Anhalonium lewinii Anhang
[Veronika Rampold]
Thementitel Abteilung GEIST und GEMÜT
1) Zeitsinn, Schnelligkeit, Langsamkeit
2) Erwartung von etwas Großem, einer Umwälzung, Offenbarung, Geheimnis,
Zauber; Feierlichkeit, Pathos, Bedeutungsschwere, Monumentalität; Gegenpol:
Nüchternheit, Sachlichkeit, langweilige Alltäglichkeit
3) Schöpfung, Urzeugung, Urphänomen, Erschaffen durch Zerstören, Chaos
4) Vorzeit, Geschichte, Antike, Erinnerung
5) „Anderwelten"
6) Trennung zusammengehöriger Dinge, Zweiheit, Vielheit, schizophren
sein, an mehreren Orten zugleich sein; Einswerdung
von Subjekt und Objekt oder von Unvereinbarem, Fusion, Synästhesie,
Assoziativität, Beziehungswahn; „Dreieinigkeit"
7) Verlust der Wertzumessung
8) Auflösung des Körpers
9) Ohne Gesicht, ohne Hände, ohne Individualität, ohne Ich, Insekt sein
versus Mensch sein
10) Selbstbetrachtung
11) Unsicherheit über Realität und Illusion; glaubt, verrückt geworden
zu sein; glaubt, reale Eindrücke seien halluziniert, muß
kontrollieren, was real ist und was nicht, Fremdheit der bekannten Umgebung;
oder halluzinierte Bilder erscheinen realer als die Wirklichkeit
12) Als handelnder Mensch minderwertig, in der Realität kümmerlich,
aber in der Phantasie überlegen, erhaben, göttlich; Nietzsche
13) Kritik, Ironie, Karikatur, Theater, Komödie
14) Sich selbst wehtun, Lust am Schmerz („Masochismus"), sich auf
wecken durch Schmerz
15) Starres Bild zerstören, Götzen verbrennen, Fesseln brechen,
Autoritäten verspotten, Widerspenstigkeit
16) Scham, Schüchternheit, sich vorbeibenehmen, Verlegenheit, Blamage;
Bruch von Konventionen,
Hemmungslosigkeit
17) Hellsichtigkeit, Erleuchtung
18) Trance, Dämmerzustand, Stumpfheit, Stupor.
19) Klarheit / Wachheit vs. Verwirrung / Benebelung der Sinne und
Gedanken; Logik vs. Schizophrenie
20) Behagen, Euphorie, Seligkeit, Ekstase, Friede, vs. Unruhe, Furcht,
Angst, Schrecken, Düsternis
21) Energie, Kraftbewußtsein,
Unermüdlichkeit, Verleugnung von Furcht und Müdigkeit
22) Faulheit, Desinteresse an Arbeit, Verlust des
Verantwortungsgefühls; oder: Fleiß, Arbeit geht leicht
23) Heiter wie beschwipst; albern; Realität erscheint lächerlich;
unfreiwilliges Lachen
24) Offenherzig, aufrichtig, öffentlich, schamlos
25) Kindliches Verhalten und Empfinden
26) Übertreibung, Schwindeln
27) Ergebung, Passivität, Kapitulieren
28) Machtlosigkeit des Willens, die Willenskraft muß
sich der Suggestion beugen, Fremdbeeinflussung, Hypnose, Maschine, Automat,
Roboter, Zombie
29) Macht der Phantasie, der Gedanken, der Autosuggestion, der
Achtsamkeit
30) Kampfkraft: Krieg, Räuber, Soldaten, Marschieren, Waffen,
„Härte", Mut, Gefahr, Abgrenzung, Immunität; „weiche", freundliche
Stimmung, Harmoniewunsch, Abwehrschwäche, Furchtsamkeit
31) Paranoia, fühlt sich gereizt, gequält, verlacht, abgelehnt,
kritisiert, ausspioniert usw.
32) Sprechen und Sich ausdrücken („Selbstdarstellung"), Schreiben,
„mimischer Affektausdruck"
33) Menschliche Beziehung: Einsamkeit, Autismus, Isolation, Heimweh, Trauer,
(Un)-Verständnis, Verschmelzung der Seelen,
Identifikation, Familie
34) Sehen von Wesen, Tieren, Personen und Geistern
35) Religiöse Bilder, Beten
36) Heiligung, Beichten, Gewissen, Sünde
37) Todessymbole, Todesahnung, Todesangst, Suizidalität
38) Prachtvoll farbige Bilder, Farbvisionen, Farbenströme, erhöhte
Farbempfindlichkeit, „schattenloses Licht", ungegenständliche oder
geometrische Farbfiguren
39) Pflanzenstrukturen, organische Strukturen
40) Architektur: Türme, „gotische Dome", Gewölbe, Gebäude, Säle,
räumliche Gebilde, Perspektive, Plastizität
41) Zeichen, Symbole, triviale Gegenstände
42) Details, Kleinigkeiten
43) Verzerrtes Körperschema, verzerrte (groteske) Visionen, Verzerrung
gehörter Geräusche, kinästhetische Übersensibilität, Tastsinnstörung
44) Hören von Stimmen; Gesang, Musik, Glocken; Rhythmus, Klopfen; Hyperästhesie oder Trübung des Gehörsinns
45) Steigerung und Illusionen des Geruchsinns
46) Fliegen, Schweben, Fallen
47) Unsichere Raumorientierung, unbeholfene Bewegung, Verzerrungen des
Raums, Bewegungen im Raum
48) Nahrungstrieb (Hunger, Durst, Essen, Geschmackssinn, Salz, Fleisch,
Wurst, Brot, Tisch)
49) Ekel, Verdruß, Widerwille, Nausea
50) Würmer.
51) Kälte- und Hitzeempfindungen
52) Druck: Druckempfindungen, Engegefühle, Bedrückung
53) Tetanus, Krampfanfall, Zuckungen
54) Herz, Blutdruck
55) Akinesie
56) Denken gleich Schauen
57) Ästhetik, Schönheit
58) Demut, Bescheidenheit, will nichts für sich verlangen, das Ego wird
zuwider.
59) Urteilskraft und Verurteilen
60) Wasser, Schwimmen, Durst
61) Gitterwerk, Vernetzung
Symbolik und miasmatische Dynamik nach A. Masi-Elizalde
IV
11) Unsicherheit über Realität und Illusion
(Glaubt, verrückt geworden zu sein, oder daß
reale Eindrücke halluziniert seien, muß
kontrollieren, was real ist und was nicht, Fremdheit der bekannten Umgebung;
oder halluzinierte Bilder erscheinen realer als die Wirklichkeit.)
1.
Die Huichol beten auf der Peyor/-Pilgerschaft
zum Geist des Peyotl, daß
die Pflanze sie nicht verrückt machen möge. Es ist dies die letzte der vielen
Zeremonien vor
2.
der rituellen
Berauschung.
2. Viele Probanden glaubten unter Meskalin fest, sie seien schizophren;
einige auch, sie würden es bleiben und als Patienten in der Psychiatrischen
Klinik leben müssen.
3. „Gefühl der Verrücktheit" (5. T., 21 Uhr); „Gefühl von
Schweben, Taumeln, Trunksucht" (7. T.) (Prüferin 3).
4. „Deutliches Mißtrauen gegen die
Zuverlässigkeit meiner sinnlichen Beobachtung; im Alkoholrausch hatte ich (der
an Alkohol gewöhnte Prüfer) dieses
Gefühl bisher nie in diesem Maße" (Arzt 5, n. 400 mg Meskalin sc.).
5. Das (wirklich erlebte) gemeinsame Mittagessen erscheint ihm
hinterher als „sehr unwahrscheinliches Erlebnis", und als er zum Kaffee
geholt wird,
•will er anfangen zu lachen und ausrufen, das ganze sei eine Täuschung,
denn es sei ja erst Mittagessenszeit (Medizinstudent 4, nach 400 mg Meskalin sc.).
6. Im Nachstadium des Rausches versucht er dauernd festzustellen, ob
seine Gefühle oder Empfindungen „wieder normale Reaktionen auf normale
Reize" seien, ob seine Eindrücke real oder halluziniert seien; Zustand
abwechselnd zwischen normalem Bewußtsein und völliger
Unsicherheit, ob das Wahrgenommene nicht doch alles Illusion
sei; dadurch „völlige Halt- und Aktionslosigkeit", Unfähigkeit,
irgendeine Handlung auszuführen, und Idee, wahnsinnig zu sein. „Ich saß am
Fenster und schaute hinaus,
ich konnte nicht (heraus)finden, in welchem Stockwerk wir wohl seien,
alles war so still und ruhig, und ich fühlte mich so trostlos einsam.
Plötzlich sah ich die Eisenstäbe vor dem Fenster, kam nicht mehr davon
los und dachte: „So, nun bist du also verrückt und in der Klinik." Das
machte mich ganz ruhig und zufrieden. Plötzlich wurde ich wieder klarer, stand
auf, ging an ein Fenster, öffnete es, schloß es, ließ
es klappen, spürte die frische Luft, die Kühle des Metalls; es war kein
Zweifel, das war Wirklichkeit. An diesem Fenstergriff habe ich mich
gewissermaßen in die Wirklichkeit gezogen. Ich ging auf Entdeckungsreisen; auf
dem Bücherbrett ein Buch über „Psychiatrie für Ärzte", das konnte keine
Phantasie sein. Ich untersuchte einen Projektionsapparat, ... Mit diesem
Entdecken der Wirklichkeit und der damit verbundenen Sicherheit des Daseins kam,
hauptsächlich im Garten, als ich die Zweige und Bäume betastete, ein Gefühl
über mich, das ich zu den angenehmsten rechne" (Medizinstudent 4, nach 500
mg Meskalin sc.). (21) *
7. Immer stärkere allgemeine Unsicherheit; „mir war es, als ob ich mir
selber entglitt", fühlt, wie sie immer mehr die Gewalt über sich verliert.
