THE MOST IMPORTANT HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTS

Of the ninety-seven hallucinogens in the lexicon. Several reasons underlie our selection. Most of these plants are or have been so culturally and materially important in aboriginal societies that they cannot be overlooked. A few are of special botanical or chemical interest. Others are of great antiquity. Still others have recently been discovered or identified. And the use of one has spread throughout the modern world and is now of vital importance.

Anianita muscaria (Fly Agaric), one of the oldest hallucinogens, is employed in both hemispheres and is biochemically significant, since its active principle is atypically excreted unmetabolized.

The use of Peyote (Lophophora williamsii), of great antiquity, has now spread from its original Mexican homeland to Texas in the United States, where it is the basis of a new Indian religion. Its main psychoactive alkaloid, mescaline, is utilized in psychiatry.

The religious use of mushrooms — known as Teonanácatl — in Mexico and Guatemala is ancient and was firmly established among the Aztec Indians at the time of the Conquest. Their psychoactive constituents are novel structures not known in any other plants.

Of similar importance, and as ancient, are the seeds of several Morning Glories. Their use has persisted until the present in southern Mexico. Of great chemo-taxonomic interest, their psychoactive constituents are found only in an unrelated group of fungi, containing Ergot, which may have been hallucinogenically important in ancient Greece.

Deadly Nightshade, Henbane, and Mandrake were the main ingredients of the witches' brews of medieval Europe, where they long exerted a great cultural and historical influence.

In both hemispheres, Datura played highly significant roles in native cultures. The related Brugniansia is still employed as one of the principal hallucinogens in South America.

Archaeology indicates that the South American cactus Trichocereus pachanoi has a long history, although it has only recently been identified as a principal hallucinogen of the central Andes.

The most significant African hallucinogen is Iboga, employed in initiation rituals and to communicate with ancestors. Spreading today in Gabon and the Congo, it is a unifying culture trait deterring the intrusion of foreign customs from Western society.

The intoxicating drink prepared from Banisteriopsis holds a place of cultural primacy throughout the western Amazon. Known in Peru as Ayahuasca (vine of the soul"), it allows the soul to leave the body and wander freely, communicating with the spirit world. Its psychoactive principles are 13-carbolines and tryptamines.

Three snuffs are of importance in certain South American cultures. One, in the western Amazon, is prepared from a resin like liquid produced in the bark of several species of Virola. The others, made from the beans of a species of Anadenanth era and used in the Orinoco, adjacent Amazon, and Argentina, was formerly also valued in the West Indies. Both snuffs play significant roles in the life of many Indian groups and are of chemical interest, since their active principles are tryptamines.

Pituri is the most important psychoactive substance in Australia.

Cannabis, an ancient Asiatic hallucinogen, is now used in nearly all parts of the world. An understanding of its roles in primitive societies may help elucidate its popularity in Western culture. Some of the fifty chemical structures found in Cannabis are medically promising.

A long chapter could well be written about any of the more than ninety species which have been enumerated in the plant lexicon. But in the interest of space, the following have been treated in greater detail for the reasons outlined.

By Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann and Christian Rätsch in "Plants of the God", Healing Arts Press, USA, excerpt p.81. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.