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The Encyclopaedia of Psychoative Substances
By Richard Rudgley St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1998 Richard Rudgley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8600-1
CHAPTER 1
A
ACONITE
Aconite is the name given to species of the genus Aconitum which are found in numerous parts of the world. It has been used since time immemorial as a hunting poison in areas of both the Old World and the New (in places as far apart as East Africa, India, Alaska and Japan). All species contain poisonous alkaloids and, in sufficient amounts, can be deadly. Its fearsome reputation as a poison made it sacred to Hecate, the Greek goddess of sorcery and witchcraft.
Aconitum napellus, commonly known as wolf's bane, friar's hat and monkshood, was used as a poison in Roman times and its cultivation was restricted for this very reason. As among the Greeks, aconite was venerated by the ancient Germanic peoples, who called it Thor's hat. Aconite was also used in European witchcraft and often features as an ingredient in the psychoactive drugs prepared by the descendants of Hecate (see Witches' Ointments). Although aconite does not seem to have genuine psychoactive properties, it can have marked physiological effects (such as reducing the rate of the heartbeat) and may thus have contributed to the overall effects of such ointments. It is also reported to cause the unusual feeling of having fur or feathers, which may well have been a highly desirable effect to witches seeking magical transformations into mammals and birds. This curious form of tactile hallucination may have been used in shamanic cultures who were aware of the various properties of aconite intoxication.
Outside Europe it was widely used for its medical properties. The Tibetans used it to treat heart complaints and the Chinese believed it to be an aphrodisiac capable of curing impotence. It also features as one of the ingredients of a Taoist preparation called 'five mineral powder', developed by one He Yan, who stated that: 'When a person takes the five mineral powder, not only are illnesses healed, but the mind is also aroused and opened to clarity.'
Sources: Rätsch 1992, Rudgley 1993, Sherratt 1996a, Turner 1568.
ACORUS CALAMUS
An uncommon but widespread semi-aquatic plant found in temperate and subtemperate zones of both the Old and New Worlds. It has a branched and aromatic root or rhizome from which rise its long erect leaves. It is classified as belonging to the arum family Araceae but recent studies suggest that it should be placed in its own family. Both the leaves and rhizome are apparently psychoactive, due to the presence of asarones, which have mescaline-like hallucinogenic properties if taken in sufficient quantities. In lesser amounts it has stimulating and tonic effects. According to Arabic, Roman and later European folk botany, the plant is also an aphrodisiac.
It is commonly known as sweet flag, flag root and sweet calomel in Europe and was once dubbed the Tatar or Mongolian Poison by those peoples who were invaded and conquered by the Mongols, who used it for the innocent purpose of purifying water. It was used in the sacred incenses of both the Sumerians and the ancient Egyptians and remains of the plant were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. It may also have had a similar use in Biblical times. In Exodus 30: 23,24,34, when God ordered Moses to make the Holy Oil, one of its constituents was an aromatic reed which some authorities have suggested might have been Acorus calamus. The plant is mentioned by many of the great classical writers on medicine, from Hippocrates (460–377 BC) and Theophrastus (371–287 BC) onwards. According to Dioscorides the smoke of Acorus calamus, if taken orally through a funnel, relieves a cough. Celsus records that the plant was readily available in the markets of India almost 2,000 years ago.
The aromatic leaves were placed on the floors of medieval churches and houses as effective air-fresheners and insecticides. The earliest record of its cultivation in a European garden seems to be that of the Austrian botanist Clusius in 1574. It was known in Germany by 1588 and the great herbalist Gerard tended it in England from 1596. In the doctrine of correspondences as expounded by the occult philosopher Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Acorus calamus is under the influence of the sun, although other sources give it a lunar attribution. It was also used as an additive to the hallucinogenic ointments of the witches (see Witches' Ointments). More innocently the root was made into a candied confection in Europe and was popular among settlers in the New World. Appreciation of the plant is by no means a thing of the past. The great American poet Walt Whitman dedicated no less than thirty-nine poems to the sweet flag: they are known as the 'Calamus poems' and are to be found in Leaves of Grass.
The use of Acorus calamus was, and still is, widespread among the native peoples of North America. It can justly be called the 'coca of the north', as it plays a similar role as a stimulant in medical and ritual life to its more famous southerly counterpart (see Coca). There is strong evidence that certain Indian peoples, including the Pawnee and the Sioux, planted it, as it is commonly found at old Indian village sites and camping grounds. This planting was probably undertaken not only to maintain a supply of it for medical use but also to provide the muskrat with its favourite food (hence the common Indian name for the sweet flag, 'muskrat root', or simply 'rat root') and thereby profit from a steady supply of furs. It was an important sacred plant to the Pawnee and in their ceremonial mysteries there are a number of songs eulogising it. It is still widely used among rural and urban Indians today, particularly to alleviate toothache.
