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| Magical potions | | October
7, 2002. | There is no doubt that the purpose
of drug consumption, a habit whose roots are found in the most primitive of cultures,
is to attain altered states of consciousness. However its use also entails a high
risk of death from asphyxiation, heart attack or kidney failure, as well as serious
effects on the vegetative and central nervous systems. In
ancient Mexican cultures such as the Aztec and the Maya, the spirit could leave
the body either in a voluntary or involuntary fashion. Involuntary events occur
during sleep, orgasms, as a result of a big scare or due to a spell, while the
voluntary ones are brought about basically through an ecstatic trance, resulting
from practices aimed at spiritual perfection like fasts, insomnia, sexual abstinence,
self-sacrifice, meditation, self-hypnosis, rhythmic dance and song, as well as
through the use of psychoactive products like mushrooms, plants or animals. Thus
ecstatic trances are voluntary detachments of the spirit, through which one can
reach other spheres of reality, often considered as the home of divine beings,
i.e. a place of communication with the gods. For this reason, not all can nor
should attain the trance stage, but rather only those who have been chosen as
media between man and the gods: the "anuales" (men-beast-sorcerers in
the ancient cultures of Mexico), healers or shamans, who can attain altered states
by ingesting or applying psychotropic plants. In the belief
of Native American Indians, the sacred plants and mushrooms are home to deities
who can grant the power to communicate with them in sacred places. But if those
elements are assimilated by someone who does not know how to handle them and is
not prepared either spiritually or ritually for the contact with the sacred, the
power can prove to be fatal, like the lightning bolt that calcifies bones or the
snake that injects its destructive venom. Curiously, apart
from human beings, there is evidence of the use of psychoactive substances or
drugs in wildlife too. The Tucano Indians of Columbia believe that jaguars regularly
chew a hallucinogenic liana called "yaje". The tribe's shaman uses the
same plants in his rituals. After taking the plant, the shaman believes that he
has been transported to a kingdom where he may communicate with the animal spirits
and transform himself into an animal, most often a jaguar. It
is known that when the natives take the "yaje", their visual capacity
is sharpened and their sensory state becomes super-sensitive. They believe that
the plant has the same effect on the jaguar, which in turn increases its hunting
powers markedly. Though these observations are only speculative, it may not be
impossible to establish that jaguars have learned to consume this drug, improving
their sense of smell or sight to be more successful in their hunt for prey. For
its part, the brown lemur of the Isle of Madagascar appears to enjoy the little
bites it gives millipedes with its lips. It turns out that every time the lemur
bites the millipede, it is stimulated because the latter releases a toxic compound
based on cyanide, as a means of self-defense. The primate uses this to fumigate
its own fur coat, thus keeping free of parasites and malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
But besides helping to get rid of parasites, the compound also has a narcotic
effect on the lemur that can last for as long as 20 minutes, and which manifests
itself as an expression of happiness: The eyes pop out, the head droops and the
lemur is on another plane, away from reality. Something
similar is practiced by South American Capuchin monkeys, but instead of making
this activity a solitary one like the lemur, it becomes an entire social event.
Groups of up to four monkeys get a hold of a millipede, giving it little bites
to stimulate the secretion of the narcotic and then pass it along to the next
monkey in line. Like human drug addicts, the monkeys are taking a big risk with
their health when they indulge in this practice because the cyanide produced by
the millipede is highly toxic and carcinogenic. On the
other hand, it is believed that the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms by
reindeer is what later gave rise to the Santa Claus myth. For many centuries,
the Sami tribe of Siberia (the Laplanders), has followed the herds of reindeer
during their migrations with the purpose of getting food and clothing from them.
During those treks, the reindeer look for hallucinogenic mushrooms to eat. In
order to communicate with the reindeer -considered to be the reincarnation of
the Great Spirit-, the shamans consume the same mushroom, even drink the urine
of the intoxicated animals to reach the state of ecstasy. In their trance, the
shamans experience the sensation of flying and traveling through space …which
invariably brings to mind the Christmas images of flying reindeer pulling a red
sled through the heavens. In Africa, the fruit of the
"Marula" tree are an irresistible attraction to elephants, so much so
that the trees are called the "elephant's tree". This is due to the
fact that when the fruit is consumed by the enormous mammals, it ferments in their
stomachs, causing a light state of drunkenness. But not all elephants become peaceful
drunks… For example, when Indian elephants get drunk on the mature fruit,
they shed their inhibitions and run amuck in stampedes like crazy beings, destroying
villages that lie in their path. This happens because the level of alcohol caused
by the fruit's fermentation in their stomachs can reach up to 7 degrees, a little
higher than regular Mexican beer. Recent discoveries related
to the use of drugs by animals, whether for medical or narcotic purposes, confirm
our close relationship with the wildlife that inhabits the planet and also that
the use of those stimulants by the human species resides deep in its zoo-spiritual
sub-consciousness. cupul@pvmirror.com Archives
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