Hallucinogens and Human Society

I read an excellent article in the (Canadian) Globe and Mail last week on the effects that narcotics have had on human social evolution, particularly in reference to art. It follows the current work of anthropologist David Lewis-Williams, author Graham Hancock, and thier assertion that cave paintings (and many other advances in visual art) were spawned by the use of psycobilin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and DMT (di-Methyl Tryptamine, known to most as the 'toad-licking' drug). A few exerpts:

Tune in, turn on...evolve?

On the walls of dozens of caves in southern France and northern Spain lie some of the most majestic works of art ever painted. Drawn 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, the paintings have puzzled anthropologists since they were discovered more than four decades ago.

Where did this astonishing display of talent come from? Why did these prehistoric societies decide to paint these scenes in such remote locations? And what inspired them to paint the strange array of bisons, horses and therianthropes (part animal, part man)?

A scientific consensus of sorts has finally emerged on one of those questions: Although there are still dissenters, a majority of anthropologists now champion the theory that the paintings in Europe were the work of shamans, and in part the product of trance states, likely induced by psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in some species of mushrooms).

Similarly, South African anthropologist David Lewis-Williams maintains that the remarkable rock art of the San people of southern Africa, also painted at least 25,000 years ago, is the result of shamanic trances created by drumming and ritual ecstatic dancing.
[...]

Mr. Hancock (previously author of Fingerprints of the Gods and The Sign and the Seal) notes striking similarities between cave paintings produced by shamanic artists 25,000 years ago and the abundant descriptions of fairies, elves, angels and other fantastic creatures commonly reported in Europe from the medieval ages to the 17th century.

And what is their modern equivalent? Mr. Hancock suggests the myriad accounts of alien abduction. His new book devotes several hundred pages to documenting these parallels, showing a surprising commonality of visions.

[...]

Going a few steps further than the late John Allegro, a Dead Sea scholar who suggested in the 1970s that early Christianity was essentially a mushroom-and-sex cult, Mr. Hancock maintains that all religions are "rooted and grounded in shamanic experiences."

In Toronto recently to promote his book, Mr. Hancock said organized religion as we know it is "the attempt to account for and explain those experiences. And then the bureaucrats come in, take it over, become the priesthood, impose themselves as the sole intermediaries, and eventually lose the connection to the spiritual life that once was at the heart of the religion. We've seen that again and again.

Click to expand...

full article here

What is really amazing is that DMT is naturally produced in our bodies, and that some people seem to produce a higher than average amount, possibly altering thier perceptions at times. This makes sense in a biochemical sense, since DMT is a close analogue of Tryptamine, an amino acid we require, and that changes in the body's chemistry, brought on by such things as fasting, exhasution, even dancing, could indeed produce enough to put a person in an altered state.

The role of psycobolin in religion and society is just as fascinating. John Allegro, the researcher above who tied christianity to psycobilin, beleived that Jesus's last words were not a lament to god, but rather a call of praise to the mushroom. Allegro had this to say about the link between sex, drugs, and faith:

If rain in the desert was the source of life, then moisture from heaven must only be a more abundant kind of spermatozoa. If the male organ ejaculated this precious fluid and made life in the woman, then above the skies the source of nature's semen must be a mighty penis, as the earth that bore its offspring was the womb. It followed therefore that to induce the heavenly phallus man must stimulate it by sexual means, by singing, dancing, orgiastic displays, and above all by performing the copulatory act itself

Click to expand...

Sexy stuff, eh?


I have always been keenly interested in the effects that mind altering substances have had on our society, and I would love to hear people's opinions on the effects that they have had on our development as a society and indeed, as a species (I'm lookin' at you, Ram... ).

I would particularly be interested in hearing if anyone has any information on the role of Amanita mushrooms in ancient scnadanavian/finnish/russian shamanism. Amaitas differ in thier chemistry, and produce more auditory, rather than visual effects..

