Plants, Prophecy and Spiritual Awakening

My latest e-book, The Girl With The Dragon-Shaped Pendant, was inspired by the fact that there have been several instances over the past few years of people growing or manufacturing drugs for recreational use in the quiet village where I live. Though a little unexpected perhaps, to encounter such goings on in a rural backwater like the one where I live, people have always been very inventive in such matters, and have experimented with drugs of all kinds over the centuries. My earlier book, Gardens of the Gods, available from Amazon in  hardback, tells of numerous examples of plants used in this way.

Soma, for instance, was a sacred plant to the praise of which an entire book of one of the world’s most ancient scriptures was dedicated. The Rig-Veda, of which a literal translation would be, the veda (sacred knowledge) of stanzas of praise, was based on an oral tradition which dates back to the Aryan tribal displacement which swept into Northern India three thousand years ago, via the passes of the Hindu Kush.

It is said by some that, more than just a sacred plant affiliated by tradition to a particular religion, Soma was, in fact, in its own right a liturgical god, because of its origins as an outgrowth of an act of worship. Possessing a significance similar to the wine of the Christian Mass, it was deified through the intercession of an officiating priest. It was essential to the success of the sacrifice central to certain fire-worshipping ceremonies, just so long as the habitat from which it had been harvested was a properly designated sacred site.

The plant, ritually prepared, had to be carefully transported to the place of sacrifice, where it would be soaked with water drawn especially for the purpose before being squeezed between pressing stones. The resultant liquid was mixed with milk or honey, after first being poured through woollen strainers.

It was in this form that it was used to sprinkle the altar on which the sacrifice was to be made, as well as the place on the grass in front of it, where it was believed that attending gods would sit. It was also the form in which the sacred fluid would be imbibed by priests seeking elevation - in mind at least - to the same plane as the immortals. Ordinary members of the congregation were frequently obliged to await its passage through the sacerdotal body before they too could partake of its uplifting properties!

THE FLY AGARIC AS SOMA

The Persian prophet Zoroaster was strong in denouncing the practice ,when setting out to reform the religion of his people, but it was taken up by R. Gordon Wasson, when he set down his justification for the belief that the true identity of the sacred Soma, which had been lost over the centuries, was, in fact, Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscari).  The red-capped toadstool so beloved by Victorian illustrators of children’s literature.

With its white stem and absence of leaves, roots, fruits or flowers, it certainly seems to match those points of description contained within the Rig-Veda. Also, it mostly grows around Birch trees and sometimes under Pine and Fir which, in the latitudes ranged by those who composed the stanzas, would only grow on high mountains, as Soma is said to do.

Its reputation in Siberia for intoxicating properties, which retain their effect however many times the drink made from the fungus passes through the body of man or beast, only adds to the resemblance. Further proof is, perhaps, that the Aryans, rising from the Steppes of Russia, would not only have known of the Fly Agaric, but would almost certainly have had specimens of it with them - at first anyway.

They could have replenished this supply as they made their way deeper and deeper into India, until, on the Ganges Plain, they would have found themselves far from any region where the Fly Agaric grew. This absence, coming at a time when opinion was beginning to turn against the abnormalities of religious perceptions and feelings intensified by Soma, would have been more fortuitous than disastrous, however.

SUBSTITUTES FOR SOMA

For one thing, there were substitutes: the asclepiad Funastrum spp., a climbing plant with inconspicuous flowers and leafless stem which exuded a milky juice; Rhubarb (Rheum palmatum), the stems of which were adapted somewhat unexpectedly, since its main medical use in more recent times was as a purgative in bacillary dysentery; or Ephedra spp – probably either E. gerardiana or E. nebrodensis, both of which contain varying amounts of the alkaloid ephedrine, which is used medically to increase the blood pressure and excite the sympathetic nervous system - the pith of which is known still to be extracted and used by Zoroastrians in Northern India.