Whilst the traditional use of sweet flag as a stimulant by many native North Americans is not contested, the purported use of it as a hallucinogen among the Cree of northern Alberta has been the source of much confusion. Hoffer and Osmond's 1967 account has been cited in many books since its publication as evidence of the plant's use as a native hallucinogen. In fact, Hoffer and Osmond clearly state that the two individuals who were their informants were both white. Both the male informant and his wife (who was a psychiatric nurse) had already tried LSD before consuming 10-inch pieces of rat root (a normal stimulant dose is about 2 inches) on five separate occasions. They reported LSD-like effects but did not state that any native people used the root in hallucinogenic doses. The idea that native Americans used the sweet flag as a hallucinogen could be rejected were it not for a passing but telling comment in a written account of a people of the Canadian far north. The anthropologist June Helm was told by a local Indian man that chewing a large piece of the root was done to 'have a good time'. It is also used in the introductory ceremonies of the hallucinogenic fly-agaric mushroom cult among the Ojibwa people of the Great Lakes (see Fly-Agaric), but because these rites are little known it cannot be said whether sweet flag is used in stimulant or hallucinogenic doses, although it does seem to have been used in this context as a ritual purgative. But since the Ojibwa use of the hallucinogenic fly-agaric was only discovered by western researchers about twenty years ago it is possible that the Ojibwa have kept secret their knowledge of the hallucinogenic properties of the muskrat root.
Among the Iai people of New Guinea the ceremonial eating of the rhizome of Acorus calamus is said to aid communication with the spirit world. The Chinese use of Acorus calamus has largely been for rather mundane purposes such as an insecticide. However, there is an interesting passage from a book written about AD 370 by one Wang Chia which is quoted by Joseph Needham as follows: 'In Ying-chou [one of the isles of the Immortals] there is a herb called yün miao, in appearance like the rush [Acorus calamus], but if any man eats the leaves he becomes drunk, howbeit if he then eat of the root he will be made sober.' Is this a flight of pure fancy or a vague memory of a psychoactive plant? The ancient Chinese are also reported to have made a hallucinogenic substance out of sweet flag, cannabis and other ingredients. There are thus hints from both hemispheres that sweet flag's apparent hallucinogenic properties were made use of.
Sources: Agrippa 1651, De Smet 1985a and 1985b, Gunther 1959, Hoffer and Osmond 1967, Morgan 1980, Motley 1994, Needham SCC 6/1, Rätsch 1992, Schultes and Hofmann 1980a, Schultes and Hofmann 1980b.
ADAM
Adam is an early name for MDMA, i.e. Ecstasy (see Ecstasy). The name was coined by American psychotherapists using it in their treatment of patients, the idea apparently being that it induced a state of innocence. It is also a near-anagram of MDMA.
AFRICA, PSYCHOACTIVE PLANTS OF
A number of well-known African psychoactive plants are referred to elsewhere (see Cannabis, Datura, Eboga, Qat, Yohimbe), whilst lesser known ones that have only been reported sporadically are treated here. In addition to alcoholic drinks (especially beer which has a very long history in Africa), cannabis, tobacco and other substances of intercontinental importance, Africa has numerous psychoactive plants, many of which have been made use of by indigenous cultures. Unlike other areas of the world, such as Amazonia and Mexico, the use of hallucinogenic and narcotic plants in sub-Saharan Africa has received very little attention from researchers; some have even concluded that there is little to discover.
According to a 1658 entry in the diary of Jan van Riebeeck (who was the first governor of a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope), cited by Brian Du Toit, the Hottentots of southern Africa make use of: 'a dry powder which ... [they] eat and which makes them drunk.' This powder was probably derived from Leonotis leonorus, the leaves of which were also smoked alone or in conjunction with tobacco. The Dobe Bushmen of Botswana use a local plant they call kwashi (a bulbous perennial, Pancratium trianthum) as a hallucinogen. By rubbing the bulb into cuts in the head visions are reported to be seen. The hallucinogenic bulb of Boophane disticha has been used traditionally by the Basuto people of South Africa in male initiation rites as it is believed to aid communication with the ancestors. The Basuto also use its bulb in their medicine, as an arrow poison and even as a way of committing suicide. Its use as a hallucinogen for contacting the spirits of ancestors is reported from Zimbabwe. In Zaire a plant named niando (Alchornea floribunda) is used for its aphrodisiac, stimulant and narcotic properties. It is also used as a hallucinogen by members of the Gabonese Byeri cult.