Weiß nicht mehr, ob sie wirklich die Poliklinik verlassen hat. Weiß nicht mehr,
warum sie und ihre Kollegen in das Wartezimmer gehen, und auch nicht, daß sie Meskalin erhalten hat. Das Hinübergehen und ihr
eigenes Gefühl des Automatenhaften erscheinen ihr „geheimnisvoll,
verdächtig", alles ist „sonderbar, unheimlich", zwischendurch hört
sie etwas von Federhaltern sagen, und „da wurde mir klar: Du hast eine
Psychose, man ist schon ins Wartezimmer gegangen, damit du gleich auf die
Frauenabteilung geschafft werden kannst, nun werden nur noch die schriftlichen
Formalitäten erledigt" und glaubt neben sich bereits einen Arzt jener
Frauenabteilung zu bemerken. Als der neben ihr sitzende Kollege, der ihr
ebenfalls fremd vor kommt, etwas zu ihr sagt, erkennt sie ihn wieder und
erinnert sich auch wieder, daß sie im Meskalinrausch
ist. Während des ganzen Rausches hält,
mit Unterbrechungen, dieses sehr quälende Gefühl an, eine Psychose zu
haben, zugleich mit dem Zweifel, reale Geschehnisse seien in Wirklichkeit nur
ihre eigenen Halluzinationen, reale Menschen nur eingebildete Figuren und deren
Handeln nur Folge ihrer eigenen Autosuggestion. Als ein Kollege bei Tisch zu
ihr sagt, sie solle doch etwas essen, ißt sie nicht,
weil sie ihn für ein Trugbild hält und denkt „von einer halluzinierten Gestalt laß ich mir nichts sagen". Selbst daran, wirklich
Meskalin erhalten zu haben, wirklich Medizin studiert zu haben usw. zweifelt
sie und fragt sich am Schluß sogar: „Wer bin ich denn
überhaupt?" Will von der ganzen Umwelt nichts mehr wissen, weil sie doch
nie sicher sein kann, was Halluzination ist und was Wirklichkeit (Psychiaterin,
nach 300 mg Meskalin sc.). (21) *
8. Das Hausmädchen V. kam herein; „auf dem Tisch war zum Mittagessen
gedeckt, mir erschien das so fremdartig. Ich zweifelte stark, ob der Anblick
der V., mit der eine Erinnerung an das Essen während des ersten Arzneiversuchs
verknüpft war, bei mir da vielleicht auf unbewußt
autosuggestivem Wege einen gedeckten Tisch hingezaubert hatte"
(Psychiaterin, nach 300 mg Meskalin sc., zweiter
Arzneiversuch). (21) *
9. Halluziniert, daß „sich der Fußboden
vollkommen in ein farbiges Geschiebe von leicht wogenden, zum Teil
kristallinischen Formen auflöste; in diesen Anblick versank ich, ohne im Geringsten
über das Aufhören (sie) des festen Bodens beunruhigt zu sein". Als er
mitten in diesem halluzinierten Bild einen realen Klavierhocker erkennt und anfaßt, löst sich das Trugbild auf; ebenso eine Farbvision
an der Wand, die um einen realen weißen Fleck herum angeordnet ist, durch
Berühren desselben. Später beklopft er eine Wand zur Kontrolle, ob sie real
ist, oder betastet ein Ablaufgitter im Boden mit dem Fuß, aus demselben Grund.
Sein Beobachter notiert, er fasse alles an (Arzt l, nach 500 mg Meskalin sc., zweiter Arznei versuch).
10. „Alle Geräusche wirkten fremd und unheimlich, am unheimlichsten
aber war der Durchblick durch das erste Fenster in den Hof. Eine gelblich-oliv-grüne Gesamtfarbe
lag über dem Bild wie drohendste
Gewitterstimmung. Darin standen Maschinenhaus und Küchengang, zwar als bekannt
identifiziert, dennoch in unbegreiflicher Irrealität. Etwas durchdringend Bläulich
grünes (Zinnsoldatengrün, aber durchscheinend opalend)
erkannte ich staunend als einfaches Glas. Ging ein Mensch über den Hof, so
suchte
ich nach einem Beweismittel, daß er
körperlich wirklich sei, auch wenn ich ihn erkannte. Ich mußte
immer wieder Dr. B. um Bestätigung bitten, daß meine
Wahrnehmung zutreffend sei" (Arzt l, n. 500 mg Meskalin sc., zweiter Arznei versuch).
11. Viele Probanden berichteten, gewohnte Reize (Umgebung, Geräusche)
erschienen ihnen „fremd", „unheimlich", bedrohlich.
12. Sieht nachts beim Erwachen, aber auch tagsüber im Wachen, seltsame,
unerwartete und scheinbar sinnlose Visionen von Menschen oder Tieren,
Als handelnder Mensch minderwertig, in der Phantasie überlegen die sich
rhythmisch bewegen. Einmal sieht sie einen Anstreicher, der den Spiegel über
ihrem Kaminsims
mit dem Staubwedel reinigt. Ein anderes Mal scheint ihre
Schwiegertochter ins Zimmer zu kommen, ein anderes Mal die Gardinenschnur Tänze
in der Luft zu vollführen.
In der Regel erscheinen ihr unbekannte Menschen. Die Illusion von
Realität ist immer perfekt, und obwohl sie sich über die Absurdität der
Vorgänge im klaren ist, kann sie nicht zwischen Illusion und Realität
unterscheiden. Manchmal ziehen Menschengestalten auch singend oder murmelnd an
ihr vorbei (82j. Frau, sog. Kontaktmangelparanoid). 13. Bei den Visionen „ein
angenehmes Gefühl und freudige Stimmung, als dürfte ich etwas, das ich schon
einmal gesehen hatte, in schönerer Form und Farbe, eben wie es in Wirklichkeit aussehen
mag, schauen." Sieht Heidelberg, seine Stadt, vom Philosophen weg aus;
dann Neapel, wie es ihm auf einem Dia gezeigt worden war, aber letzteres farbig
und so plastisch, naturgetreu und realistisch bewegt, daß
er „meinen mußte, wirklich am Strand von Neapel zu
sein", „es stand wie die Wirklichkeit vor mir"; dann sieht er in
gleicher Weise Rothenburg ob der Tauber, dann das Karlsruher Schloß mit seinem klotzigen Turm, dann den Schloßaltan des Heidelberger Schlosses, wobei sich die
dortigen Steinstatuen zu bewegen scheinen. Das Arztzimmer, wo psychologische
Tests durchgeführt werden, kommt ihm im Vergleich zu seinen Visionen „zu fremd,
zu menschlich, zu erdenmäßig" vor. Auch kommen
ihm nur Bilder von Orten vor Augen, die in seiner Erinnerung mit „weihevollen
Augenblicken" verbunden sind, nicht aber alltägliche Bilder, wie etwa ein
Markt (Medizinstudent l, durch 350 mg Meskalin sc.).
12) Als handelnder Mensch minderwertig, in der Realität kümmerlich,
verlegen, unsicher, aber in der Phantasie selbstsicher, überlegen, erhaben,
göttlich; Nietzsche
1. Am Tag nach dem Rausch „fühle (ich) mich wohl, aber völlig
arbeitsunlustig, etwas überrascht und unsicher in einer Welt, die weder die von
gestern, noch die von vorgestern ist. Erst
am Nachmittag habe ich wieder Interesse für die Station (die er als Arzt zu
betreuen hat), bin aber noch sehr entschlußunfähig
und unkritisch"
(Arzt 12, nach 500 mg Meskalin sc.).
2. Zunehmende Angst vor dem kommenden Tag, Unsicherheit und
Unschlüssigkeit selbst in den kleinsten Entscheidungen des Tages (Prüferin 2,
ab l. T.).
3. Fühlt sich beim Reden mit dem Beobachter Dr. G. unsicher und
verlegen und sucht dies zu unterdrücken. (Arzt
8, nach 400 mg Meskalin
sc.).
[Frans Vermeulen]
With Peyote man is alone, desperately scraping
out the music of his own skeleton, without father, mother, family, love, god,
or society. And no living being to accompany
him. And the skeleton is not of bone but of
skin, like a skin that walks. And one walks from the equinox to the solstice,
buckling on one's own humanity.
[Antonin
Artaud]
"In the second half of the 19th
century the characteristics and scope of the large genus Echinocactus
were disputed by several European and American botanists; gradually
its limits were narrowed and new genera were
proposed to contain species that had once been included in it. In 1886,
Theodore Rumpler proposed that peyote be removed from
Echinocactus and placed in the new segregate genus Anhalonium, thus making the binomial A. williamsii,
a name which soon became widely used throughout Europe and the U.S. Much
earlier [1839] Lemaire had proposed the name Anhalonium for another group of spineless cacti, now
correctly classified as Ariocarpus. Anhalonium must
be considered as a later homonym for Ariocarpus, so, according to the International Rules of
Botanical Nomenclature, it cannot be validly used as a generic name for any
plant. Ariocarpus superficially resembles peyote, but
clearly is a different genus. ... Finally, in the same year [1894] Coulter
proposed a new genus for peyote alone: Lophophora.
This helped clarify the nomenclatural situation
because peyote had been included in at least five different genera of cacti by
the end of the 19th century. The group of plants commonly called and used as
peyote is unique within the cactus family and deserves separation as the
distinct genus Lophophora."
The genus consists of two species: Lophophora williamsii and L. diffusa. Its name derives from Gr. lophos,
a crest, and phoreo = I bear. The name Anhalonium refers to the fact that this cactus doesn't have
spines: an = without, helos = needle, spine. Spines
are present only in very young seedlings. Adult plants produce spine primordia but they rarely develop into spines. It has the
size of a small apple. The characteristic wool-filled centre of the plant gave
it its native name peiotl, meaning caterpillar. When
the top
of a peyote dries, the soft fleshy tissue is
reduced greatly in volume, whereas the proportion of wool to what formerly was
the fleshy part is greatly increased.
Other theories to explain the etymology of the
word peiotl refer to the Aztec words pepeyoni or pepeyon, meaning
"to excite", or to peyonanic, meaning
"to stimulate or activate."
Anhalonium lewinii
Origin: Chihuahuan
Desert in Mexico and the Rio Grande region of Texas. "The soils of the Chihuahuan Desert are limestone in origin and have a basic
pH, from 7.9 to 8.3. These soils can also be characterized as having more than
150 ppm [parts per million] calcium, at least 6 ppm magnesium, strong carbonates, and no more than trace
amounts
of ammonia. The soils test negatively for iron,
chlorine, sulphates, manganese, and aluminium. Phosphorus and potassium vary
somewhat throughout the range, but in most localities occur in trace amounts or
are not present at all. ...
Peyote is found to tolerate a very wide range
of climatic conditions: precipitation ranges from 175.5 mm up to 556.9 mm per
year, maximum temperatures vary from 29.1° C
to 40.2° C and minimum temperatures range from
1.9° to 10.2° C."
Living in arid deserts, Lophophora
has developed an adaptation strategy that is quite unique among plants. In the
winter season - a long period of bleak drought - it hibernates by means of a
surprisingly simple technique. At the beginning of the dry period the long and
powerful roots shrivel to such an extent that the plant loses half of its
normal volume. The shrinking roots pull the plant underground. In spring the
reverse takes place. Absorbing rainwater, the plant swells up again and emerges
above ground.
The area on the stem that usually produces
flowers and spines is well pronounced in peyote and is identified by a tuft of
hairs or trichomes. Ranging in colour from deep
reddish-pink to nearly pure white, flowers arise from within the centre of the
plant. There are no visible leaves in either juvenile or mature plants. Leaves
are greatly reduced and only microscopic in size; even the seed leaves
[cotyledons] are almost invisible in young seedlings because they are rounded,
united, and quite small. Fruits develop for about a year and then elongate
rapidly at maturity. Usually, only the upper half of the fruit contains seeds.
Peyote plants may occur as single-headed individuals or may form dense clumps
up to two meters across with scores of heads. The latter occurs through the
activation of adventive buds that appear on the
tuberous part of the root-stem axis below the crown. Such growth often is the
result of injury and almost always occurs if the top of the plant is cut off.
They rarely rot if injured or cut, so excised pieces will readily form
adventitious roots and can become independent plants. Peyote is one of the
slowest-growing plants in existence. The period from germination until blooming
for the first time is approximately thirteen
years. Mature specimens may attain a diameter of 12 cm, rising some 3 - 6 cm
above the surface of the ground. Yet, the long, tapering root may reach a
length of 30 cm or more at maturity. A greater concentration of mescaline
appears as the plant gets older. The Indians revere the oldest plants
and keep them as personal amulets or place them
on the crescent altar to represent 'Father Peyote.'