When mixed with purified water, the juice of crushed pomegranate twigs, milk and honey it becomes an offering to the sacred fire of Ahura Mazda, as well as sustenance to his followers.

This apart, though, there is little left of the divine presence which once was. Indo-Aryan religion was changing, gradually moving away from ritualism towards a more ascetic approach. Holy men were leaving the world and setting off into the forests to live a more simple existence, in which they could spend the greater part of their time discussing the meaning of life and the nature of reality with others of like mind. As Christopher Columbus was going to discover, it was with a more basic religious outlook that the future of prophetic fungi lay.

PROPHETIC DRUGS AT "THE END OF THE EAST"

Columbus, when he had completed the first of his four epic voyages with the aid of an inaccurate world map drawn up by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, returned to Spain convinced that he had discovered “the end of the east”. His companions, judging by the accounts they wrote afterwards, may rather have believed themselves to have dropped out of their own world and into some kind of hell.

They had found a primitive people using a vast array of plant drugs: Cohoba (Piptadenia peregrine - the ground seeds of which are used as a narcotic snuff); Coca (Erythroxylum coca from which cocaine is extracted); Peyotl (Lophophora williamsii, the dried crowns of which were chewed by the Native Americans for the hallucinatory effect of the drug anhalonine; certain species of mushroom, Datura arborea, the leaves of which were smoked by priests who believed the plant to be divine; Datura candida, a decoction of the leaves of which was drunk during ancient religious rites to induce prolonged delirium; Ololiuqui (Rives corymbosa - the seeds of which are used as a hallucinatory drug); Caapi (Banisteriopsis caapi), which is cultivated for the leaves and young stems from which a hallucinatory beverage is obtained); and many others, of which Tobacco (Nicotiana rustics) was the most common.

None of the plants was known in Europe at the time, nor was the use to which they were most generally put - that of inducing a mild, trancelike state from which individuals would emerge to tell tales of having attended the councils of the gods. Divine substances were no longer a feature of the more advanced religions by this time. The people of Columbus' New World, however, took the concept seriously indeed.

DRUG INDUCED CONTACT WITH THE SPIRIT WORLD

Though the drugs in question might also be in daily use for recreational purposes, if what they were being taken for was their visionary qualities, then there were certain rules by which the user had to abide. For one thing, an intoxicant was only to be imbibed by, or under the direct supervision of, a medicine man and experienced interpreter of visions. These glimpses of a world which occupied a different plane of reality from our own were by courtesy of the spirits who inhabited them and had access to sources of information unavailable to man.

The chronicler Gonzalvo Fernando d'Oviedo y Valdez wrote of the Indians of Hispaniola (present day Haiti), that they had secret means of putting themselves in touch with spirits whenever they wished to predict the future. A priest from any one of a number of small desert communes would be summoned and arrive with two of his disciples, who would have in their possession a flask filled with a mysterious drink. Seating himself between the disciples, one of whom would constantly be ringing a small bell, the priest would partake of the drink, which would shortly send him into a convulsive and sharply painful ecstasy from which loss of consciousness would eventually free him. It was at this point that the querist would put the question, to which the spirit replied through the mouth of the inspired man.

SPANISH REACTION TO THE USE OF DRUGS

The Spanish chroniclers had no doubts at all concerning the accuracy of the information collected. They were quite prepared to believe that sorcerers (curanderos they called them) could surrender themselves to a state of second sight after eating the toadstools which they named Teonanactl (Panaeolus campanulatus var. sphinctrinus), or "Flesh of God". They had witnessed the utilisation of the process to discover items which had been lost or stolen, or even to successfully track down runaway wives. What worried them about it was the belief that such visions could only possibly occur as a result of diabolic possession, since God was hardly likely to have allowed the wielding of such a valuable power to rest solely in the hands of this heathen race.

Diego Duran, in his account of the coronation of Montezuma II in 1502, describes the outcome of woodland fungi being administered to the guests when, "some became so intoxicated that they lost their senses and committed suicide. Others had visions during which the future was revealed to them, the Devil speaking to them whilst they were in this drunken state”.