Alrighty, since there were no takers, I decided to try a little research of my own. Its a little rough, and full of errors, I'm sure but here's my brief synopsis of humanity's relationship with the Amanita Mushroom:


Amanitas

Amanitas refers to a group of mushrooms that grow wild all over Northern Europe, Asia, and parts of North America. The species Amanita muscaria , one of the most common members of the genus, is often depicted in stories and paintings, and is familiar to most people in cool climates as fall companions to conifers. The fruiting body (the mushroom) produces a host of complex chemicals that interfere with the human body's function, including ibotenic acid and muscimol, the psychoactive ingredients. The effect of ingesting these chemicals was described by resewarchers as "visual distortions, loss of equilibrium, mild muscle twitching [...] and altered auditory and visual perception"

Amanitas in Ancient History

While it is uncertain when exactly amanitas began thier role as human inebriants, there is evidence that its roots go back to at least 4000BC: early Uralic languages used the word 'pang' to refer to both 'inebriation' and it's likely source, the Amanita. Ancient pictographs dating back to 2000BC also seem to depict the mushroom and its significance in religious ceremonies. Up until the introduction of christianity, the mushroom remains the center of shaman rituals of Uralic and Siberian tribes.



Soma

Reg Veda hymns, a set of sacred stories from India and one quarter of the sacred Vedas, mentions a magic divining potion made from the flesh of plant. An exerpt:

Sanctify Soma our mind, our heart, our intellect; and may thy worshippers delight in thy friendship, like cattle in fresh pasture, in thine exhilaration (produced) by the sacrificial food; for thou art mighty.

Like the winds violently shaking the trees, the draughts of Soma have lifted me up, for I have often drunk of the Soma.

The praise of the pious has come to me like a lowing cow to her beloved calf, for I have often drunk of the Soma.

Both heaven and earth are not equal to one half of me, for I have often drunk of the Soma.

I am the sun, the greatest of the great, raised to the firmament; for I have often drunk of the Soma.

~Rigveda


While the jury is still out on the identity of said plant, much of the evidence seems to point to A muscaria . Gordon Wasson, author of Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, first put out the theory in the 1960s, and rested most of his evidence on the accounts of buddhist monks that innebriated themselves using the urine of others who had already ingested it (the compounds in amanitas pass through the body unaltered, making the urine of the drinker potent), as well as the fact that the plant was supposedly collected from mountain habitats, the only place in india that the muhsroom could have grown. Critics of Wasson claim that the effects of the Amanitas are inconsistant with accounts in the vedas, suggestion cannabis or other mushroom types as possible culprits, but to this date there is still no consensus.

Amanitas and Christianity?

The cult of Soma spread from the India through the persian empire (although it is likely that the aryan persians were the ones responsible for introducing the use of Amanitas), were it fused with zoroastrianist and judaic traditions, possibly influencing early Christian traditions. Indeed, John Allegro, mentioned in the post above, beleived that early christians worshiped the Amanita mushroom (not the psicobilin mushroom, as I had written earlier) and that Jesus Christ was the physical embodiments of its spirit. According to Allegro, the cult eventuallydwindled and was replaced by the the cult of dionysus (alhocol); christians dropped the mushroom from thier rituals, replacing it with wine, and continued its path. The fresco of Abbaye de Plaincourault Mérigny, France, is an oft cited source of proof that christianity was indeed founded atop a mushroom cult.




Amanitas and Combat

Another possible use for Amanitas in the past may have been in battle. In 1784, Samual Ödman proposed that the ingredient behind the frenzied attack of the Viking Berserker was Amanita muscaria, already well-known to scandanavian shaman as a divination tool. The theory has been largely discounted, owing to the fact that mushroom ingestion would likely reduce a warrior's strength and agility. Many historians, however, have not yet discarded it, and indeed point to similar drug induced battle frenzies that may be linked to amanitas, including the Celtic legend of Cú Chulaind of Ulster, whose agressive attacks and 'battle spasms' may have been induced by Amanitas.