Lophophora contains
the alkaloids hordenine and tyramine,
both of which have antiseptic properties. With regard to hordenine,
Lophophora is among the plant species with
the highest amounts of it, others being Hordeum vulgare [Barley], Citrus sinensis [Orange], Selenicereus grandiflorus [= Cactus in homoeopathy], Tamarindus
indica [Tamarind] and Zea mays [Corn]. Hordenine has been
shown to have the following properties: antiasthmatic,
antidiarrhoeic, bronchorelaxant,
cardiotonic, hepatoprotective,
and vasoconstrictive.
Besides the alkaloids mentioned, Lophophora contains more than 50 psychoactive ingredients,
the most powerful of which is mescaline [3,4,5 trimethoxyphenethylamine].
Named after the Mescalero Apaches, mescaline was first isolated from the peyote
cactus by the German chemist Heffter in 1896 and
independently synthesized in 1918.
As one of the first hallucinogens to be
reproduced in the lab, mescaline became the centre of scientific interest in
the early 1900s and was used in the experimental treatment
of alcoholism, mental illness, and other
disorders. The novelist Aldous Huxley describes his
experiences with mescaline [sulphate] in “The Doors of Perception”.
This controversial essay arose from Huxley's
need for "a new pleasure" and the desire "to take occasional
holidays from reality."
NE Mescaline is related to the amphetamines,
and has very similar properties as adrenaline. In doses of 200-500 mg [about
10-20 buttons], mescaline triggers increased heart rate, body temperature, and
blood pressure and dilation of the pupils. Normal coordination and reflexes are
reduced, and the skin may feel dry and itchy.
Peak effects hit 2-3 hours after ingestion, and
run their course in about 12 hours. Mescaline belongs to a family of compounds
known as phenethylamines, whereas the other major
psychedelics, such as LSD, psilocybin, harmaline and
DMT, belong to the indole family. Many synthetic
drugs, such as ecstasy [MDMA] and 2C-B, are phenethylamines,
and are related to the chemistry of mescaline. Mescaline occurs naturally in
several cactus species, most notably Lophophora and
many members of the genus Trichocereus.
DD.: LSD Debate still rages about noteworthy
differences in the response to LSD and mescaline. People more experienced with
both psychedelics "generally indicate that peyote and mescaline are
'warmer' and 'more earthy' than LSD, which is usually seen as being more
'cerebral.' The mescaline present in the cactus appears to increase
considerably a feeling of fellowship that is only sometimes prompted by LSD. Shulgin remarks that under mescaline 'There is a benign
empathy shown to both inanimate and living things, especially to small things.'
Allen Ginsberg and others have suggested that mescaline - more than other
psychedelics - produces a state of mind very receptive to the complex of
benevolent attitudes expressed in Wordsworth's nature poems."
LSD "Virtually all American users of entheogenic drugs claim to have tried mescaline at some
point in their careers. Clearly, the great majority have simply tried LSD or
PCP under an assumed name. There can be no doubt about this conclusion -
mescaline has always been in short supply, and numerous studies on street drug
samples support this view. Moreover, a 400-600 mg dose of pure mescaline
sulphate will fill two or three large 'oo' capsules,
and most users report having ingested only one capsule or tablet.
Yet 'sophisticated' users, when confronted with
these facts, will usually claim that they have certainly tried the real thing,
that they know the difference between LSD and mescaline, being connoisseurs;
that LSD has this or that attribute, whereas mescaline may be distinguished by
various superior qualities. To put it bluntly, this is hogwash.
Not only have the great majority of entheogen users never tried authentic mescaline but, I
submit, under proper experimental conditions, many would be unable to discern
much difference between mescaline and LSD. In fact, peak effects of these
compounds are remarkably similar, and these drugs [as well as psilocybine and psilocine] show
cross-tolerance, suggesting they produce their effects by similar neural
mechanisms."
Peyote contains many alkaloids and peyote
intoxication therefore differs markedly from that induced by mescaline,
peyote's main alkaloid. The peyote intoxication usually
has 2 phases: 1. "a period of contentment
and hypersensitivity, 2. nervous calm and muscular sluggishness, often
accompanied by hypercerebrality and the typical
coloured visions. Before the appearance of the visual hallucinations, the
subject sees flashes of colour across the field of vision; the depth, richness,
and saturation of the colours defy description. There seems to be a kind of
sequence followed by the visions: geometric figures, to familiar scenes and
faces, to unfamiliar scenes and objects, to secondary objects that vary with
individual differences or which may be absent."
Fray Bernardino de Sahagun
first described the plant in 1560. He estimated from Indian chronology that it
had been used by the Chichimeca and Toltec at least
1900 years before the arrival of the Europeans. He reported as follows:
"There is another herb-like [opuntia]. It is
called peiotl. It is found in the north country.
Those who eat or drink it, see visions, either frightful or laughable. This
intoxication lasts two or three days and then ceases. It is a common food of
the Chichimeca, for it sustains them and gives them
courage to fight and not to feel hunger or thirst. And they say it protects
them from all danger." In Huichol ritual life
the peyote and the deer were, and still are, seen as synonymous. This is
clearly shown by prehistoric images in rock shelters in the Texas and Mexico
border region. The Spaniards repressed the use of peyote because it was
connected with heathen rituals and superstitions to contact evil spirits.
For millennia the Huichol
have rubbed the juice of the crushed peyote into wounds to prevent infection
and promote healing. It has been shown that hordenine
shows an inhibitory action against at least 18 strains of penicillin resistant
Staphylococcus bacteria. In many Indian languages the word for medicine is the
same as for peyote. Women of the Menomini tribe use
peyote for childbirth, earaches, or to be inspired to weave intricate spiral
patterns.
Peyote has many ancient ritual uses. The Huichol, for example, make a yearly pilgrimage, the peyote
hunt over 600 km of rugged desert country. The journey involves many ritual
steps and many days of journey involving hardship. The participants often
paradoxically speak the opposite of what is intended. The quest comes to an end
when the spiritual leader rushes ahead and fires arrows to enclose the first
peyote on all quarters. He then cuts the plants leaving some root to re-grow
new crowns. The return to Wirikuta - the geographical
and mythical homeland of the Huichol - is seen as a
return to paradise. "The Huichol Indians of
Mexico treat as a demi-god a species of cactus which
throws the eater into a state of ecstasy. The plant doesn't grow in their
country, and has to be fetched every year by men who make a journey of
forty-three days for the purpose. Meanwhile the wives at home contribute to the
safety of their absent husbands by never walking fast, much less running, while
the men are on the road. They also do their best to ensure the benefits which,
in the shape of rain, good crops, and so forth, are expected to flow from the
sacred mission. With this intention they subject themselves to severe restrictions
like those imposed upon their husbands. During the whole of the time which
elapses till the festival of the cactus is held, neither party washes except on
certain occasions, and then only with water brought from the distant country
where the holy plant grows. They also fast much, eat no salt, and are bound to
strict continence. Anyone who breaks this law is punished with illness, and,
moreover, jeopardizes the result which all are striving for. Health, luck, and
life are to be gained by gathering the cactus, the gourd of the God of Fire;
but inasmuch as the pure fire cannot benefit the impure, men and women must not
only remain chaste for the time being, but must also purge themselves from the
taint of past sin."6 During the past two centuries the religious use of
peyote has spread northward into the United States and Canada among many of the
Plains Indian Tribes such as the Navajo, Comanche, Sioux, and Kiowa. In 1918
the use of peyote was incorporated as a sacrament into the Native American Church.
This was an adaptation of the Mexican ritual adopted by Indian tribes in the
north. It is commented that Jesus came to the white man as flesh and blood, but
to the Native American as peyote.
NATIVE CHURCH "Some of the crucial factors
are a positive expectation held by the Peyotists, an
emphasis on the real interpersonal world rather than the world within the
individual, emphasis on communion rather than withdrawal during the drug
experience, emphasis on adherence to the standards of society rather than on
the freeing of impulses, and certain practices during the meetings. ... The
whole spirit of the [peyote] religion seems best characterized as communion -
with God and with other men. Meetings are experienced as a time of being close
and growing closer to one another. It is acceptable and expected that if
someone in a meeting expresses a strong feeling, the others present feel it
with him and tell him so. If there is a tendency to lose old features of one's
identity, there is an equally strong tendency to acquire stronger identity as a
member of the group. As a member of the church, each person is assured of his
own significance and of group support for his own needs to be self-assertive in
the outside world. ... Meetings are conducted in a strict and organized way.
Distortions in time sense are counteracted by the various events of the service
that take place at precisely defined times of the night. Almost everything is
done in a ritualized way that requires attention to the detail of one's
movements and speech. The drum, ceremonial tobacco, and other important objects
are passed only in a certain way. In moving about the hogan
or tepee, one walks only in a certain direction. All these details are invested
with considerable emotion, and some Peyotists say that
this keeps them "thinking in the right way." The ceremony is
experienced as beautiful, but much of the beauty is the beauty of orderliness.
... Roadmen are trained to look after people who become excessively withdrawn.
If a participant begins to stare fixedly into the fire and seems unaware of the
others, the roadman will speak to him and, if necessary, go to him and pray
with him. In the process of praying with him, the road man may fan him with an
eagle feather fan, splash drops of water on him, and fan cedar incense over
him. All of these processes are regarded as sacred and helpful, and they seem
to provide stimulation in several sense modalities to draw one back into the
interpersonal world. Another safeguard is the custom that no one is to leave the
meeting early. Considerable effort is made to prevent someone who has been
eating peyote from going off alone into the night. This factor is probably
important too, in the customary activities of the morning after the meeting.
Everyone stays together and socializes until well after the drug effect is
over."7
BALANCE "In a sense, participation in a
peyote journey makes of each man a kind of shaman or priest. For a long time
following a pilgrimage its members acknowledge a ritual bond with one another.
They recognize and greet each other in special ways. They have special names.
They wear special insignia: the tobacco gourd of Tatewari,
squirrel tails on the hats. The peyote journey also has the characteristics of
initiation; one who has never gone is said to be 'new', like a baby; he is matewame and must undergo special restrictions, because his
tenderness makes him extraordinarily vulnerable to the malevolent magic of
sorcerers. ... A man who would assume the enormous burden, ritual and
psychological, of a mara'akáme [shaman-priest], who
would make himself responsible for the welfare of his community, must first
complete at least five peyote pilgrimages. But he must do this not as a
follower, intent only on private thought and private vision. He must demonstrate
on each such journey his capacity to be an effective soul guide, or 'psychopomp', who escorts his spirit companions safely
across the barriers of space and time, through the gateway of the clashing
clouds, and to the sacred mountains at the end of the world in the east, where
the ancestor spirits await them. He must prove his capacity to endure not only
lack of food and water but lack of sleep as well. Even at night, when his
companions rest around the sacred fire, he must remain awake, alert, ever ready
to defend their spiritual integrity against supernatural enemies. They are all
spirits, of course, for the duration of the journey. But he more than any other
man must transcend the limitations of his bodily self and achieve that unique
breakthrough that sets the shaman apart from ordinary men. If he lacks these
qualities he will never 'complete himself.' ... It is my impression that this
special condition of the shaman cannot be faked - that not only he himself but
his companions really do know whether or not a man who lays claim to being a mara'akáme has what the Huichol
call 'balance' - that special, ineffable capacity to venture without fear onto
the 'narrow bridge' across the great chasm separating the ordinary world from
the world beyond. In the summer of 1966 Ramón gave us a memorable demonstration
of the meaning of 'balance.' He took us to a spectacular waterfall, with a
sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the valley below. This, he said, was 'special
for shamans.' While the other Huichols grouped themselves
in a semicircle in a safe place some distance from the edge, Ramón removed his
sandals and, after making a series of ritual gestures to the world directions,
proceeded to leap - 'fly' might be more appropriate - from one rock to another
with arms stretched wide, often landing but a few inches from the slippery
edge. Occasionally he would disappear behind a great boulder, only to emerge
from an unexpected direction. Or he would stand motionless at the extreme limit
of a massive rock, wheel about suddenly and make a great leap to the other side
of the rushing water, never showing the slightest concern about the obvious
danger that he might lose his balance and fall into space. We were frankly
terrified, even annoyed, at such 'foolhardiness', but neither his wife nor the
other Huichol watching showed any real apprehension.
