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

[Doldrugs]

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?

If you can answer this question, I'd be more convinced. Not everyone in Europe was illiterate. People in mesoamerica were also illiterate, but we still have concrete evidence of use from cultures we never met.

 

[Vurtual]

If you can answer this question, I'd be more convinced. Not everyone in Europe was illiterate. People in mesoamerica were also illiterate, but we still have concrete evidence of use from cultures we never met.

I agree that the use would likely not be widespread like opium or cocaine, which have many practical uses for everyday folk, but shamanic stuff is usually not for the masses, but a small clique who keep many secrets to themselves. This is speculation obviously, but i personally think it's unlikely that any shamans worth their salt in any part of the world would have missed any easily accessible local psychedelics (it's that or hang yourself up by your nipples for a week or something). When the shamanism isn't part of a wider central culture which left obvious artefacts (like south america), but is just individual shamans (1 in a hundred or less) passing down lore orally, archaeological evidence would be very rare; and historical evidence doesn't come into it in 'pre-literate' societies.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

I did answer it Doldrums, there's plenty of evidence that you're ignoring, I posted two written sources that you've ignored, I even posted a church window in the shape of a liberty cap, you've got the internet in front of you & can easily search for more.

This argument is getting kind of boring, you could easily find this stuff out yourself. I'm just going to post some more art, European this time. Yes that is a cave painting & an 11th century engraving.

 

[Ismene]

When the shamanism isn't part of a wider central culture which left obvious artefacts (like south america), and is just individual shamans (1 in a hundred or less) passing down lore orally, archaeological evidence would be very rare; and historical evidence doesn't come into in 'pre-literate' societies.

It wasn't artifacts that we discoverd mushroom use in mexico tho - it was down to a "shaman" Maria Sabina who was still tripping on them. And incidentally - she didn't take mushrooms just to trip, she took them mostly to diagnose medical conditions. That's another shock to the stoner belief system - mushrooms wern't even being used in the sense a 21st century teenager would use them. Maria would have a retarded kid brought in front of her, take mushrooms and then tell the parents the kid was going to die. Then his parents would break down sobbing and screaming. That sound like a fun trip to you?

Hard to know what some artist a thousand years was trying to represent. You can read pretty much anything you want into drawings.

 

[Vurtual]

It wasn't artifacts that we discoverd mushroom use in mexico tho - it was down to a "shaman" Maria Sabina who was still tripping on them. And incidentally - she didn't take mushrooms just to trip, she took them mostly to diagnose medical conditions. That's another shock to the stoner belief system - mushrooms wern't even being used in the sense a 21st century teenager would use them. Maria would have a retarded kid brought in front of her, take mushrooms and then tell the parents the kid was going to die. Then his parents would break down sobbing and screaming. That sound like a fun trip to you?

Hard to know what some artist a thousand years was trying to represent. You can read pretty much anything you want into drawings.

How else do you think shamans use psychedelics? Of course they weren't necking mushrooms thinking "if only the grateful dead and lava lamps had been invented" - projecting western culture's views and use of psychedelics wholesale onto the past seems to be mostly coming from you as a straw man (the objective neurological effects we know psychedelics have will obviously vary in expression according the particular mind that's being manifested)

The fact that Maria found and used the local mushrooms is suggestive that shamans anywhere are very likely to have done the same (and they're not that much more widespread there than anywhere else) - similarly the fact that you say there were no artefacts that lead us to think they did psilocybes before Maria means the same could be true for european culture; there's just no shamans left alive to tell us about it (though actually i seem to remember there were some mexican artefacts suggesting ancient use).

[EDIT: sorry Ismene, i missed your post before this one - i enjoy debating with you and want you to have your own opinion, that is what this board is for, but debate should imply some change on both sides if it's done well (a synthesis as it were); even if it's just to refine already existing opinions further - i respect your position, and your iconoclasm has made me look more carefully at hippy-dippy stuff i believed in the past (thanks for that). I just think you rely too much on a western reductionist view of 'evidence' in this case (and specifically on Andy Letcher's book), which can often miss out many subtleties. And don't forget, we're all speculating on the huge area that the evidence, such as it is, cannot elucidate - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (even if it may be suggestive of such)

 

[DrGreenthumb]

Hard to know what some artist a thousand years was trying to represent. You can read pretty much anything you want into drawings.

OK, give us some guesses at what else they could be? It looks very much like a small capped mushroom with a long thin wavy stem & a nipple on top. We call those psilocybe semilenceata. It's from a cathedral door, I guess they get really big ones in heaven. There isn't anything else that looks like that.

The other one is about 6000 years old & it's confirmed by an actual American, http://www.newscientist.com/article...agic-mushroom-use-in-europe.html#.VK0ZxB2-eV4

Here's some in Algeria...

 

[Vurtual]

Ismene: Just looked up that Shroom book (is that the right one?) and saw this review by J Irvin ("author of The Holy Mushroom") in amazon - what do you think? based on this, Letcher's thesis seems at the very least arguable (though Irvin's likely biased too):

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Letcher, 2006

Shroom is an interesting theory against the "mushroom theory of religion." Letcher brings together many new insights and material previously overlooked by many researching the field of entheobotany, and especially entheomycology. This book is a must read and a welcome tome to any good library on this subject.

