Hallucinogens How are they taken?

• Eaten – fresh or dried, crushed leaves or seeds, as a tea or decocon, smoked (a new world custom) • Snuffing – yopo, epena, ebil , rape dos indoios • addives – added to mix of other to prolong or intensify the effects. Hemispherical differences

• Fewer examples from the old world that the new world. There are 15 to 20 species used in the Eastern Hemisphere but more than 100 in the Western. • Exepons from the Eastern Hemisphere would be , Henbane, nightshade, Belladonna and . Mushrooms

• Amanita muscaria – used in northeastern Siberia • Taken alone or with reindeer milk or wild plants’ juice • Acve compounds passed in urine • Said to be connected to Rig-Veda Mushrooms, connued

• Psilocybe cubensis and other species. • Used in ancient ceremonies in Mexico • Visual and auditory hallucinaons, a disembodiment and intensificaon of senses Old world plants Cannabis • Old world in origin, nave to central Asia • Kif, Bhang, Charas, Marihuana, Hasheesh, Hemp • Somemes called a “camp follower” because of its presence around human habitaons. • Constuents concentrated in a resin of the female flower with much variaon from races and strains of the plant. • Ancient use across China and the middle east. Old World Plants Belladonna ( belladonna) • Highly poisonous and hallucinogenic. • Part of medieval Europe’s witches brews. • A beauty aid in medieval – as eye drops • , , the psychoacve component, and Old world plants Henbane, • Another for the witches pot in old Europe • Hallucinaons and sensaon of flight • Alkaloid, Hyocyamine but also scopolamine Plants of the old World Mandrake officinarum Mandrake

• “Its complex history as a hypnoc in the folklore of Europe cannot be equaled by any species anywhere. Mandrake was a panacea.”* • Remember the Doctrine of Signatures? This looks like a human figure, thus magic. • When pulled from the ground there is a shriek. • are hyoscyamine, scopolamine etc.

Richard Schultes, Plants of the New World Mescal bean – Saphora secundiflora • Used in northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas. Red Bean Dance • Highly toxic with deaths, replaced by Peyote but beans sll used on dancers costums in the Peyote ceremony • Cysine is the alkaloid, causing nausea, convulsions, and asphyxiaon Plants of the new world Ayahuasca/Caapi Banisteriopsis species • An hallucinogenic drink made from the bark • Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia • Visual hallucinaons • Involved in religious ceremonies and disease diagnosis. • "the vine of the soul"

Plants of the new world Peyote, Lophophora williamsii • A cactus, somemes referred to as the most spectacular hallucinogenic plant of the new world. • Above ground rounded head (mescal buons) cut off oen the root sprouts. • Nave to the Rio Grande valley and northern parts of Mexico. • Suppressed by the Spanish conquistadors • Vivid hallucinaons, oen of geometric shapes • Part of the Nave American Church which blends Chrisan and nave rituals. • The cactus produces several alkaloids.

New world plants Sacred Mexican morning glories – Rivea corymbosa and Ipomoea violacea • Of major importance to the Aztecs • Pain-relief, visions, prophecy Jimsonweed stramonium • Jamestown 1676, a salad of Jimsonweed was served and… As told by Robert Beverly in The History and Present State of Virginia (1705): The soldiers presented "a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sing up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more anc than any in a Dutch droll. "In this franc condion they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves - though it was observed that all their acons were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and aer 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed." • Atropine, Hyoscine (scopolamine), Hyoscyamine, alkaloids