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The Flying Ointment: a Modern Examination

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The Flying Ointment: a Modern Examination THE FLYING OINTMENT: A MODERN EXAMINATION Frater E.S. – A.A.O. In Class X For Public Use & Discourse DCCCLXXXVIII This document is presented for historical and educational purposes only, alongside the potential for the reduction of physical or mental harm. Neither the author nor the A.A.O. condone or partake in the use of any psychoactive plants, legal or illegal, which may or may not produce the historical effects mentioned here. Tropane alkaloids are known to be extremely toxic and may result in dizziness, headache, dry eyes and mouth, loss of vision, sedation and stupor, uncoordinated movement, fear, anxiety, panic, confusion, intense delirium, amnesia, blockade of sweat glands, difficulty breathing, inability to distinguish hallucinations from reality, numbness and cardiac failure at larger doses. The techniques presented here should not be attempted by anyone or under any circumstances. “The lady of moth and moon unfurls her shy and deadly petals. These navigators of the midnight sea – occultists and poets and devotees seeking after that which seduces them – are familiar with the dream of intoxication that follows her scent. She is the woman in the song, the night-blooming narcotic, gorgeous and strange. She is the horned blossom, the guardian of the threshold, the keeper of madness.” from Macbeth In the poison'd entrails throw.— Witches' mummy; maw and gulf Toad, that under cold stone, Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Days and nights has thirty-one; Root of hemlock digg'd i the Swelter'd venom sleeping got, dark; Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! Liver of blaspheming Jew; Double, double toil and trouble; Gall of goat, and slips of yew Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse; Fillet of a fenny snake, Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; In the caldron boil and bake; Finger of birth-strangled babe Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,— Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Make the gruel thick and slab: Adder's fork, and blind-worm's Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, sting, For the ingredients of our Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— caldron. For a charm of powerful trouble, Double, double toil and trouble; Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Double, double toil and trouble; Cool it with a baboon's blood, Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Then the charm is firm and good. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; P R E L I M I N A R Y N O T E S We encourage that this document be freely shared at the practitioner’s leisure so as to both educate and safeguard those interested in a working preparation of the so-called flying ointment. Indeed, there exist many hazardous recipes claiming authenticity which include such additives as foxglove, hemlock and others which result in naught more than outright poisoning and at times, even death. On the other side of the spectrum are some neo-pagan derivations which are so far from the original plant components as to be called mere perfumes. This document aims to distill and discard the many superstitions, falsities and potential health risks inherent within such pursuits. That said, a proper product is not without its dangers, as nightshade-derived tropane alkaloids continue to serve as the primary inebriant. We urge that the practitioner proceed with great caution when attempting any such preparation as the possibility of overdose is a very real one. It is true that by the technique of topical absorption the risk may be somewhat dulled, though this is by no means a guarantee. It should be clearly stated and understood that the ointment and the ingestion of tropane-rich nightshades in general should not be utilized as a recreational outlet of any sort and under any circumstances. Those seeking hallucinations and other such psychedelic states shall quickly find this avenue to be a poor one. Indeed, hallucinations of any sort when using the ointment are a sure sign that the practitioner has found himself on the thin threshold of a potentially adverse effect. It is our wish that these warnings be gravely heeded before proceeding, and that this document serve as a continued source of information for any occultist daring enough to allow such plants into his or her regular practice. One practitioner’s ally may quickly become another’s painful downfall if caution and respect are nowhere given. C H A P T E R O N E : T H E L O R E Wherever there was found the Solanaceae, there was also found their utilization in various forms of sorcery, shamanism and witchcraft. Perhaps more so than any other family of plants, the Solanaceae (Nightshades) have found themselves, for better or worse, entangled within such traditions so firmly as to create the thick air of superstition which maintains in trace amounts even to this day, though particularly in Europe, where they are still thought to attract cross spirits such as troublesome fairies, gnomes and the like. Obviously, such ideas are dying out, and most superstition has turned to the very real danger which the ingestion of various forms of flowering nightshade (such as the Datura) presents. For the time being, however, let us briefly review the strange status which some of these plants have held. For the purposes of our research, these would include Datura, Brugmansia and Mandrake, though related domesticated plants such as tobacco, tomato, potato and eggplant have maintained a near-equal air of historical superstitious approach likely due to their mere categorization as nightshades in relation to the “witch’s allies”. Unrefined or “sacred” tobacco, for one, was and remains the most often used shamanic drug the world over, particularly in Native American communities, although its status and natural form (and potency) have been greatly altered due to selective breeding along with cultural changes brought upon by the conquest of the new world. Indeed, although Datura was known to have toxic properties early on, the stigma seemed to be unfairly carried over onto the tomato and potato, both of which were thought to be poisonous for many years until the superstition was debunked. They are now found as trusted additives to a stupefying amount of recipes the world over. Fear of the nightshade poison which was said to cause madness and death was however, as we well know, only half of the story. The other side of the nightshade stigma is found within their long-time connection to various forms of sorcery. Although the flying ointment was first described by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, the use of Datura and other alkaloid-rich flowering nightshades predates the fabled salve by many uncountable years, even going back to before written record, as the use of Datura is explicitly mentioned in the Hindu Rig Veda; one of the oldest written texts that we know of (between 1700–1100 BC). It is still used by some sects in India today as a supposed gateway to Nirvana, though in some historic Caribbean and other Vodoun-laden traditions it was used at least in part to create “zombies” in an admixture of puffer-fish venom and other ingredients. This practice of zombification has likely ceased, though it would not surprise the author if some variations were still utilized today. These opposing uses serve to illustrate the role of Datura as either angel or devil depending on its intended preparation, which oddly enough is likewise mirrored within two of its more prominent labels – devil’s weed and angel’s trumpet. It would appear that one man’s nirvana is another man’s zombie, as far as Datura is considered. WEREWOLF: ERGOT VS. THE NIGHTSHADES Another interesting account is that of its use in traditional Native American and Brujo (Mexican shamanism) practices, which marks a likely original candidate for our modern conceptions of the so-called werewolf, which we shall revisit later. Indeed, the author is well aware of the popular theory which attempts to link our conceptions of the werewolf to some sparse accounts of rye fields being infected with the fungus ergot (known in German as “the tooth of the wolf”) – a precursor to LSD. In sufficient amounts, the infected rye and the bread which was made of it may indeed have caused the intoxication known as Ergotism, perhaps coupled by hallucinations of the sort which would have caused a man to think he was transforming into a wolf or other such animal alongside the documented effects of maddened, irrational behavior, much like rabies, which is usually, if it might provide a further connection, contracted through the bite of an already infected animal (much like the myths of lycanthropy). Even though ergot, in German, translates to “tooth of the wolf”, a most humble form of nightshade trumps the connection by leaps and bounds in its lore and scientific naming still used today: Lycopersicon esculentum, sometimes Solanum lycopersicum, or in other words, the common tomato. This naming stems from German folklore, which states that members of the nightshade family, of which the tomato is included, were used by witches to create werewolves. Linnaeus, the man who coined the current scientific naming system of binomial nomenclature, supposedly recalled this legend and gave the tomato the name Lycopersicon esculentum, which translates to “edible wolf-peach”. Unlike the sloppy appropriation of ergot as the root of the werewolf myth, this much more ancient lore regarding the use of nightshades as agents of shape-shifting seems much more apt, as it may be directly found and mirrored within many European, Native American and Brujo traditions which had utilized Datura and related plants as purposeful agents for animist transformation, otherwise known as Skinwalking.
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