| In 1937, the active ingredient was isolated from adananthera peregrina, otherwise known as Yopo or cohoba. The plant is in the family of Acacias and is used by the Taino people as a snuff by grinding down the seeds and making a powder, as previously discussed. In 1965, it was first discovered that it occurred naturally in the Bufo Averius toad of the Sonoran Desert. (100) James Oroc wrote an excellent book on tryptamines called, Tryptamine Palace, which I hereby quote from: “Bufotenine (5-HO-DMT) is also found in a variety of plants, mushrooms, and in human blood and urine. 5-MeO-DMT is the methyl ether version of bufotenine.” (101) DMT itself, has been found in human blood and urine (102) and 5-MeO DMT has been found in human cerebrospinal fluid. (103) On the pharmacological similarity of DMT to psilocybin mushrooms, Ott and Bigwood, in the book Teonanacatl, write: “Mainly from these findings and considering that nearly all natural indole compounds contain a tryptamine radical, it could be concluded that psilocybin would possess the structure of 4-phosphoryloxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine and psilocin of 4-hydroxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine. (104) Psilocin is 4-HO-DMT. The connection between the Amanita Muscaria which links the toad to the mushroom is the presence of bufotenin, which occurs naturally in poisonous toads as well as A. muscaria. This may be the key to understanding the connection of the toad in alchemy works of the middle ages. Blue Lotus Flower Finally, the Lotus (Nymphaeaceae) can contain psychoactive properties, (105) such as the Blue Lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) which is reported to have effects similar to MDMA. The Lotus is depicted in ancient art among Egyptians, Mayans, Persians and Hindus. Rather than being a main entheogenic plant used for real mind escapades, the lotus may have served a similar function, which would be to occult and disguise the true sacrament, the mushroom. Over and over, throughout history and the ancient world, similar objects, whether it’s a fig, a date palm, an apple, a pomegranate, red berries, or even opium, datura or mead, are used to occult and replace the mushroom in symbolism while leaving the underlying hidden meaning intact. It would be interesting to see if high quality psychedelics can be produced with Blue Lotus or by its mixture, somehow. Ergonovine & LSD In 1975, Albert Hoffman visited with Gordan Wasson and Wasson proposed the question of whether or not ergot may have been synthesized for the celebrations at Eleusis. Hoffman provided an answer to Wasson and the resulting information was published in The Road to Eleusis in 1978. Personally, I find every one of Wasson’s books as well as |
Ruck’s work, essential reading. After many years of careful thought on the subject, I’m not altogether satisfied that ergot was the source for the magical potion at Eleusis. The theories proposed so far have basis for them, but the methods for obtaining a reasonably safe LSD or LSA substance from ergot with nothing more than alcohol and water has never really been put forth, as far as I know. Though we can synthesize LSA more easily from Morning Glory seeds or Hawaiian Woodrose, I still do not think this was what they did. This would have required the importation of tons of seeds to supply the initiates and celebrants. I’m suspect they used mushrooms, not amanita, but a local variety of psilocybin mushrooms. They used the grain symbol for the harvest to cover for the mushroom harvest, since this is what had been done all over the Mediterranean and Middle East for centuries previous starting, I estimate, around 350-400 BC. This was also the beginning of what became the Roman Republic. It seems a collaboration between early Greeks and Etruscans led to the replacement of the mushroom harvest rites with grain harvest rites. I’m inclined also to think the priests of Eleusis preserved the mushrooms from the previous year’s harvest in honey, then gave wafers of some kind served with honey on them or mixed the honey into greater quantity of milk, so as to sweeten the milk, then it became a drink to be consumed. This is just as, or more plausible an explanation as a potion being made from ergot extracts. In Eleusis, one of the very good arguments Ruck makes for the use of ergot at Eleusis is the idea of the corn mother’s children being “rye wolves” and the seigle ivre (“drunken rye”). (107) I think this is significant, however, it’s not substantial enough to me to prove the theory. In the Yasna part of the Zend Avesta, the sacred book of the Persee, which is supposed to date from 400 BC to 300 BC, there occurs the following passage: “Among the evil things created by Angro Maynes are noxious grasses that cause pregnant women to drop the womb and die in child-bed.” There is little doubt this alluded to the ergot infected grasses which grow commonly in the east. (100) Tryptamine Palace, 5-MEO DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad – A Journey from Burning Man to the Akashic Field, Park Street Press, VT, 2009, p. 23; V. Erspamer et al., "5-Methoxy and 5-hydroxyindoles in the skin of Bufo Alvarius," Experientia 21 (1965): 504 (101) Tryptamine Palace, p. 23 (102) See Fr. Franzen and H. Gross, “Tryptamine, N, N-Dimethyltryptamine, N, N-Dimethyltryptamine-5-hydroxytryptamine and 5-Methoxytryptamine in Human Blood and Urine,”, Nature 206 (1965):1052 (103) S.T. Christian et al.., “Gas-Liquid Chromatographic Separation and Identification of Biologically Important Indolealkylamines from Human Cerebrospinal Fluid,” Biochemical Medicine 14 (1975): 191-200 (104) Teonanactle, p. 54 (105) Hallucinogenic Plants of North America Ott 1976, p. 97 (106) Apples of Apollo, p. 115 (107) The Road to Eleusis, Unveiling the Secret of The Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, Carl, A. Ruck, North Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 36 |