The demonstration ended as abruptly as it had begun, without any explanation of
Ramón's strange behaviour. The following day he asked if we thought he had been
showing off. He said, "Perhaps you thought, 'Ah, Ramón is drunk with too
much beer.' But no. I took you there to show what it means 'to have balance.'
So you could see and understand. Because when one crosses over as a shaman one
looks below, and then one perceives this great abyss filled with all those
animals waiting to kill one. Those who do not have balance are afraid. They
fall and are killed."
PILGRIMAGE "So intense is the drama of the
actual hunt for the Deer-Peyote in Wirikúta that
certain prior events of crucial importance for the success of the quest tend to
be overshadowed. The first of these is the ritual of confession and
purification through which the participants are initiated into the sacred
enterprise of the pilgrimage. This is an extraordinary ceremony. Everyone - peyoteros as well as those who remain at home - is required
to acknowledge publicly all his or her sexual adventures, from the beginning of
adulthood to the present. Further, each sexual partner must be identified by
name, regardless of the presence of spouses or lovers, although old people are
allowed to telescope their love affairs and be less precise about names. No
display of jealousy, hurt, resentment, or anger is permitted; more than that,
no one is even allowed to entertain such feelings 'in one's heart.' Any show of
hostility and any deliberate omission of sexual intimacy or a lover's name
would jeopardize not only the offender but also his companions and the entire
sacred enterprise. The quest for life could prove fruitless. At the very least,
even if the peyote country were reached, those who had failed to purge
themselves or who carried 'bad thoughts in their hearts' would probably fall
victim to sorcerers, suffer terrible hallucinations, and perhaps even die. An
extraordinary spectacle indeed - doubly so if one has been taught to regard
jealousy and its expression as a 'natural' human emotion, common to all people
everywhere, rather than as an artefact of culture. ... At first glance one
might be tempted to explain the whole phenomenon in terms of Catholic
influence. Why else would the Huichol, who sanction
polygamy and who in any event are not noted for their sexual fidelity, equate
sex with sin, or at least with transgression? Nevertheless, I see no reason to
regard the Huichol rite as anything but purely
aboriginal and pre-European. In the first place, confession was practised in
Mesoamerica long before the arrival of the Spaniards [an Aztec goddess to whom
confessions were addressed was appropriately known as 'The Eater of Filth'].
Secondly, there are fundamental differences between the Catholic and Huichol rites that are obscured by the very term
'confession.' In Catholic practice the confessor admits to having sinned and,
if the priest accepts his act of contrition and repentance as genuine, is
absolved from the sins he has acknowledged. The Huichol
does not repent but merely acknowledges a certain act as fact. In this sense
'profession' might be more accurate than 'confession', except that of course in
the context of the peyote quest sexual intercourse per se is disapproved and
hence a 'transgression.' ... Metamorphosis is implicit in the confession
ritual. The peyotero has been made over, 'become
new.' He has shed one state of being, maturity, and assumed - or reassumed -
another, that of childhood innocence. At the same time, transformation has
occurred on another level, for the peyotero has
'become' the likeness of one of the supernaturals of
the original peyote quest. More than merely child, he has had to become spirit,
for the gates of the Otherworlds will open only for
one who is spirit."
EXPERIMENTS Heffter
did some experiments with the new drug [mescaline] he had discovered. The
following is an excerpt from his laboratory notebook. "Experiment
performed on 23rd July, 1897. 12:09 p.m. One gram of the sulphate salts of the
alkaloids corresponding to 16.67 g of the drug was dissolved in water and taken
orally. Pulse rate 76 per minute. 12:33 p.m. Occipital headache. Limbs feel
heavy. 12:45 p.m. Pulse rate 66 per minute. 1:00 p.m. Nausea. Pulse rate 60 per
minute. 1:15 p.m. Pulse rate 68 per minute. While reading, green and violet
spots appear on the paper. The same occurs when I look up at the bright sky.
After shutting the eyes visual images occur which are initially pale but
gradually become more clearly defined and brighter. In this particular
experiment landscapes are less frequent and I have predominantly images of
kaleidoscopic figures, patterned carpets and cloth, luxurious articles of
clothing and architectural scenes. The predominant colours are orange, red and
green, with a little blue and occasionally yellow. On this occasion images
occur in a completely darkened room, i.e. in a photographic darkroom, while my
eyes are open, but they are not as vivid and clear as when I keep my eyes shut.
The capacity for visual images lasts in this experiment for an extraordinarily
long time. Even on the following morning coloured [green and violet] spots
still appear when I shut my eyes. Other symptoms were as follows: dilatation of
the pupils, dizziness, very distressing nausea which lasted on this occasion
until 8 p.m. , loss of appreciation of time, impaired hearing and a feeling of
tiredness in the limbs. All these symptoms, which were identical to those
observed in the experiment performed on the 6th July, disappeared gradually
during the evening. On the following morning only the pupils were still
slightly dilated. In this experiment my consciousness again remained clear, but
I found it hard to concentrate on calculations and while talking. My speech was
somewhat slow and labourious."10
PERCEPTION "Under the influence of
mescaline, the sensory qualities separate from objects of perception and begin
to lead a life of their own. The 'soberness' of everyday moods, of everyday
consciousness, seems swept away. Everything suddenly appears morning-fresh, in
magnificent colours, crystal clear and incredibly plastic and mobile. When the
eyes are closed, colours, freed from the fetters holding them to objects,
continue to live a life of their own ... The experience of time and space is
largely laid aside, whilst the faculties of thinking and memory are retained.
Every single experience 'means' something, for example a picture not hanging
straight that the world will perish in three days' time. The life of the will
is completely paralysed, and a person under the influence of mescaline sees no
reason why he should do or bend his will to anything in particular."11
COLOURS Of the sensory phenomena that peyote
produces, the altered perception of colours is most remarkable. Auditory
hallucinations and sharpening of the olfactory sense also occur. "Most
usually there was a combination of rich, sober colour, with jewel-like points
of brilliant hue. Every colour and tone conceivable to me appeared at some time
or another. Sometimes all the different varieties of one colour, as of red,
with scarlets, crimsons, pinks, would spring up
together, or in quick succession. But in spite of this immense profusion, there
was always a certain parsimony and æsthetic value in
the colours presented. They were usually associated with form, and never
appeared in large masses, or if so, the tone was very delicate. I was further
impressed, not only by the brilliance, delicacy, and variety of the colours,
but even more by their lovely and various textures - fibrous, woven, polished,
glowing, dull, veined, semi-transparent - the glowing effects, as of jewels,
and the fibrous, as of insects' wings, being perhaps the most prevalent. ... I
awoke at the usual hour and experienced neither sense of fatigue nor other
unpleasant reminiscence of the experience I had undergone. Only my eyes seemed
unusually sensitive to colour, esp. to blue and violet; I can, indeed, say that
ever since this experience I have been more æsthetically
sensitive than I was before to the more delicate phenomena of light and shade
and colour."12
LIGHT "It is worth considering the fact
that the little Mexican cactus, peyotl, in its
natural habitat in Central and Northern Mexico, is subjected to inordinately
intense light, and that experiences of light are characteristic of peyotl-mescaline intoxication. Similar connections between
their toxic action and the conditions under which they grow are visible in the
case of henbane, thorn apple and deadly nightshade. ... My own experience of peyotl intoxication illustrates the essential difference
between one type of intoxication and another. [Earlier], I described my
experiment with black henbane and portrayed the plant as a gloomy, sinister
growth. In the peyotl intoxication everything was
bright and clear, luminous, of unearthly beauty, encompassed by a multitude of
sweet sounds. ... The most active element of the peyotl
cactus, the alkaloid mescaline, is mainly accumulated in its centre. One can
take either the interior of the plant, or synthetic mescaline. I have tried
both. The difference was considerable. Under the influence of the isolated
alkaloid mescaline the course of intoxication was briefer and more violent,
more of a shock, than after taking the whole plant substance. My sensations
after eating the plant were gentler and more natural; they took longer to pass
- intoxication often lasted for several days - and my recollections of the
experiment was clearer. ... The fragment of peyotl
which came into my possession was fibrous, brown and desiccated. It was bitter
and unpalatable, but I forced myself to swallow it. ... I went through all the
terrors and torments of thorough-going poisoning. My legs gave way, a yawn grew
into a spasm, my chest ached and a boundless, crushing melancholy took
possession of my soul. The horrible city was bare, bleak and cold, while the
shivers and the terrible numbness of my brain caused me unspeakable anguish.
The morning after a night's heavy drinking can be pretty grim, but it is
generally relieved by a touch of philosophical humor.
This remnant of consolation was denied me. Trembling muscles and leaden
exhaustion made it hard for me to walk. I felt that the waves of light were
coming to meet me like a solid and impenetrable wall. But there is one thing I
must not forget to add: I was trembling not only with the freezing cold I felt
in spite of the almost African heat - I was also trembling with a strange
tension, a wonderful sense of anticipation, as though I were about to be
visited with a new life. My cold shivers were at the same time shivers of
rapture, although none of my agonies abated. ... Things were revealed in a
flash and then sank quickly back into the void. Excitations and sensations
arose in irregular jerks, like gentle explosions, leaving behind them a
depressing nausea, a profound pessimism that saw no beauty, no hope and not a
trace of joy. Once in my room, I closed the wooden shutters in front of the
windows, undressed and lay down. At the time I imagined I was unable to stretch
out. I seemed to be sitting upright on the bed, and yet I was lying flat in the
ordinary way. Then I found it possible to lie down and sit up simultaneously,
and this filled me with profound satisfaction. Nausea, constriction of the
chest, muscular tremors, numbness of the brain and the terrible grey pessimism
vanished as though blown away. As soon as I shut my eyes, a mighty but
inaudible stream flowed past me, a river of colour and radiance. ... This
wakefulness was scintillating, crystal-clear. I was bathed in invigorating,
animating, purifying air. ...