But there are many problems with Letcher's thesis. Firstly, he props up many of his arguments by ignoring most of the newer research, and especially archaeological iconography, that has come to light post Wasson/Allegro. His argument focuses heavily on Wasson, McKenna and Allegro. And in his case against Allegro, all but one of the items he presents as evidence are bogus rumors that have already been debunked by Judith Anne Brown, Michael Hoffman and I since 2005.

He's completely dismissive of the idea of mushrooms in Christianity but only by attacking the shallowest of evidence, such as the Plaincourault issue (He's unaware that Panofsky was also debunked), while simultaneously ignoring enormous amounts of evidence contradictory to his theory, i.e. The Canterbury Psalter c.e. 1147, art from Abbey of Montecassino, circa 1072, amongst many others such as those published by Giorgio Samorini in Entheos Magazine. In fact, on page 173 in his supposed debunking of Clark Heinrich, instead of attacking Heinrich's research directly, Letcher bases his dissent on a mushroom experience Heinrich speaks about in his book. Weak and lazy tactics like these may fool some, but it's not going to fool anyone who has any serious amount of study in these areas. He also misquotes Heinrich and states that Heinrich built his research into Christianity from Allegro. However, on pg. 25 of Heinrich's book, it clearly states that he used Wasson's research.

Letcher similarly avoids iconographic evidence in the same way toward mushrooms in Hinduism, completely ignoring carvings and statues that clearly depict the mushrooms. See Hari Hari holding a mushroom, Rama and Hanuman Holding Mushrooms, etc., 700-800 C.E.

Letcher also missed the fact that most of the arguments today are for an entheogen theory, not just a specific `mushroom cult theory of religion' per se. Letcher erroneously focuses his research on debunking a single mushroom cult theory. However, many of us in this field have long ago moved away from any such argument. In fact, I don't really know anyone who proposes such a singularly focused theory except for Allegro, and maybe Wasson - and both of their pioneering arguments are near four decades old. For those interested in more information on this specific area, read Michael Hoffman's article on the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion - [...]

Letcher is certainly guilty of trying to make his evidence fit his argument, and throughout this book he blames other researchers for doing the same. I feel that he has likely painted himself into a corner with his words on pg. 78:

"The Western rediscovery of Mexican mushrooming practices began, ironically, with a vigorous scholarly denial that they had ever existed."

More here

 

[Ismene]

How else do you think shamans use psychedelics? Of course they weren't necking mushrooms thinking "if only the grateful dead and lava lamps had been invented"

Nice one virtual That is sort of the impression you get from Terence tho isn't it. That they were all tripping and loved up.

(and they're not that much more widespread there than anywhere else)

They might grow elsewhere but it's whether anyone realised what they were. Jeremy Sandford in 1972 wrote a book called "In search of the magic mushroom" in which he states the only magic mushroom occuring in the UK is fly agaric. Now this was a guy who'd been to Mexico and tripped and who was as into psychedelic mushrooms as you could be. And he didn't have a clue that there were any in the UK in 1972. The first time there were any reports of people reporting to hospital with psilocybin issues was 1977-78 when there was a particuarly bumper crop. There's no hospital reports of it ever happening before then.

Oh, I found the picture from the cathedral door in Andy Lecters shroom book - he says that although it resembles the liberty cap it's actually a stylised fig-tree.

 

[Ismene]

OK, give us some guesses at what else they could be? It looks very much like a small capped mushroom with a long thin wavy stem & a nipple on top. We call those psilocybe semilenceata. It's from a cathedral door, I guess they get really big ones in heaven. There isn't anything else that looks like that.

Yeah there is - it's a stylised fig-tree. Nothing to do with liberty caps.

The other one is about 6000 years old & it's confirmed by an actual American,

I believe that's the drawing done by Terence Mckennas wife.

Before you get too carried away with the idea I'm american Dr, I am actually english

 

[Ismene]

Ismene: Just looked up that Shroom book (is that the right one?) and saw this review by J Irvin ("author of The Holy Mushroom") in amazon - what do you think? based on this, Letcher's thesis seems at the very least arguable (though Irvin's likely biased too):

Well I can see why there'd be some feathers flying between those two authors

Shroom was quite convincing to me - and I was a Terence Mckenna acolyte at the time. I've read Clark Heinrichs book which is just completely off the wall - he says Jesus was a mushroom and the halo around his head was a mushroom cap. That didn't impress me too much so what I'd make of the "Holy mushroom" I don't know.

 

[Vurtual]

An update on the end of the review posted above:

Update for Feb. 2008:
When I wrote this review last April, I was not aware of newer evidence that had already surfaced that disproves Letcher's book.

Found in the Ukraine was a widely dispersed Christian document from Greece in which discusses the mushroom - thereby debunking Letcher's book.

