Drug Induced Contact With The Spirit World

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 williamsfi, the dried crowns of which were chewed by the Indians 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 (Rivea 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 rustica) 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 while 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.

For more information read either Gardens of the Gods, by Brian Taylor, available as a hardback book from Amazon, recently given five stars by a satisfied reader, or its e-book version, Sacred Plants of the World from Neanderthal Times until the Present Day available from Amazon Kindle.