| One of the primary accusations against witches of the Middle Ages was their ability to change men into animals or beasts. This brings up the subject of Lycanthropy; people who go out late at night acting like wolves. Some of the affects reported by those who have witnessed this state of being include paleness, weak vision, dry eyes and mouth and ulcerations on the body from frequent falls. These are also characteristic of the use of atropines according to Torald Sollman. (42) Michael Harner quotes the authors of Narcotics and Drug Addiction, when he writes: “A characteristic feature of Solanaceae psychosis is furthermore that the intoxicated person images himself to have been changed into some animal, and the hallucinosis is completed by the sensation of the growing feathers and hair, probably due to main paraethesic.” (43) In 1584, John Baptista Porta, author of Natural Magick, writes: “To make a man believe he was changed into a Bird or Beast,” a potion was drunk which was made from henbane, mandrake, stramonium or Solanum manicum, and belladonna. Under its effects, “the man would seem sometimes to be changed into a fish; and flinging out his arms, would swim on the Ground: sometimes he would seem to skip up, and then to dive down again. Another would believe himself turned into a Goose, and would eat Grass, and beat the ground with his Teeth, like a Goose: now and then sing, and endeavor to clap his Wings.” (44) During the 7th century AD, Paulus Aegineta wrote about it in his medical texts. Early Norse writings which deal with the subject portray it in a positive light. The following was extracted in part from an article titled, Battling demons with medical authority: werewolves, physicians and rationalization by Nadine Metzger: “In the ancient Norwegian Völsunga saga, the heroes transform into wolves with the help of a ring, allowing them to use the physical and mental characteristics of the wolf to their advantage in order to complete tasks befitting warriors.” (45) In contrast, the most famous tale of wolf transformation from Graeco-Roman antiquity, as found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (VII.265–71), for example, tells of the Arcadian King Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf after offering the god Zeus a butchered child as a sacrifice, a gross transgression.” “A further perspective on wolves and wolf transformations is offered by a tradition which emerged towards the end of the twelfth century in both ethnographic reports and literary texts, and which can be traced back to Celtic sources. (46) Here, in contrast to the Graeco-Roman and Nordic traditions, the werewolves are described as gentle characters, suffering under their often involuntary transformation. The travel reports of Gerald of Wales (c. 1146–1223) contain numerous tales from Ireland and Wales, including one in the Topographia Hibernica (II.19), in which he tells of an encounter between a priest whom he befriended and a werewolf. The old werewolf supposedly asked the priest for communion and last rites for his wife, who also lived in the form of a wolf. Further examples are passed down by his contemporary Gervasius of Tilbury.” (47) |
Fortunately for humanity, there were several writers in the 16th century who could think clearly without the aura of superstition clouding their minds. Two of these fellows were Nyauld (48) who wrote, “all shapeshifting is merely hallucination” and Jean Beauvois de Chauvincourt (49) who talked about, “unguents, powders, potions, and noxious herbs, which are able to dazzle all who come under their baleful and magic influence.” (50) All of this, we should be reminded was in stark contrast to the goings on inside the church at the highest levels. Cited in the book Mushrooms, Myths and Mithras, Ruck, Hoffman and Celdren quote an impressive text from the 16th century which I requote below. In the year 1596, a monk named Vylinja or Vylenskyji, was writing in response to several “renegade” monks who, I suppose had joined the Roman Catholic church: “When the names of the forty martyrs were pronounced by the archpriest, there began to grow from the foot of the holy table a holy mushroom with its cap in the shape of forty apples, which ascended over the holy table and overshadowed the entire sanctuary. And for this most glorious miracle all present gave glory to God and to the forty martyrs. And then all the infirm found in the cloister were healed through the tasting of the holy mushroom. And this miracle was pronounced throughout the entire ecumene and great multitudes were healed.” (51) We can see a clear and continuous pattern of engagement by the Catholic Church in the use and possession of the knowledge of the psychedelic mushroom. We first traced back the knowledge from the time of late Greece and the first Etruscans all the way up through the dark and middle ages. Another important part of the medieval era was the introduction of the great alchemical works. This subject will be covered after an introduction to the Spanish conquest of Amaruka and the last major advance of the march towards power and world imperialism for the Catholic Church. (42) Torald Sollmann, Manual of Pharmacology, 1957, 392 (43) Hallucinogens and Shmanism, p. 141-42; Erich Hesse, Frank Gaynor, Narcotics and Drug Addiction, 1946, p. 103-4 (44) ibid, p. 141-42 (45) Diederichs, 1985: 17–18, 21–2; Höilund Nielsen, 2007: 163 (46) Roberts, 1999: 596; Salisbury, 1994: 164 (47) Otia Imperialia, III.120). (National Institute of Health study titled, Battling demons with medical authority: werewolves, physicians and rationalization by Nadine Metzger; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4090416/ (48) De la Lycanthropie, Paris, 1615 (49) Discours de la lycanthropie ou De la transformation des hommes en loups : 1599 (50) Hallucinogens and Shamanism, p. 144 (51) Mushrooms, Myths and Mithra, p. 200-201; Harvey Goldplatt: Notes on the Text of Ivan Vylenskyji's Epistle to the Renegade Bishops"; 47-75, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 18, no. 1/2 (June 1994, Cambridge, MA.: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard Univ.) special issue Ukrainian Philology and Linguistics |