Shamanic or Sacred Plants and their Historic and Current Uses

This strange world has provided humans with all their needs (or we’ve evolved ascreatures who can live using what is available?). What needs are these? We allfirst think of food, clothing, shelter and sex. But once these needs are met whatelse do we look for? We look for our spirits to be nurtured. Some paint or writestories or sing or dance. Some feel drawn to explore their inner depths.Just about the earliest explorations happened with the help of various plants thatwere available to people. It’s stunning to realize how many people must havedied from ingesting the wrong plants before it was known which plants worked asfood and which gave amazing effects on the mind and spirit. Over time therewas a body of knowledge passed down generation to generation.There are few cultures in the Western Hemisphere that did not value at least onehallucinogenic plant in magico-religious ceremonies. Many cultures had several.In addition to hallucinogens, a number of otherwise psychoactive plants sharedthe honors: Tobacco, Coca, Guayusa, Yoca, Guaranca

′

. Some of those –especially tobacco and coca – rose to exalted positions in the sacred nativepharmacopoeias.One of the earliest used psychoactive plants was actually a fungus, the

AmanitaMuscaria or Fly Agaric

. Amanita is a beautiful mushroom growing in thinforests. We are most familiar with the ones with a red cap and white warts. Somealso have yellow or orange caps with yellow warts and the Pantherina has a graycap. The Amanita Muscaria has been identified as the Soma taken by theAryans of ancient India.The Finno-Ugrian peoples of Siberia are well known to have used Amanitaextensively and notoriously even drank the urine of those who had ingested it soas not to waste any. They are said to have fed it to their reindeer, which mayaccount for the flying legends in the Santa Claus myths.The

Blue Lotus or Blue Water Lily

(Nymphaea Caerulea, N. Ampla, N.Capensis or N. Alba) were very prominent in ancient Egyptian mythology and inthe Mayan world. The ancients worshipped Blue Lotus as a visionary plant and itwas the symbol for the origins of life. When Blue Lotus was smoked or drunkafter being soaked in water or wine, it acted as an intoxicant.Another well known shamanic plant is the

Peyote

cactus. 16

CenturySpaniards discovered and wrote about use of Peyote by the Aztec Indians. Theyfound Peyote firmly established in native religions, and their efforts to stamp outthis practice drove it into hiding in the hills, where its sacramental use haspersisted to the present time. It is used today by some Mexican Indians and bymembers of the Native American Church in the United States. Peyote is a