Hey welcome Slipperystairs,
I've seen your posts on Reddit, glad to have you here. This is a great friendly community that it looks like you will fit right into. I have a plethora of trichocereus seeds and I will definitely be able to share some to get you going on cacti.
brugmansia and datura are facinating plants, seems like you are really into the "witchy" plants. We are not allowed to discuss consumption of plants here, but can you tell me a little about what the historical uses of these plants have been? I know they are strong medicinals that we get scopolamine and atropine two meds that I see alot working in the medical field.
Thanks! I find the history of the utilization of nightshades to be probably the most interesting of all entheogenic plants—also the most mysterious, strange, and confusing. I get a strange feeling when I’m in proximity with a nightshade. They tend to stop even regular people in their tracks, too when they come across one. They feel deeply mysterious and otherwordly, even the eggplant. The only other plant that comes close to evoking such a strong, mystical response is the papaver somniferum, and even then, I think that may be because of our more modern mythology surrounding them. They have the witchcraft association, but far more interesting—in my opinion—is their use by indigenous peoples. There’s an odd universality between disparate Native American groups (spanning South America to North America) in regards to to usage, sacredness, and preparation of datura and brugmansia. So much so, that they’ve used the commonalities to make hypotheses about the migration pattern of native groups; I hold a more Jungian-Collective-unconscious point of view, hence my interest. Nightshades were almost universally used to commune with dead people, usually deceased ancestors. They were usually used at puberty or post puberty, but they’ve even been given to children so that deceased ancestors may discipline and “set them straight.” They’ve also been almost universally used to find lost things. This usage perplexes me a bit. Here’s a great (and free) book on the utilization of datura by native Americans.
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=PkhIAQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-PkhIAQAAMAAJ&rdot=1This, of course, segues into the more modern witchcraft usage we often associate with nightshades today. This is a more opaque area of study because we’re still in midst of that mythology. We’re not very far removed from hanging and burning the people that may have used these plants in such a manner. Because of that, and the strange hysteria that the puritanical, early American Christians created around all this, I’m not sure it’s possible to separate lore and urban legend from fact. It’s said that they made salves and ointments (brews, I guess) and put them on the handles of brooms and absorbed the concoction through the mucosa in the groin. Apparently, these brews supposedly create the sensation of flying, though I’ve primarily read about that in the context of henbane. I’m not sure if this is just a fitful, ex post facto explanation of witchcraft or if there is actually evidence. I’ve also seen aconite mentioned as another explanation. It’s a frustrating area of study because everything above Twilight-saga level bullshit is behind ridiculous scientific journal paywalls—toxicology journals seem to be the best resources.
Then there’s the relatively credible explanation that zombies, especially in the context of Haitian voodoo, are simply people under the influence of nightshades. They put people in an incredibly suggestible, powerless state. It’s so extreme that it’s used as a date-rape(esque) drug in Latin America wherein the victim will willingly take his/her attackers home, let them rob him of everything he owns, and actually help them move the heavy stuff. Here’s the most interesting of the Haitian voodoo cases:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvius_NarcisseFinally, the US military experimented extensively with—at first—these plants before moving onto synthetic derivatives and analogues in their search for the perfect chemical weapon. It’s the closest they ever came to a non-lethal chemical weapon. Ironically enough, these compounds (and all of the tropane nightshades) are effective antidotes to nerve gas poisoning. Here’s a fascinating book on the subject by one of the senior physicians that ran the military program:
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-n4Fzxn9i0_qzuY_D/page/n9The nightshades are still grown for pharmaceutical purposes, and you can still get a prescription for belladonna extracts. Atropine and scopalamine remain the absolute cornerstones of diagnostic pharmacology today. Sorry for the long post, but these are truly fascinating plants. It saddens me when people call them poisonous as I feel that’s an extremely disingenuous representation.
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Topic: Hi! I was referred here on reddit. I’m working on a ~1 acre entheogenic garden (Read 7515 times)