushrooms, I learned to identify them from friends as a child, it's simple, it's common knowledge which mushrooms you can eat, which will kill you & which make you trip. We used to talk to people before we had the internet.

Here's a reference from 1799... http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EgEHAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA41&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Lots of people in North America are astoundingly ignorant.

Are you trying to say Europeans didn't eat any mushrooms 300 years ago? Had no knowledge of fungi at all? I really don't know how you think. Nobody outside Mexico ate a magic mushroom before 1957? You're insane. Was sex invented in the 60s by some American hippy too?

I think Africans know better because there are still tribes that use psychedelic mushrooms & plants traditionally there now.

 

[McTavish]

Did witches not use Datura in the middle ages?
I mean you might not count that as a psychedelic but I would at least mention it.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

Plenty of stuff like this around too...

And here's a detailed drawing of liberty caps from a mushroom identification book from 1803... http://books.google.com/books?id=TRUWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT10 although half of those appear to be a different psilocybe

 

[Vurtual]

I don't know what witches and herbalists did in the past to be honest. Do you? In Shakespeare they put together eyes of newt and chant spells - nothing particuarly psychedelic about that. Why do we assume that they would like tripping on boomers? Because some hippies dressed a bit like them in the late 60s?

Surely there'd be some evidence of it - I mean, if you can find evidence for it among dirt poor natives in Mexico why can't you find it in England?

There's an interesting book about it called "Shroom". He concludes the same thing - the only place in the world with reliable evidenc of psilocybin use is a few areas of Mesoamerica - because that's where they're abundant.

As i said, difficult to prove 'historically' - the very tradtion of witches that shakespeare was reflecting in that bit also contains strong evidence of the use of henbane (not datura as that's american, but it's basically the same) in their 'flying ointments'. If they liked taking henbane and thinking they were flying or talking to spirits, it seems obvious they would also have used other mind-bending substances that were readily available (more available than henbane actually).

You dismiss the potential repository of knowledge that is folklore and oral tradtions, which are difficult to use 'historical' methods on, especially when we probably wiped out the culture in question with witch burning and such: we know how sophisticated that type of tradition is in the amazon (working out ayahuasca recipie amopng other things), as there are still people alive with that knowledge to tell us about it. If we'd wiped them all out 300 years ago, would there be much archaeological evidence left of stuff people didn't write down in the fecund humid rainforest? Would we guess what the statues in tihuanaco were about (the snuff pipes) without comparing it to tribes that still do that stuff? (and there was no comparable organised shamanic culture in britain for at least two thousand years previously).

You come to this argument with fixed opinions that seemingly will not change, no matter what anyone says - i apprecciate the iconoclasm initially (as i think we all do), but after the fifth time we've had the same argument and you come back with the exact same starting points, i start to think it's not a debate (but i still enjoy it )

 

[Doldrugs]

Lots of people in North America are astoundingly ignorant.

I think statistically it's unlikely Europeans didn't use mushrooms at all, but I highly doubt it was widespread. You learned to pick them because the knowledge had spread in the 60s due to discoveries in Central America, not because there's a thriving history of psilocybe use going back centuries. The evidence for mushroom use (and other psychoactive plant use) in the ancient Americas is absolutely conclusive from carvings and other art, with or without modern use. In Europe all you have are the vague suggestions of a few very old cave paintings. I think you're making unfounded assumptions and calling anyone who disagrees ignorant (because they're american). Ad hominem is not a very convincing type of argument.

Did ancient Europeans use psilocybin? It's likely, but there's no hard evidence for it. That's a big strike against it being widespread. In more modern times, cocaine, opium, hashish, and heroin were quite popular and well documented in Europe. Why would recreational mushroom use be blotted out from history until the mid twentieth century but those drugs remain?

 

[DrGreenthumb]

It wasn't blotted out of history, Doldrugs, you're just ignoring it. We have detailed descriptions from not long after botany became a respected science, before that most people were illiterate, so what do you want?

They grow everywhere. They are one of the most common & easy to identify mushrooms. They're native to Europe. Why would people avoid those particular mushrooms without knowing anything about them?

 

[Doldrugs]

Show me the evidence of use.

 

[Ismene]

Here's a reference from 1799... http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EgEHAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA41&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Is that the story of the kid who couldn't stop laughing? Yeah I've heard about that - I've no doubt some people have taken them by accident. After all 237 people were admitted to hospital last year for picking the wrong mushroom. It's whether there was anyone taking them deliberately to trip.

Nobody outside Mexico ate a magic mushroom before 1957?

That's what it seems like yeah. I'm talking psilocybin mushroom here, not amantia. Surely there'd be some evidence somewhere for it outside Mexico if it was widespread.

You dismiss the potential repository of knowledge that is folklore and oral tradtions, which are difficult to use 'historical' methods on, especially when we probably wiped out the culture in question with witch burning and such: we know how sophisticated that type of tradition is in the amazon (working out ayahuasca recipie amopng other things), as there are still people alive with that knowledge to tell us about it. If we'd wiped them all out 300 years ago, would there be much archaeological evidence left of stuff people didn't write down in the fecund humid rainforest?

You could argue that the other way tho virtual - obviously the genocide that the spanish carried out on the mesoamerican cultures was quite a bit more thorough than burning a few witches - they practically exterminated the entire culture. Didn't smallpox kill the majority of them? I think they even introduced execution for taking mushrooms - and it still survived another 500 years. Are we sure a few english witches couldn't have survived and passed down the tradition of psilocybin mushrooms in England?

You come to this argument with fixed opinions that seemingly will not change, no matter what anyone says

I'm simply stating my opinion virtual, that's what the board is for isn't it? You don't know want me to agree with you when I don't do you?

I do know quite a bit about the subject and before I read the book "Shroom" I'dve probably believed the theory that "they were used all over the world". It was surprising to me to learn that there's no evidence for it outside Mexico and that most psilocybin use has probably occured in the last 40 years or so.

Oh - and before you say "What about Terence Mckennas mushroom man" - it turns out that the drawing he puts in all his books wasn't the original drawing, it was a "representation" drawn by his...er...wife. When you look at the original painting they could be arrowheads, flowers or any shit. That was a surprise too. I think it's best to keep an open mind and not simply dismiss any alternative to stoner history as a threat to your belief system.