PREHISTORIC RITES

For just how many centuries this parlance with god or devil had been taking place no one is able to say for certain, even now, though it does seem to have been the practice in that part of the world for a very long time. Effigies of toadstools about 25cm tall found in Guatemala some years ago were thought at first to be phallic symbols, until the discovery of a connection with ancient rites involving hallucinogenic fungi caused that opinion to be revised. Below the stalks of the stone fungi are carved figures of men and animals and, on one of them, a toad. The statuettes have been dated to around 500 BC. That the practice had not rested in that ancient world was instantly apparent to Columbus and his peers. Nor was it eradicated during their era, despite the fierce, and often brutal opposition of the Christian Church to its continuation. There is an account of a ceremony which was witnessed in Mazatec country in quite modern times.

A MODERN DIVINATION CEREMONY

The fungi had been gathered early in the morning, when the air was fresh, at the time of the new moon, which is always favourite. There were fourteen pairs of Psilocybe mexicana which contains hallucinogenic and psychotropic drugs, together with three or four specimens of Stropharia cubensis, which is known as the Sacred Fungus of the Bulls Dung, and which contains the hallucinogen psilocybin. With them, on a cloth on the floor near to a simple altar, were arranged pieces of copal gum to serve as incense, seeds of cacao, grains of maize, powdered green tobacco, chickens eggs, eggs of the Mexican turkey, some feathers, and rolls of bark from a tree called “Amata”, which would either have been Ficus cotinifolia or Ficus involuta, both of which belong to that remarkable genus which includes the sacred figs as well as the Banyan and the Bo-tree.

The curandero (it could equally well have been the female equivalent or curandera) knelt on a folded gown and, in lip service to that Christian interference in his ancient rite, crossed himself as he invoked the Trinity and an assortment of saints. Then, taking a pair of the fungi, which he held above the glowing copal until they fumed unpleasantly, he began to chew and gradually consume them - a process which he repeated, a pair at a time. Next, he rubbed the finely-ground green tobacco over his lower arm and the nape of his neck and then finally extinguished the light with a flower head, to plunge the room into almost total darkness. At this point, the Shaman rose, wrapped himself in his cloak, and asked questions of his petitioners, whilst ceaselessly tossing the maize cobs into the air and catching them with both hands. The ceremony, as was always the case, lasted all night and, once started, no one was allowed to leave the room.

Not that anyone amongst the audience would have been likely to have wanted to relinquish their presence before it was all over; no more than they would have doubted any messages which the spirits gave. The drug-induced trance state was held in too much esteem by those who had witnessed it, even those explorers, naturalists and anthropologists from whom reports began flooding in during Victorian times.

TRIBAL INITIATION IN GUYANA

In Guyana during the 1870s, Everard Im Thum discovered that, in order for a youth to be initiated into a tribe at any time, he had first to cut himself off from it for a period of fasting, during which he consumed large draughts of tobacco juice mixed with water. Maddened by these and the terrors of his isolation, as well as excited by his own ravings, he could work himself at will into passions of excitement, during which he conversed with spirits and learned to control them.

THE USE OP PROPHETIC DRUGS IN AFRICA

Edward Evans-Pritchard, writing of his experiences in the Sudan during the 1920s, told of witch-doctors who, under the influence of drugs, "danced" the questions put to them by petitioners; speeding the passage of the substance through their bodies by gyrating until, as the Swiss psychologist Jung described it, the diviner instinct which allowed questions to be answered without need of consciousness was liberated.

A decade later, during the 1930s, M. J. Field concluded from long experience working in Ghana that there seemed no reason to doubt, "that utterances of a possessed person, concentrated on a narrowed field, may exceed in wisdom those he can achieve when exposed to all the distractions of normal consciousness".