In 1966 a contributor to the academic botanical journal Lloydia surveyed a number of psychoactive plants used around the world, noting that:
perhaps the strangest of all the psychomimetic drugs employed by native peoples ... is the root of an obscure African plant which grows along the banks of the Ubangi River between the Congo and French Equatorial Africa. This reddish brown root, shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike, is well-known to local medicine men who employ it as an ordeal poison ... because of the extreme secrecy in which the root is held by the West-African natives, practically no information concerning it is available in the pharmacognostical or toxicological literature. In fact, if radix pedis diaboli [devil's foot root] had not figured prominently in a murder case which occurred in the remote village of Tredannick Wartha, Cornwall, England in the spring of 1897, practically nothing about it would be known ... the records inform us that a quantity of the root was obtained in the Ubangi country by Dr Leon Sterndale, the well-known African explorer, [and] was stolen by Mr Mortimer Tregennis who employed it to dispose of his two brothers and a sister. A quantity of the drug was dropped on burning logs in a fireplace by Tregennis as he left the room, and the toxic vapour had a serious effect on his three relatives. The next day his sister was found dead, but his brothers, apparently of stronger constitution, were found in a demented state, laughing, shouting, and singing. Later, Tregennis died from the same poison, apparently by his own hand ... pharmacological studies have shown that the inhalation of the vapour given off by the burning root selectively stimulates the brain centres which control the emotions of fear.
The author of this learned article then goes on to quote a daring psychonaut (the name sometimes given to scientific investigators of psychoactive substances who try them out on themselves) named J. Watson, who tried the dreaded root for himself:
at the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes ... in this cloud ... lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe ... a freezing horror took possession of me ... the turmoil in my brain was such that something must surely snap ... my voice [was] distant and detached ... I dashed [into the open air] ... the glorious sunshine [burst] through the hellish clouds of terror. Slowly it rose [and] peace and reason returned.
The bizarre murder performed with the help of the devil's foot root sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes, which indeed it was, for the psychonaut was none other than the indomitable Dr Watson and the 'factual details' concerning the root are derived from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Devil's Foot. Whether the writer for Lloydia was acting the devil by trying to fool his colleagues into accepting the fiction as fact (if so then this is truly dead pan humour for there is no levity in this journal!) or whether he simply put his foot in it and was duped himself is something we will perhaps never get to the root of. My suspicion is that the joke was not on him for his article is adorned by a drawing of the root which, to my knowledge, is not found in any edition of Conan Doyle's book.
Sources: De Smet 1996, Du Toit 1975, Rätsch 1992, Schultes 1977, Tyler 1966, Winkelman and de Rios 1989.
ALKALOID
Basic organic compound of plant origin containing at least one nitrogen atom and usually causing marked physiological or psychological effects.
AMANITA MUSCARIA see Fly-Agaric
AMANITA PANTHERINA
Contrary to popular opinion, the panther fungus (Amanita pantherina) is not one of the deadly Amanitas (A. verna, A. phalloides) but a hallucinogenic species akin to Amanita muscaria (see Fly-Agaric ). It has been a popular recreational drug in North America since the 1960s, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Psychoactive effects begin 2–3 hours after consumption and last 6–8 hours, depending on dosage. Jonathan Ott notes visual distortions, loss of equilibrium, mild muscle twitching and altered auditory and visual perceptions as the most significant effects. As is the case with Amanita muscaria, the psychoactive principle (ibotenic acid in its active form, muscimol) is voided unaltered in the consumer's urine. Whilst the experiences of intentional users have been, in the main, positive, many of those who have accidentally eaten Amanita pantherina reported adverse effects and required hospital treatment. The medical use of atropine in treating such cases has the opposite of the desired effect as it actually increases the effects of the drug it is supposed to neutralise. This demonstrates how poorly understood the properties of this mushroom are in medical circles. Although actual poisoning may occur in cases of excessive dosage, most negative experiences with this mushroom seem to be, at least in part, due to psychosomatic symptoms having their origin in the mycophobia (irrational and morbid fear of mushrooms and other fungi) of those who unwittingly consume them.
Sources: Ott 1993, Weil 1977.
AMPHETAMINES
Amphetamines are a group of chemically related synthetic stimulant drugs. They have a structural resemblance to norepinephrine (NE), a chemical transmitter which is produced naturally by the body. Its chemical make-up is also similar to the psychoactive constituents of the plant Ephedra (see Ephedra ), which has an extremely long history of use as a stimulant, perhaps going back 50,000 years to Neanderthal man. Amphetamines increase mental activity and physical energy as well as giving a euphoric feeling to the user.
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Excerpted from The Encyclopaedia of Psychoative Substances by Richard Rudgley. Copyright © 1998 Richard Rudgley. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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