This wakefulness acquired a new character: I
felt something we normally experience only rarely and incompletely. The part of
me that was consciously looking on, analyzing, thinking in terms of time and
space and critically distinguishing between cause and effect, this part of
myself was sitting beside me or above me, wherever I wanted it to be, or it was
able to re-enter my body. ... There were flowing bands, slow or rushing rivers
of colour. Colours - impregnating a material that must have been, from the
beginning, the material of the world, on which all things imprinted themselves
and out of which all things emerged - showed themselves to me and then
disappeared. ... The sounds that came up from the street reached me in the form
of colours; they shot into the room in cascades, in lightning flashes and
radiant fires, and I took part in them. The walls curled. They drew together
gracefully and with indescribable grandeur. I myself was the walls. This went
on for perhaps a year or maybe two. In reality everything was timeless, without
past and without future. ... The greatest gain and the greatest loss consisted
in this: While the colours were revealing themselves to me as rivers, ribbons,
sounds and tangible substances, I believed that I could read in them the
meaning of life and all things. The one great ultimate truth was about to
become clear to me at the next heartbeat. But every time this blissful, perfect
moment approached I let it slip. I saw myself lying there smiling happily. I
saw myself exactly as though a stranger were lying there. I watched the
ultimate revelation fritter away."13
OTHER EFFECTS "About half an hour after
ingesting the buttons the first effects are felt. There is a feeling of strange
intoxication and shifting consciousness with minor perceptual changes. There
may also be strong physical effects, including respiratory pressure, muscle
tension [esp. face and neck muscles], and queasiness or possible nausea. Any
unpleasant sensations should disappear within an hour. After this the state of
altered consciousness begins to manifest itself. The experience may vary with
the individual, but among the possible occurrences are feelings of inner
tranquillity, oneness with life, heightened awareness, and rapid thought flow.
During the next several hours these effects will deepen and become more visual.
Colours may become more intense. Halos and auras may appear about things.
Objects may seem larger, smaller , closer or more distant than they actually
are. Often persons will notice little or no changes in visual perception while
beholding the world about them, but upon closing their eyes they will see on
their mind-screen wildly colourful and constant changing patterns. After
several more hours the intensity of the experience gradually relaxes. Thought
becomes less rapid and diffuse and more ordered. In the Navajo peyote ritual
this change of thought flow is used wisely. During the first part of the
ceremony the participants submit to the feeling and let the peyote teach them.
During the latter part of the ritual the mind turns to thoughtful contemplation
and understanding with the conscious intellect what the peyote has taught the
subconscious mind. The entire experience may last from 6 to 12 hours depending upon
the individual and the amount of the plant consumed. After all the peyote
effects have passed there is no comedown. One is likely to feel pleasantly
relaxed and much a peace with the world. Although there is usually no desire
for food during the experience one would probably have a wholesome appetite
afterwards."14
INFINITY "I was living in a timeless
pulsation that bridged the gap between all barriers. I reached many eternities,
and felt akin with infinity. At long last I knew the relation all things had
for one another! All objects seemed to be complete in themselves; as I searched
the depth of an object I would see many worlds buried in it. And as I examined
each world, I saw that each had objects of its own which were seen as worlds
and objects endlessly. Everything had a new interest for me, for everything was
continuously in flux, and each new thing became newer than it was the instant
before. All my senses merged and acted as one as they caressed and encompassed
everything they perceived. A thousand sense feelings closed in upon me,
stirring up within waves of climaxes that kept sending my mind to even greater,
undreamed-of heights. The beginning was forgotten and no end was in sight. I
had arrived back to the place of my origin. As each mystery exposed its true
nature to me, each revelation was accompanied by vast explosions of vibratory
colour, flowing liquid blending perfectly together to form a sea of radiant
beauty. A consummation of me, my purpose and creator unfolded and seethed to
further heights undreamed of; a tremendous upsurge of blissful emotion poured
its intention into a tiny shell that expanded larger and larger. It reached its
unbearable breaking point, and then release as the shell burst and a huge
burning white flower grew bigger and bigger at a slow unceasing rate; the
petals reached out to their fullest extreme, and then closed at the same
unceasing rate, to rest... I continued to float in this heaven of satisfaction
and contentment for an immeasurable time. Then far off in the distance I heard
a thunderous sound which vibrated my world of infinite colour; the sound became
louder, and I was wisked backwards through the velvet
curtain of confusion once again."15
CASTANEDA Castaneda
describes at length his experiences with the cactus. "I felt a strong,
pungent bitterness; in a moment my whole mouth was numb. The bitterness
increased as I kept on chewing, forcing an incredible flow of saliva. My gums
and the inside of my mouth felt as if I had eaten salty, dry meat or fish, which
seems to force one to chew more. ... But when I tried to speak I realized I
couldn't; the words shifted aimlessly about in my mind. ... I experienced a
very confusing moment, and became aware of the fact that although there was a
clear thought in my mind, I could not speak. I wanted to comment on the strange
quality of the water, but what followed next was not speech; it was the feeling
of my unvoiced thoughts coming out of my mouth in a sort of liquid form. It was
an effortless sensation of vomiting without the contractions of the diaphragm.
It was a pleasant flow of liquid words. ... The passage from my normal state
had taken place almost without my realizing it: I was aware; my thoughts and
feelings were a corollary of that awareness; and the passing was smooth and
clear. But this second change, the awakening to serious, sober consciousness,
was genuinely shocking. I had forgotten I was a man! The sadness of such an
irreconcilable situation was so intense that I wept."16 For American
psychologist DeMille and peyotl
expert Weston LaBarre, Castaneda's experiences are
very much open to doubt. DeMille maintains that
Castaneda invented Don Juan, and LaBarre stresses the
fictitious nature of Castaneda's books, calling them "intellectual
kitsch."
MEDICINE In 1888 the pharmaceutical company Parke Davis introduced the drug Anhalonium
to medical practice, recommending the tincture during the next few years as a
cardiac stimulant and tonic and for use in the treatment of angina pectoris.
The drug was considered to have little less than marvellous effects and was
also recommended for colour-blindness, as an antispasmodic, for general
nervousness and insomnia, for asthma and for 'softening of the brain'. In
current times, peyote is prescribed as an emetic, as a cardiac stimulant, and
as a painkiller. Peyote has been shown to help near-sightedness and
astigmatism.
EXPANSION OF FACULTIES "In 1933, a Swiss
pharmacy began to advertise Peyotyl [sic] as a sort
of adaptogen, to 'restore the individual's balance
and calm and promote full expansion of his faculties,' leading the Swiss
Federal Public Health Service to recommend this Peyotyl
be made available only with a prescription. On the heels of the European and
Americans, Erich Guttmann gave mescaline to more than sixty subjects at London's
Maudsley Hospital. This research produced some of the
best descriptions of mescaline inebriation. During World War II, German
physicians at the infamous Dachau concentration camp studied the effects of
mescaline as an interrogation aid on thirty prisoners."17
ARTS Aleister
Crowley, nicknamed "The Great Beast" and a member of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn, believed himself to be the first to introduce mescal
into European artistic circles, stating that he made many experiments on people
with mescal from 1910 onwards. Among them was Katherine Mansfield, but,
according to reports, it only made her feel sick and rather annoyed at the
sight of a picture hanging askew on the wall. Soon after the end of the First
World War, the German scientist Kurt Beringer, an
associate of C.G. Jung and Herman Hesse, conducted
about sixty mescaline sessions, using as subjects male and female physicians
and medical students. One of his subjects became fascinated with trying to put
the "furious succession" of mescaline images on film; later, Walt
Disney hired him as the chief visualist for Fantasia.
More recent publications on self-experimentations with mescaline by novelists
like Aldous Huxley [The Doors of Perception, 1954],
Henri Michaux [Miserable Miracle; Mescaline, 1963]
and William Burroughs [Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict, 1953]
were an important stimulus to the use of hallucinogens in the sixties.
DRUG PICTURE The homoeopathic drug picture of Anhalonium, as described by Clarke, is based on the
experiments of two men with peyote. The first was the American novelist and
physician Silas Weir Mitchell [1829-1914], who described peyote intoxication in
1896. Weir Mitchell forwarded peyote buttons to the English essayist, physician
and pioneer sexologist Havelock Ellis [1859-1939], who undertook 'provings' on himself as well as on three artist friends
[among them the poet Yeats]. Weir Mitchell sent some buttons to the
psychologist William James as well, but James got a severe stomachache
after eating only one and declared that he would "take the visions on
trust."
An artist friend of Havelock Ellis [probably
Yeats] took four mescal buttons and experienced the following 'proving'
symptoms. "Now also began another series of extraordinary sensations. They
set in with bewildering suddenness and followed one another in rapid
succession."18
• Blue light around objects.
• Sensation of numbness in the heart region.
• Delusion he is dissolving rapidly.
• Visions "of a furious succession of
coloured arabesques, arising and descending or sliding at every possible angle
into the field of view."
• "My right leg became suddenly heavy and
solid; it seemed, indeed, as if the entire weight of my body had shifted into
one part, about the thigh and knee, and that the rest of my body had lost all
substantiality."
• "With the suddenness of a neuralgic
pang, the back of my head seemed to open and emit streams of bright colour;
this was immediately followed by the feeling as of a draft blowing like a gale
through the hair in the same region."
• "At one moment the colour, green,
acquired a taste in my mouth; it was sweetish and somewhat metallic; blue again
would have a taste that seemed to recall phosphorus; these are the only colours
that seemed to be connected with taste."
• Sensation of burning heat in the palm of the
left hand.
• Sensation of heat about both eyes.
• "My reason appeared to be the sole
survivor of my being. At times I felt that this, too, would go, but the sound
of my own voice would establish again the communication with the outer world of
reality."
• "Tremors were more or less constant in
my lower limbs."
HEART Clarke states that Anhalonium
doesn't produce any of the "terrible heart symptoms of the other Cacti."
The experiments of Havelock Ellis provide evidence to the contrary:
• "There were paroxysmal attacks of pain
at the heart and a sense of imminent death, which naturally alarmed the
subject."
• "But a sudden difficulty in breathing
and a sensation of numbness at the heart brought me back to the arm-chair from
which I had risen. From this moment I had a series of attacks or paroxysms,
which I can only describe by saying that I felt as though I were dying. It was
impossible to move, and it seemed almost impossible to breathe. My speedy
dissolution, I half imagined, was about to take place, and the power of making
any resistance to the violent sensations that were arising within was going, I
felt, with every second."
• "Persistent, also, was the feeling of
nausea. This, when attended by a feeling of suffocation and a pain at the
heart, was relieved by taking brandy, coffee, or biscuit."
PROVINGS •• Unger - 6 provers
[1 male, 5 females], 1958; method: 30x, twice a day 5 drops for 4-5 weeks; 12x,
twice a day 5 drops for 3-8 weeks; 6x, thrice a day 5 drops for 3-4 weeks; 3x,
thrice a day 5 drops for 4 weeks; in-between the various potencies
medicine-free intervals of 1-2 months. For months after the proving, both Unger
and other provers experienced a continuation of their
visual hallucinations, predominated by the colours blue and green [the peyote
cactus is bluish green!]. To one female prover the
white keys of her typewriter appeared to be bluish green during a period of two
years after the proving. According to Unger the element boron and its
compounds, which naturally occur in Lophophora,
account for the effects of peyote.
•• [2] Herrick - 10 provers,
1994; method: 30c, taken from one to three times over a three week period.
[1-2] Anderson, Peyote: The Divine Cactus, The
University of Arizona Press 1980. [3] Stafford, Psychedelics Encyclopedia. [4] Ott, Pharmacotheon. [5] Schultes and
Hofmann, The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. Frazer, The Golden Bough.