It only served to confirm the turn of the century findings of David Leslie, a South African merchant, who had decided out of curiosity to test a local diviner by asking him for news of the eight native hunters whom Leslie had sent out in pursuit of elephants.

The diviner made eight fires and threw roots onto them, then he took a drug and fell into a convulsive trance. On regaining consciousness, he raked out the fires one by one, describing as he did so what was happening to each hunter, how some had been fortunate, others had done badly, and two had been killed. His account turned out to be accurate in n every detail.

It convinced Leslie of the powers of his diviner, although, as was only to be expected really, there were others who tried to explain it away as lucky guesswork or trickery of some kind; harking back, perhaps, to the tale, usually attributed to Marco Polo, about the Old Man of the Mountains.

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS

Aloadin, as he was known, was a leader of the Ismaili Sect in Persia during the mid-thirteenth century who, so the story goes, had created the most beautiful garden ever known, in an enclosed valley between two mountains.

It was a garden which had everything: gilded palaces and pavilions filled with the most exquisite paintings; runnels flowing freely with wine and milk and honey and water; bushes and trees laden with every known fruit; women who danced and sang in the most appealing fashion. It was, in fact, and in every way, an exact reproduction of the description Mohammed gave of his Paradise. The Old Man was in the business of political assassination, and his success rate relied on the ploy of drugging new recruits with Cannabis sativa (Hashish - hence the word assassin) and having them placed in his garden where, on awakening, they would believe themselves to be in Paradise. Drugged again and brought out into the real world at some future time, they would be prepared to commit any number of murders, if to do so meant their return to the garden. The story is apparently apocryphal, but it does, nonetheless, serve to illustrate the way in which most Europeans tended to think of the notion of drug-induced transmigration of the soul. It was a view with which the people of ancient China did not concur.

LING CHIN

When news of the Soma plant first reached that country, the Emperor Shih-Huang-ti, who built the Great Wall during the Chin Dynasty (221 - 207 BC), sent his emissaries far and wide in search of one without success. A century or so later, however, during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there appeared in an inner pavilion of the palace a hitherto unknown.

In the excitement of the moment, an amnesty was granted to all prisoners; food and wine were handed out gratis to the poor, and the Ling Chih became a symbol of good health, fortune and longevity, used in Chinese art and culture pretty much as the Lotus was being displayed in Egypt around the same period. The unfortunate thing from the point of view of the Chinese was that, though they didn't know it at the time, they may well have been offering their homage to the wrong plant. Modern Japanese mycologists think they have identified Ling Chih as Ganoderma lucidum, which is certainly beautiful, but poisonous and lacking in any hallucinogenic properties whatsoever. Its strange appearance, they decided, had most probably been due to the abnormal growing conditions, on wood which must already have been infected with it when used for construction purposes within the pavilion. Was this an illustration of the gullibility of men's belief? Perhaps. One wonders, though, given the nature of the use of Soma, how a poisonous fungus could have successfully taken its place. Call it, rather, an illustration of the supreme importance of Soma to the ancient world.

DRUGS AND YOGA. WHICH ONE CAME FIRST?

Despite what has sometimes been said on the subject of drug-induced trances - that they are a sign of decadence and an imitation of the state which the Shaman was no longer capable of obtaining otherwise - there are others who would argue that the drugs are, in fact, aiding the liberation of the clairvoyant faculty in certain individuals so that, with the help of their training, they can use it for the benefit of the tribe as a whole. In fact, to go even further, the Shaman does not take drugs in an attempt at artificial achievement of the exalted state of mind which achieve through yoga. The mystics, through yoga, have been trying to achieve that exalted state of mind which uses of sacred drugs formerly attained. In view of the likely antiquity of the practice it just might be so.

If you want to know more, Gardens of the Gods by Brian Taylor, a hardback book available from Amazon, and its e-book version,  Sacred Plants of the World from Neolithic Times Until the Present Day, available from Amazon Kindle, will tell you.