This leaves the remainder of this book as only valid for tidbits of research on mushrooms that Dr. Letcher has discovered. The overall thesis of this book had already been debunked before it was written - as the original discovery of the mushroom in these ancient texts was published in the academic journals in 1994.

I couldn't find the mentioned document with a quick google though - anyone else? Just to be clear, i'm not advocating for any "entheogen theory of religion" particularly, just that shamans would likely have used available psychedelic plants (though this may well have influenced the nature of the religions which grew from shamanic origins (ie all of them ultimately)). I think religion and psychedelic trips have common elements because they come from the same place: the mind (which has got gods in it) - the trip is the mind.

 

[Doldrugs]

They don't look much like fig trees to me.

 

[DrGreenthumb]

Yeah there is - it's a stylised fig-tree. Nothing to do with liberty caps.

The other one is about 6000 years old & it's confirmed by an actual American,

I believe that's the drawing done by Terence Mckennas wife.

Before you get too carried away with the idea I'm american Dr, I am actually english

You should know better then. Go outside & look at some grass next October. Use that 11th century engraving as a field guide & stop getting your drug information from American cartoons.

I believe it's too far north for fig trees & you must have eaten a few too many figs.

 

[Ismene]

Any idea why mushrooms would be on a cathedral door when the theory is it was witches rather than christian bishops using them? And if you look at that artwork from the cathedral door does it look like the two people on the right are naked? One looks like a man and the other like a woman? And the first mention of the fig tree in the bible is:

Adam and Eve used the leaves of the fig tree to sew garments for themselves after the Fall, when they realized that they were naked

I think things are coming a little clearer.

I do like figgy pudding.

 

[Xorkoth]

They might grow elsewhere but it's whether anyone realised what they were. Jeremy Sandford in 1972 wrote a book called "In search of the magic mushroom" in which he states the only magic mushroom occuring in the UK is fly agaric. Now this was a guy who'd been to Mexico and tripped and who was as into psychedelic mushrooms as you could be. And he didn't have a clue that there were any in the UK in 1972. The first time there were any reports of people reporting to hospital with psilocybin issues was 1977-78 when there was a particuarly bumper crop. There's no hospital reports of it ever happening before then.

Well I think some 20th century writer's knowledge of local plants is a far cry from an indigenous culture's knowledge of their local plants. Those people lived and died in nature and passed on their knowledge through the ages... it was part of their survival to intimately know the properties of all of the local plants in their region because the plants were their food and medicine, as well as the food (or not) of their prey animals. I find it hard to believe that if psilocybes occurred in a region that an indigenous culture lived in, they would have been unaware of them.

 

[Vurtual]

Any idea why mushrooms would be on a cathedral door when the theory is it was witches rather than christian bishops using them?

Well the 'theory' was simply that mushrooms were used before '57 and in europe - witches and christians both match that and aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Ismene]

I edited my last post with a bit more info on that Virtual - looks like that artwork is simply a representation of the fall when Adam and Eve used the fig tree to clothe themselves. In fact if you look closely they seem to be holding "liberty caps" over their genitals. Another mushroom theory bites the dust

See how easily these theories run away with themselves? Every stoner on the board was claiming "It looks like a liberty cap to me"

 

[Vurtual]

I'm not bothered about that picture particularly, which if it is a mushroom isn't that clear - that's a single datapoint, not enough to say anything much either way. I'm more coming from the speculative view that it's likely that mushrooms (like nearly every other available herb/plant/mushroom) were utilised by european and other people to a greater degree than you (and Andy Letcher) are suggesting (ie not at all) - as i said, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

I also found the christian-mushroom stuff from john allegro (which Heinrich seems to have been based on) hard to accept - from what i remember of 'The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross' it basically seemed to be saying that nearly every word in the bible ultimately was a translation of a sumerian word for mushroom, penis or both. I'm no philologist, but it didn't seem that far from zecharia sitchin to me (unless someone who's read the book more recently could correct me and argue for it a bit).

Maybe in the interest of testing our beliefs, i should get that Andy Letcher 'Shroom' book and you could get J Irvin's 'Holy Mushroom' book and then compare notes (we could then do a swapsie if you've lost your copy of shroom and want a re-read)

 

[swilow]

I did answer it Doldrums, there's plenty of evidence that you're ignoring, I posted two written sources that you've ignored, I even posted a church window in the shape of a liberty cap, you've got the internet in front of you & can easily search for more.

Correction, you posted a picture that YOU think is shaped like a liberty cap. Why would the church do such a thing? They were, and are, opposed to drugs. In the medieval world, women could be punished for being "scolds" or talking shit. People were burned alive as away to test whether they deserved to die or. Do you think that there was much tolerance for having visions that could undermine their hierarchy? You may just be seeing what you want to see here. The church has only ever tried to (literally) demonise use of hallucinogens so it makes little sense that they would incorporate it into their architecture.

 

[Doldrugs]

To be fair, there's a lot we don't know about early Christianity and also a lot we don't know about the large number of dirt poor people in the Middle Ages who never left any writings or monuments behind.