Bergman, Navajo peyote use: Its apparent safety; cited in Baggott,
A Note on the Safety of Peyote when Used Religiously [website Council on
Spiritual Practices]. Furst [ed.], Flesh of the Gods.
Holmstedt and Liljestrand,
Readings in Pharmacology, New York 1963. Pelikan,
Healing Plants. Havelock Ellis, Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise. Schenk, The
Book of Poisons. Gottlieb, Peyote and other Psychoactive Cacti. Roseman, The Peyote Story. Castaneda, The Teachings of Don
Juan. Ott, ibid. Havelock Ellis, ibid.
Affinity
MIND: Nerves.
Digestion. Heart and blood vessels. Respiration.
Modalities
<: Light/motion/closing eyes/sunlight [at
noon].
>: Rest/darkness.
Main symptoms
Egocentric introversion [Julian]; non-egoic consciousness [Stephenson].
• "A sense of egotistical concentration,
together with a delightful feeling of irresponsibility towards one's
surroundings." [Zaren]
Self-contained: Objects seem
enlarged/diminished.
• "I was about twenty-one years old when
some men told me, 'There's a new, powerful medicine. It's going to whirl you
around. It will make you see God.' ... I wanted to experience this and I went
to their first meeting in a lonely shack. Six men were sitting on the floor of
an empty room. They had a half-gallon can full of cut-up peyote. ... I felt
strange taking this new medicine and took only a few tablespoons at first. The
peyote was powerful. The drum got into me. The gourd got into me. There were
voices coming to me out of that rattle. ... By midnight I was having visions.
First I saw a square turning into a circle, into a half moon, into a beaded
belt - green and blue - which was spinning around me. I could see myself as if
looking down a high mountain, sitting with the other six men, seeing myself
crouching in the corner of that log house. Suddenly I was back within myself.
My eyes were on the logs, which seemed very close by, like looking through a
magnifying glass. I saw something crawling out between the chinks. It was a big
ant, maybe ten feet high, the biggest ant there ever was, all horns, spiny like
a lobster. As the ant grew bigger, the room expanded with it. I saw insects
starting to eat me. I got scared and tried to get away but couldn't move. The
leader, the roadman, could tell that I was seeing something. He knew how I
felt. He whirled his gourd around, shook his fan of feathers at me. I came back
to life, back from someplace outside the log house, it seemed to me. I was
confused. ... I tried to think about animals, but was unable to concentrate.
The men had told me, 'Eat this and you will see God.' I did not see God. I
couldn't think in complete words, only in syllables, one syllable at a
time."
Noises or touch perceived by a coloured vision.
Hypersensitivity to noises. Sounds seen as
colours.
Sensation of being carried by music.
Loss of sense of time.
• "Sense of continuum. With places and
people that you meet. A feeling of having been here before. Of coming back
again. God is one. Everything is one. Lifetime is short but there is something
that will continue on. Or: Everything is diffused." [Shah]
Delusion of having a non-material body.
Disorientation.
• "The child that is brought in for ADD
may most likely be confused for Cannabis indica, Baryta carbonica, or Helleborus. The child has two sides to herself. She is
ritualistic, liking to wear the same clothes, eat the same foods or mimic
certain people. She also has a contrasting side; she appears to be very free,
easily transitioning from one event to another going along with any suggestion
and, 'being so mellow that she is not with the program.' When you ask the parents
what they mean, they explain, 'She misses a lot of her day. It's like she is
dreaming. It's like she has some idea and is so into it that she misses what's
going on around her.'" [Herscu]
Audio-visual hallucinations; "coloured
visions of most overpowering brilliance, associated with moving shapes of
fantastic design, the motion being regulated somewhat in time by music."
[Clarke]
Multiple colours; or blue and green increased,
with red and yellow decreased. Or: Everything only one colour.
Visual hallucinations which overpower all
mental functions.
• "The visual aberrations are among the
richest in our materia medica.
Outstanding are noise and touch seen as colour, perspectives completely
distorted. The visual impression may be so powerful as to drown out all mental
functions. Blue and green perception is increased; red and yellow decreased. In
this, the objective red and yellow of consciousness has been displaced by the
more subjective blues and greens, closer to the ultraviolet in the visual
spectrum. A unique symptom was green experienced as a metallic taste; also, two
dimensional objects appear multi-dimensional." [Stephenson]
Disturbances of vision in welders; after
operation for hypophyseal tumours; from overexertion
of eyes due to prolonged watching television; from astigmatism.
Objects seem transparent; sees his internal
organs.
Loss of sense of identity; depersonalization.
Boundless response to any illusion.
An ecstatic feeling of immortality.
Delusion of standing beside oneself and
observing oneself.
Clairvoyance. ['Always knows what people around
her are feeling.']
• "Others love them, love their
perceptions and ability to be empathic. They have the enviable meditative,
ecstasy side, the side that sees, hears, and feels beauty, the side that suspends
time and feels like they are one with God. However, over time, the ability to
maintain themselves, to maintain their own desires, their own ego sense,
disappears. Now others affect them too much. Now everyone needs to be careful
of how they act around this person.
Now the Anhalonium is
too perceptive. The process of self-degradation continues. Whereas before, the
patient felt love and joy looking at scenery, at life and nature, music, and
loving different aromas, they are now accosted by these very same stimuli. Now
all these external stimuli are too much to bear.
They stop feeling the borders." [Zaren]
• "The keynote of this remedy is
schizophrenia between the conscious and unconscious life of the patient. There
is a retreat from objective reality into an inner life so rich and so varied
that the other world has lost its meaning. ... Possibly as the result of this
separation between the conscious and the unconscious, physiologically there is
an all pervading lethargy and a depression of the usual instincts of sex,
hunger and a desire for companionship.
[In this the action is similar to that
following Opium smoking.] Yet, in spite of the lethargy, insomnia is marked,
particularly at night from overactivity of the mind.
The cerebral dissociation is accompanied by many peripheral, neurological
symptoms such as numbness, formication and
anaesthesia, particularly of the tongue and the limbs. ... In the mental sphere
there is such a wide range of symptoms as to make analysis extremely difficult.
As we have said, outstanding is the increased involvement in the inner life to
the exclusion of the outer. Complete absence of will so that volition has
become autocratic, divorced from any mental control. Most of the classic
symptoms of religious experience can be found here - the euphoria, the bliss,
the loss of mundane time sense, the loss of self-consciousness and the feeling
of union with the greater self, and the eternal renunciation of the world.
Among delusions there is the classic schizophrenic one that 'faces appear
mask-like'." [Stephenson]
Weakness of will.
Obstruction of the will. Lack of initiative.
Unable to make up one's own mind.
Flight and withdrawal when faced with
decisions.
Split personality.
Hysteria, insomnia, schizophrenia; hebephrenia.
[Hebephrenia is a
form of schizophrenia characterised by thought disorder and emotional incognity. Delusions and hallucinations are common.]
Ailments from:
Times of severe isolation; exposure to
frightening visions - such as violence or violent movies; illnesses with
attendant blood loss and illness that leaves the patient extremely weak.
• "They also tend to produce and be
aggravated by losing fluid through some form of discharge such as repeated or
severe diarrhoea or blood loss. This could be due to injury, or due to bleeding
per vagina or rectum. They may also perspire a great deal or have tremendous
mucus production, with sinusitis, repeated colds or mucous diarrhoea." [Herscu]
FATIGUE.
• "Feels like doing things in slow motion,
like mind and body moving through thick molasses." [Herrick]
Chilliness. Internal coldness of body.
• "As if any ability to maintain proper
body temperature has been lost or as if they had 'spent' their energy." [Herscu]
• "An experience of a cosmic coldness,
penetrating the body as if out of the cosmos."*
> Heat [becoming warm; warm applications].
Sensation of coldness [and heaviness]. [lips;
tongue; genitals]
OR: Intolerance of heat. [Hyperthyroidism]
And Congestive frontal headache [behind the
eyes or above left eye].
And Perspiration of hands.
And Emaciation in spite of ravenous appetite.
< Heat of sun. > Cold air; cold
applications.
Acute sensitiveness to meteorological changes.
Dislike of all foods, in spite of strong
salivation and sensation of hunger. Or: Sensation of hunger despite adequate
food intake.
Gradual changes until a complete reversal of
sleep-waking rhythm.
Flight from reality into the nightly dream
world.
• "Increasing shadowing of day
consciousness and brightening of night unconsciousness in all stages of transition.
That is, during the day, tiredness and a feeling of being beaten-up,
sleepiness, drowsiness and dimness of consciousness. At night, pronounced,
long-lasting inability to fall asleep from active mental images. Restlessness
and fulness of the thoughts. Dreams of a visionary
character."
Sexual desire decreased.
• "Erogenous areas are icy cold."
Motion.: • "Disinclined to make the
slightest movement."
General reduction of peripheral pain sensation.
Muscular rigidity, particularly facial.
• "Other peoples faces appear mask-like
and scheming."
Migraine.
< Closing eyes; motion of eyes. > Lying
down.
And Disturbed vision [brilliant coloured
objects are seen].
And Loss of conception of time.
Trigeminal neuralgia, left-sided.
And Vasomotor troubles, increased perspiration
and hypersensitivity to touch.
Heart and circulation.
Irregular or accelerated heartbeat.
Oppression of chest l. side)
Stitches in the heart and sensation of fear in
the heart.
Feeling of constriction or squeezing, as if the
heart were at a standstill.
Rubrics
Mind: Loss of
adaptability. Heightened awareness of body. Clairvoyance. Confusion, as to his
identity; depersonalization, loss of self-knowledge and self-control,
dissociation from or self-identification with environment, personal disruption.
Decomposition of shape; of space. Delusion, body is immaterial; she is
dissolving; objects are enlarged; enlarged and diminished; floating in air;
immortality; on closing eyes; hears music; he is separated from the world;
snakes in and around her; everything is transparent. Escape in a world of
dreams. Execution lost as the result of overpowering visual sensations.
Open-hearted loquacity. Memory active for past events. Music >; sensation of
being carried by music; drums produce euphoria. Flight from reality. Monotony
of thoughts. Loss of will, with increased insight, self-awareness; feels as if
he had two wills.
Head: “As if occiput opens and emits streams of bright colour”
Vision: Colours,
blue light around objects. Dim during headache. Zigzags during headache.
Stomach: Nausea
> brandy; > coffee/lying down/during pain in heart;
Chest:
Sensation of numbness in heart region; Paroxysmal pain in heart with sensation
of imminent death;
Limbs:
Sensation of heat in palm of left hand.
Generals: Cold
feeling in inner parts.
Food and Drinks:
Desires: Garlic/spaghetti/spicy food;
>: Brandy/coffee;
Appendix anhalonium
HAVELOCK ELLIS - MESCAL: A NEW ARTIFICIAL
PARADISE
[The Contemporary Review, January 1898]
It has been known for some years that the Kiowa
Indians of New Mexico are accustomed to eat, in their religious ceremonies, a
certain cactus called Anhalonium Lewinii,
or mescal button. Mescal - which must not be confounded with the intoxicating
drink of the same name made from an agave - is found in the Mexican Valley of
the Rio Grande, the ancestral home of the Kiowa Indians, as well as in Texas,
and is a brown and brittle substance, nauseous and bitter to the taste,
composed mainly of the blunt dried leaves of the plant. Yet, as we shall see,
it has every claim to rank with hashish and the other famous drugs which have
procured for men the joys of an artificial paradise. Upon the Kiowa Indians,
who first discovered its rare and potent virtues, it has had so strong a
fascination that the missionaries among these Indians, finding here a rival to
Christianity not yielding to moral suasion, have appealed to the secular arm,
and the buying and selling of the drug has been prohibited by Government under
severe penalties. Yet the use of mescal prevails among the Kiowas
to this day.