Well, that's all I could gather with my time. I should take time to mention that if you do find a Amanita mushroom in the woods, DON'T EAT IT! Misindetifications are common (they are related to some of the most deadly fungi on earth), and doses vary with growing conditions.

Good stuff Che!

I will have a thorough look later.

ad Berserker-Amanita Muscaria: There ought to be an article on that buried somewhere in my office. I'll look for that.

This is a very nice shopping list piece of info Che. Thanks!

I got some snack for you Che:

Michelot, D. et al. Amanita muscaria: chemistry, biology, toxicology, and ethnomycology. Mycological Research (2003), 107, (2), 131-146.

Of special interest therein: references by Heim (1964) and Festi (1985). You, of course, have the possibility to look for them.

Che said:

The fruiting body (the mushroom) produces a host of complex chemicals that interfere with the human body's function, including ibotenic acid and muscimol, the psychoactive ingredients. The effect of ingesting these chemicals was described by resewarchers as "visual distortions, loss of equilibrium, mild muscle twitching [...] and altered auditory and visual perception.

Click to expand...

The poisoning is very often referred to as 'mycoatropinic', whatever that means. Any ideas?

thetrooper said:

The poisoning is very often referred to as 'mycoatropinic', whatever that means. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

myco: relating to fungi

atropine: tropane alkaloid found in many poisonous plants. It's an acetyl choline inhibitor, and messes up your muscle function (not to mention brain function!)

@Che

I think, generally speaking, that use of plants and herbs early on in our pre-history would have been noteworthy, for sure. In a shamanic belief system, the shaman, who has the ability to make contact with the supernatural for various needs, would have knowledge of the plants etc for use in religious ceremonies to ensure success of the hunt, medicinal purposes, fertility, power over enemies, burial etc... In this type of belief, there is emphasis on what we would call magic, and the shaman enters trances, which could be induced through this sort of thing. So there could be a whole range of uses for various plants, from actually practical medicine, to the believed (but actually untrue) medicinal benefits of a plant (in this case, we could be talking more about "magic" and beliefs in supernatural power), to poison, to inducing visions etc. This arcane knowledge could be held by the shaman, who would be a religious yet also very practical figure for the group. I think that the normal women and men could have a pretty extensive knowledge of useful herbs too, though. The shaman could have been a figure that was specifically designated to interact with the supernatural, in which case hallucinatory substances would be used.

I don't think any of this is particularly groundbreaking, but it is interesting to contemplate the early origins of medicine and religion.

trooper: thanks for the references. I'll have to see if my uni's library has subscriptions

Ram: See you in the forest, I guess..

Jonatas: Thanks for your thoughts! The links between medicine, religion and the supernatural in early societies has certainly been well-traced, as the 'medicine man' has been responsible for talking to god, healing the ill, bringing good fortune, and even changing the weather in many different tribal cultures. I guess it all boils down to the fact that its difficult to define phenomena when you don't understand thier causes, and so everything 'unexplained' fits under a single area of study. I guess it hasn't even been that long for western society; I don't think it's an accident that most of the scientific research in europe during the middle ages and the renaissance was being done by clergymen: it was thier job to explain god's creations to the rest of society.

Anyhow, I'm glad to see some people out here intertested in the subject. I think ethnobotany is a fascinating field (and a handy one too, if you love history but majored in biology ), and is defintaly an important field when trying to understand ancient peoples. I've got a little bit of info on the history of peyote use and other mescal-containing plants, so hopefully over the next few days I'll have some time to post a little blurb on that, unless there are any requests and/or volunteers?

Che Guava said:

[ I've got a little bit of info on the history of peyote use and other mescal-containing plants, so hopefully over the next few days I'll have some time to post a little blurb on that, unless there are any requests and/or volunteers?

Click to expand...

Volunteers to do peyote? j/k

It is an interesting topic and I will look forward to your post. I think from one perspective, you could say development of civilization/culture has has been accompanied at the same time by increasingly sophisticated use of plants and production of drugs, for sure.