It has indeed spread, and the mescal rite may
be said to be to day the chief religion of all the tribes of the southern
plains of the United States. The rite usually takes place on Saturday night;
the men then sit in a circle within the tent round a large camp fire, which is
kept burning brightly all the time. After prayer the leader hands each man four
buttons, which are slowly chewed and swallowed, and altogether about ten or
twelve buttons are consumed by each man between sun-down and daybreak.
Throughout the night the men sit quietly round the fire in a state of reverie -
amid continual singing and the beating of drums by attendants - absorbed in the
colour visions and other manifestations of mescal intoxication, and about noon
on the following day, when the effects have passed off, they get up and go
about their business, without any depression or other unpleasant after-effect.
There are five or six allied species of cacti
which the Indians also use and treat with great reverence. Thus Mr. Carl Lumholtz has found that the Tarahumari,
a tribe of Mexican Indians, worship various cacti as gods, only to be
approached with uncovered heads. When they wish to obtain these cacti, the Tarahumari cleanse themselves with copal incense, and with
profound respect dig up the god, careful lest they should hurt him, while women
and children are warned from the spot. Even Christian Indians regard Hikori, the cactus god, as coequal with their own divinity,
and make the sign of the cross in its presence. At all great festivals Hikori is made into a drink and consumed by the medicine
man, or certain selected Indians, who sing as they partake of it, invoking Hikori to grant a "beautiful intoxication"; at
the same time a rasping noise is made with sticks, and men and women dance a
fantastic and picturesque dance - the women by themselves in white petticoats
and tunics - before those who are under the influence of the god.
In 1891 Mr. James Mooney, of the United States
Bureau of Ethnology, having frequently observed the mescal rites of the Kiowa
Indians and assisted at them, called the attention of the Anthropological
Society at Washington to the subject, and three years later he brought to
Washington a supply of mescal, which was handed over for examination to Drs.
Prentiss and Morgan. These investigators experimented on several young men, and
demonstrated, for the first time, the precise character of mescal intoxication
and the remarkable visions to which it gives rise. A little later Dr. Weir
Mitchell, who, in addition to his eminence as a physician, is a man of marked
aesthetic temperament, experimented on himself, and published a very
interesting record of the brilliant visions by which he was visited under the
influence of the plant. In the spring of the past year I was able to obtain a
small sample of mescal in London, and as my first experiment with mescal was
also, apparently, the first attempt to investigate its vision-producing
properties outside America, I will describe it in some detail, in preference to
drawing on the previously published descriptions of the American observers.
On Good Friday I found myself entirely alone in
the quiet rooms in the Temple which I occupy when in London, and judged the occasion
a fitting one for a personal experiment. I made a decoction [a different method
from that adopted in America] of three buttons, the full physiological dose,
and drank this at intervals between 14.30 and 16.30 h. The first symptom
observed during the afternoon was a certain consciousness of energy and
intellectual power. This passed off, and about an hour after the final dose I
felt faint and unsteady; the pulse was low, and I found it pleasanter to lie
down. I was still able to read, and I noticed that a pale violet shadow floated
over the page around the point at which my eyes were fixed. I had already
noticed that objects not in the direct line of vision, such as my hands holding
the book, shows a tendency to look obtrusive, heightened in colour, almost
monstrous, while, on closing my eyes, afterimages were vivid and prolonged.
The appearance of vision with closed eyes was
very gradual. At first there was merely a vague play of light and shade which
suggested pictures, but never made them. Then the pictures became more
definite, but too confused and crowded to be described, beyond saying that they
were of the same character as the images of the kaleidoscope, symmetrical
groupings of spiked objects. Then, in the course of the evening, they became
distinct, but still indescribable-mostly a vast field of golden jewels, studded
with red and green stones, ever changing. This moment was, perhaps, the most
delightful of the experience, for at the same time the air around me seemed to
be flushed with vague perfume - producing with the visions a delicious effect -
and all discomfort had vanished, except a slight faintness and tremor of the
hands, which, later on, made it almost impossible to guide a pen as I made
notes of the experiment; it was, however, with an effort, always possible to
write with a pencil. The visions never resembled familiar objects; they were
extremely definite, but yet always novel; they were constantly approaching, and
yet constantly eluding, the semblance of known things. I would see thick,
glorious fields of jewels, solitary or clustered, sometimes brilliant and
sparkling, sometimes with a dull rich glow. Then they would spring up into
flower-like shapes beneath my gaze, and then seem to turn into gorgeous
butterfly forms or endless folds of glistening, iridescent, fibrous wings of
wonderful insects; while sometimes I seemed to be gazing into a vast hollow
revolving vessel, or whose polished concave mother-of-pearl surface the hues
were swiftly changing. I was surprised, not only by the enormous profusion of
the imagery presented to my gaze, but still more by its variety.
Perpetually some totally new kind of effect
would appear in the field of vision; sometimes there was swift movement,
sometimes dull, sombre richness of colour, sometimes glitter and sparkle, once
a startling rain of gold, which seemed to approach me. Most usually there was a
combination of rich, sober colour, with jewel-like points of brilliant hue.
Every colour and tone conceivable to me appeared at some time or another. Sometimes
all the different varieties of one colour, as of red, with scarlets,
crimsons, pinks, would spring up together, or in quick succession. But in spite
of this immense profusion, there was always a certain parsimony and æsthetic value in the colours presented. They were usually
associated with form, and never appeared in large masses, or if so, the tone
was very delicate. I was further impressed, not only by the brilliance,
delicacy, and variety of the colours, but even more by their lovely and various
textures - fibrous, woven, polished, glowing, dull, veined, semi-transparent -
the glowing effects, as of jewels, and the fibrous, as of insects' wings, being
perhaps the most prevalent. Although the effects were novel, it frequently
happened, as I have already mentioned, that they vaguely recalled known
objects.
Thus, once the objects presented to me seemed
to be made of exquisite porcelain, again they were like elaborate sweetmeats,
again of a somewhat Maori style of architecture; and the background of the
pictures frequently recalled, both in form and tone, the delicate architectural
effects as of lace carved in wood, which we associated with the mouchrabieh work of Cairo. But always the visions grew and
changed without any reference to the characteristics of those real objects of
which they vaguely reminded me, and when I tried to influence their course it
was with very little success. On the whole, I should say that the images were
most usually what might be called living arabesques. There was often a certain
incomplete tendency to symmetry, as though the underlying mechanism was
associated with a large number of polished facets. The same image was in this
way frequently repeated over a large part of the field; but this refers more to
form than to colour, in respect to which there would still be all sorts of
delightful varieties, so that if, with a certain uniformity, jewel-like flowers
were springing up and expanding all over the field of vision, they would still
show every variety of delicate tone and tint.
Weir Mitchell found that he could only see the
visions with closed eyes and in a perfectly dark room. I could see them in the
dark with almost equal facility, though they were not of equal brilliancy, when
my eyes were wide open. I saw them best, however, when my eyes were closed, in
a room lighted only by flickering firelight. This evidently accords with the
experience of the Indians, who keep a fire burning brightly throughout their
mescal rites.
The visions continued with undiminished
brilliance for many hours, and as I felt somewhat faint and muscularly weak, I
went to bed, as I undressed being greatly impressed by the red, scaly, bronzed,
and pigmented appearance of my limbs whenever I was not directly gazing at
them. I had not the faintest desire for sleep; there was a general
hyperaesthesia of all the senses as well as muscular irritability, and every
slightest sound seemed magnified to startling dimensions. I may also have been
kept awake by a vague alarm at the novelty of my condition, and the possibility
of further developments.
After watching the visions in the dark for some
hours I became a little tired of them and turned on the gas. Then I found that
I was able to study a new series of visual phenomena, to which previous
observers had made no reference. The gas jet [an ordinary flickering burner]
seemed to burn with great brilliance, sending out waves of light, which
expanded and contracted in an enormously exaggerated manner. I was even more
impressed by the shadows, which were in all directions heightened by flushes of
red, green, and especially violet. The whole room, with its whitewashed but not
very white ceiling, thus became vivid and beautiful. The difference between the
room as I saw it then and the appearance it usually presents to me was the
difference one may often observe between the picture of a room and the actual
room. The shadows I saw were the shadows which the artist puts in, but which
are not visible in the actual scene under normal conditions of casual
inspection. I was reminded of the paintings of Claude Monet, and as I gazed at
the scene it occurred to me that mescal perhaps produces exactly the same
conditions of visual hyperaesthesia, or rather exhaustion, as may be produced
on the artist by the influence of prolonged visual attention. I wished to
ascertain how the subdued and steady electric light would influence vision, and
passed into the next room; but here the shadows were little marked, although
walls and floor seemed tremulous and insubstantial, and the texture of everything
was heightened and enriched.
About 3.30 h. I felt that the phenomena were
distinctly diminishing - though the visions, now chiefly of human figures,
fantastic and Chinese in character, still continued - and I was able to settle
myself to sleep, which proved peaceful and dreamless. I awoke at the usual hour
and experienced no sense of fatigue nor other unpleasant reminiscence of the
experience I had undergone. Only my eyes seemed unusually sensitive to colour,
especially to blue and violet; I can, indeed, say that ever since this
experience I have been more æsthetically sensitive
than I was before to the more delicate phenomena of light and shade and colour.
It occurred to me that it would be interesting
to have the experiences of an artist under the influence of mescal, and I
induced an artist friend to make a similar experiment. Unfortunately no effects
whatever were produced at the first attempt, owing, as I have since discovered,
to the fact that the buttons had only been simply infused and their virtues not
extracted. To make sure of success the experiment was repeated with four
buttons, which proved to be an excessive and unpleasant dose. There were
paroxysmal attacks of pain at the heart and a sense of imminent death, which
naturally alarmed the subject, while so great was the dread of light and
dilatation of the pupils that the eyelids had to be kept more or less closed,
though it was evident that a certain amount of vision was still possible.
The symptoms came on very suddenly, and when I
arrived they were already at their height. As the experiences of this subject
were in many respects very unlike mine, I will give them in his own words:
"I noticed first that as I happened to turn my eyes away from a blue
enamel kettle at which I had been unconsciously looking, and which was standing
in the fender of the fireplace, with no fire in it, it seemed to me that I saw
a spot of the same blue in the black coals of the grate, and that this spot
appeared again, farther off, a little brighter in hue. But I was in doubt
whether I had not imagined these blue spots. When, however, I lifted my eyes to
the mantelpiece, on which were scattered all sorts of odds and ends, all doubt
was over. I saw an intensely vivid blue light begin to play around every
object. A square cigarette box, violet in colour, shone like an amethyst. I
turned my eyes away and beheld this time, on the back of a polished chair, a
bar of colour glowing like a ruby. Although I was expecting some such
manifestation as one of the first symptoms of the intoxication, I was
nevertheless somewhat alarmed when this phenomenon took place. Such a silent
and sudden illumination of all things around, where a moment before I had seen
nothing uncommon, seemed like a kind of madness beginning from outside me, and
its strangeness affected me more than its beauty. A desire to escape from it
led me to the door, and the act of moving had, I noticed, the effect of
dispelling the colours. But a sudden difficulty in breathing and a sensation of
numbness at the heart brought me back to the armchair from which I had risen.