Che Guava said:

trooper: thanks for the references. I'll have to see if my uni's library has subscriptions.

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm such a sadist...

The list of references is quite extensive.

I did not read through the entire article, but the references I mentioned earlier seem to be particularly concerned with the historical/sociological aspects.

Aha! I knew that erowid.org would come through on something like that! A great site, but definitely to be taken with a grain of salt, and an pound of second thought... My uni does have myco research in its library, I'm happy to say, as well as an excellent journal I've been pawing through: The journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. Not as much on the hallucinogens, but some dynamite pieces on traditional knowledge of plants and animals, including a great one I'm reading now on the traditional knowledge of maize diversity and genetics in the Guatamalan Highlands (ok, I know that sounds a little nerdy, but it's really cool! Do you know how many kinds of maize there are in the world?)

ok, back to my *real* work. My work on mescaline continues...

Che: Can I remind you about this?

Ram: Cheese and rice! I forgot all aout that thread. What interests me a lot about opium is the fact that (from what I have read) its use in ancient societies seem to be more recreational than spiritual in nature. That could be because most other hallucinogens don't always feel so great (making them more exclusive to the shaman class) or maybe because opium production is more labour intensive (they must be cultivated) and less well suited to a nomadic, tribal lifestyle, as opposed to say amanitas or peyote, which would have been collected from wild populations. I'll have to take a closer look at the literature to confirm my suspicions, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well...

I'd say it was more medicinal that recreational or spiritual. That's all right now.

Che Guava said:

Aha! I knew that erowid.org would come through on something like that! A great site, but definitely to be taken with a grain of salt, and an pound of second thought...

Click to expand...

Are you telling me that the journal 'Mycological Research' is dubious?

Ram: Medicinal, for sure, recreational, no doubt! I'm just a little uncertain as to why there isn't as much of a spitirual connection to opiates. As a vice that certainly inspired a number of european authors and artists, I'm interested in why this 'creative' aspect of the narcotic doesn't magnifest itself as well in earlier societies.

Trooper: Mycological Research is a fine journal (I tend to beleive most anything that comes from a refereed journal, with some exceptions..), I just noticed that it was posted (illegally?) on erowid.org, a site that takes an exhaustive, yet sometimes naive, look at drugs. Erowid is a great place for anyone looking to learn more about consciousness and the effect that certain chemicals have on it, but, as with many sites on the internet, has its share of information from dubious sources, and some stuff that just plain wrong. The biggest problem with the site is that it can give visitors a sense that they have a good background knowledge on a drug, when they don't realize that important things like doses, reactions with other drugs, or even medical/psychological background can play a big role in how the experience plays out. These factors are usually unique to the particular situation the person finds themselves in, and are often the largest determinants on the effects the drug will have on the person. There's more than a few reports on the site of kids that have overdosed and died on drugs like DXM or datura spp because they *thought* that they had figured what was going to happen. I guess as long as there's access to information, there will be abuses of it as well.

OK, I see. I'm removing my link to them then.

I wouldn't be too worried about it, troop, I just wanted to put a little disclaimer on that. I'm actually quite happy that a site like erowid exists, as far as drug-related sites go, it's a pretty balanced look. The danger only exists when someone takes a quick look and only reads what they want to.

You mean the way everyone uses websites?

In answer to your question about the lack of spiritual influence on early societies from opiates, there is one very simple answer. Opiates get you 'monged out', whereas halluginogens make you see your soul dance on the borealis with all the spirits of your ancestors. That's gotta count for something in a Shaman's book!

I brought up the Opium partly as side interest (plenty to talk about on that alone). But also because of the similar medicinal uses and further, the military experiments that hallucinogens have undergone. You could turn to the Vietnam War or the British after the Second WW (nonconformist posted a great link for a British army video of troops tripping their nuts off in an experiment). Or you could turn to the life of folk like Jim Morrison and Beat Poets who dipped in to see what the civilian medical experiments were like. They were our modern shamans afterall, you know, breaking on through to the other side and all that