From this moment I had a series of attacks or paroxysms, which I can only
describe by saying that I felt as though I were dying. It was impossible to
move, and it seemed almost impossible to breathe. My speedy dissolution, I half
imagined, was about to take place, and the power of making any resistance to
the violent sensations that were arising within was going, I felt, with every
second.
"The first paroxysms were the most
violent. They would come on with tingling in the lower limbs, and with the
sensation of a nauseous and suffocating gas mounting up into my head. Two or
three times this was accompanied by a colour vision of the gas bursting into
flame as it passed up my throat. But I seldom had visions during the paroxysms;
these would appear in the intervals. They began with a spurting up of colours;
once, of a flood of brightly illuminated green water covering the field of
vision, and effervescing in parts, just as when fresh water with all the air
bubbles is pumped into a swimming bath. At another time my eye seemed to be
turning into a vast drop of dirty water in which millions of minute creatures
resembling tadpoles were in motion. But the early visions consisted mostly of a
furious succession of coloured arabesques, arising and descending or sliding at
every possible angle into the field of view. It would be as difficult as to
give a description of the whirl of water at the bottom of a waterfall as to
describe the chaos of colour and design which marked this period.
"Now also began another series of
extraordinary sensations. They set in with bewildering suddenness and followed
one another in rapid succession.
These I now record as they occur to my mind at
haphazard: My right leg became suddenly heavy and solid; it seemed, indeed, as
if the entire weight of my body had shifted into one part, about the thigh and
knee, and that the rest of my body had lost all substantiality. With the
suddenness of a neuralgic pang, the back of my head seemed to open and emit
streams of bright colour; this was immediately followed by the feeling as of a
draft blowing like a gale through the hair in the same region. At one moment
the colour, green, acquired a taste in my mouth; it was sweetish and somewhat
metallic; blue again would have a taste that seemed to recall phosphorus; these
are the only colours that seemed to be connected with taste. A feeling of
delightful relief and preternatural lightness about my forehead, succeeded by a
growing sensation of contraction. Singing in one of my ears. A sensation of
burning heat in the palm of my left hand. Heat about both eyes. The last
continued throughout the whole period, except for a moment when I had a
sensation of cold upon the eyelids, accompanied with a colour vision of the
wrinkled lid, of the skin disappearing from the brow, of dead flesh, and
finally of a skull.
"Throughout these sensations and visions
my mind remained not only perfectly clear, but enjoyed, I believe, an unusual
lucidity. Certainly I was conscious of an odd contrast in hearing myself talk
rationally with H. E., who had entered the room a short time before, and
experiencing at the same moment the wild and extraordinary pranks that were
taking place in my body. My reason appeared to be the sole survivor of my
being. At times I felt that this, too, would go, but the sound of my own voice
would establish again the communication with the outer world of reality.
"Tremors were more or less constant in my
lower limbs. Persistent, also, was the feeling of nausea. This, when attended
by a feeling of suffocation and a pain at the heart, was relieved by taking
brandy, coffee, or biscuit. For muscular exertion I felt neither the wish nor
the power. My hands, however, retained their full strength.
"It was painful for me to keep my eyes
open above a few seconds; the light of day seemed to fill the room with a
blinding glare. Yet every object, in the brief glimpse I caught, appeared
normal in colour and shape. With my eyes closed, most of the visions, after the
first chaotic display, represented parts of the whole of my body undergoing a
variety of marvellous changes, of metamorphoses or illumination. They were more
often than not comic and grotesque in character, though often beautiful in
colour. At one time I saw my right leg filling up with delicate heliotrope; at
another, the sleeve of my coat changed into a dark green material, in which was
worked a pattern in red braid, and the whole bordered at the cuff with sable.
Scarcely had my new sleeve taken shape than I found myself attired in a
complete costume of the same fashion, mediaeval in character, but I could not
say to what precise period it belonged. I noted that a chance movement - of my
hand, for instance - would immediately call up a colour vision of the part exerted,
and that this again would pass, by a seemingly natural transition, into another
wholly dissimilar. Thus, pressing my fingers accidentally against my temples,
the fingertips became elongated, and then grew into the ribs of a vaulting or
of a dome-shaped roof. But most of the visions were of a more personal nature.
I happened once to lift a spoonful of coffee to my lips, and as I was in the
act of raising my arm for that purpose a vision dashed before my closed [or
nearly closed] eyes, in all the hues of the rainbow, of my arm separated from
my body, and serving me with coffee from out of dark and indefinite space. On
another occasion, as I was seeking to relieve slight nausea by taking a piece
of biscuit passed to me by H. E., it suddenly streamed out into blue flame. For
an instant I held the biscuit close to my leg. Immediately my trousers caught
alight, and then the whole of the right side of my body, from the foot to the
shoulder, was enveloped in waving blue dame. It was a sight of wonderful beauty.
But this was not all. As I placed the biscuit in my mouth it burst out again
into the same coloured fire and illuminated the interior of my mouth, casting a
blue resection on the roof. The light in the Blue Grotto at Capri, I am able to
affirm, is not nearly as blue as seemed for a short space of time the interior
of my mouth. There were many visions of which I could not trace the origin.
"There were spirals and arabesques and
flowers, and sometimes objects more trivial and prosaic in character. In one vision
I saw a row of small white flowers, one against the other like pearls of a
necklace, begin to revolve in the form of a spiral. Every flower, I observed,
had the texture of porcelain. It was at a moment when I had the sensation of my
cheeks growing hot and feverish that I experienced the strangest of all the
colour visions. It began with feeling that the skin of my face was becoming
quite thin and of no stouter consistency than tissue paper, and the feeling was
suddenly enhanced by a vision of my face, paper-like and semitransparent and
somewhat reddish in colour. To my amazement I saw myself as though I were
inside a Chinese lantern, looking out through my cheek into the room. Not long
after this I became conscious of a change in the visions. Their tempo was more
moderate; they were less frequent, and they were losing somewhat in
distinctness. At the same time the feeling of nausea and of numbness was
departing. A short period followed in which I had no visions at all, and
experienced merely a sensation of heaviness and torpor. I found that I was able
to open my eyes again and keep them fixed on any object in the room without
observing the faintest blue halo or prism, or bar of glowing colour, and that,
moreover, no visions appeared on closing them. It was now twilight, but beyond
the fact of not seeing light or colour, either without or within, I had a
distinct feeling that the action of the drug was at an end and that my body had
become sober suddenly. I had no more visions, though I was not wholly free from
abnormal sensations, and I retired to rest. I lay awake till the morning, and
with the exception of the following night I scarcely slept for the next three
days, but I can not say that I felt any signs of fatigue, unless, perhaps, on
one of the days when my eyes, I noticed, became very susceptible to any
indications of blue in an object. Of colour visions, or of any approach to
colour visions, there was no further trace; but all sorts of odd and grotesque
images passed in succession through my mind during part of the first night.
They might have been the dreams of a Baudelaire or of an Aubrey Beardsley. I
would see figures with prodigious limbs, or strangely dwarfed and curtailed, or
impossible combinations such as five or six fish, the colour of canaries,
floating about in air in a gold wire cage. But these were purely mental images,
like the visions seen in a dream by a distempered brain.
"Of the many sensations of which my body
had been the theatre during three hours, not the least strange was the feeling
I experienced on coming back into a normal condition. The recovery did not
proceed gradually, but the whole outer and inner world of reality came back, as
it were, with a bound. And for a moment it seemed strange. It was the sensation
- only much intensified - which everyone has known on coming out into the light
of day from an afternoon performance at a theatre, where one has sat in an
artificial light of gas and lamps, the spectator of a fictitious world of
action. As one pours out with the crowd into the street, the ordinary world, by
force of contrast with the sensational scenes just witnessed, breaks in upon
one with almost a sense of unreality. The house, the aspects of the street,
even the light of day appear a little foreign for a few moments. During these
moments everything strikes the mind as odd and unfamiliar, or at least with a
greater degree of objectivity. Such was my feeling with regard to my old and
habitual self. During the period of intoxication the connection between the
normal condition of my body and my intelligence had broken - my body had become
in a manner a stranger to my reason - so that now on reasserting itself it
seemed, with reference to my reason, which had remained perfectly sane and
alert, for a moment sufficiently unfamiliar for me to become conscious of its
individual and peculiar character. It was as if I had unexpectedly attained an
objective knowledge of my own personality. I saw, as it were, my normal state
of being with the eyes of a person who sees the street on coming out of the
theatre in broad day.
"This sensation also brought out the
independence of the mind during the period of intoxication. It alone appeared
to have escaped the ravages of the drug; it alone remained sane during a
general delirium, vindicating, so it seemed, the majesty of its own impersonal
nature. It had reigned for a while, I now felt, as an autocrat, without
ministers and their officiousness. Henceforth I should be more or less
conscious of the interdependence of body and brain; a slight headache, a touch
of indigestion, or what not, would be able to effect what a general
intoxication of my senses and nerves could not touch."
I next made experiments on two poets, whose
names are both well known. One is interested in mystical matters, an excellent
subject for visions, and very familiar with various vision-producing drugs and
processes. His heart, however, is not very strong. While he obtained the
visions, he found the effects of mescal on his breathing somewhat unpleasant;
he much prefers hashish, though recognising that its effects are much more
difficult to obtain. The other enjoys admirable health, and under the influence
of mescal he experienced scarcely the slightest unpleasant reaction, but, on
the contrary, a very marked state of well being and beatitude. He took somewhat
less than three buttons, so that the results were rather less marked than in my
case, but they were perfectly definite. He writes: "I have never seen a
succession of absolutely pictorial visions with such precision and such
unaccountability. It seemed as if a series of dissolving views were carried
swiftly before me, all going from right to left, none corresponding with any
seen reality. For instance, I saw the most delightful dragons, puffing out
their breath straight in front of them like rigid lines of steam, and balancing
white balls at the end of their breath! When I tried to fix my mind on real
things, I could generally call them up, but always with some inexplicable
change. Thus, I called up a particular monument in Westminster Abbey, but in
front of it, to the left, knelt a figure in Florentine costume, like someone
out of a picture of Botticelli; and I could not see the tomb without also
seeing this figure. Late in the evening I went out on the Embankment and was
absolutely fascinated by an advertisement of 'Bovril', which went and came in
letters of light on the other side of the river. I can not tell you the intense
pleasure this moving light gave me and how dazzling it seemed to me. Two girls
and a man passed me, laughing loudly, and lolling about as they walked. I
realized, intellectually, their coarseness, but visually I saw them, as they
came under a tree, fall into the lines of a delicate picture; it might have
been an Albert Moore. After coming in I played the piano with closed eyes and
got waves and lines of pure colour, almost always without form, though I saw
one or two appearances which might have been shields or breastplates - pure
gold, studded with small jewels in intricate patterns. All the time I had no
unpleasant feelings whatever, except a very slight headache, which came and
went. I slept soundly and without dreams."
The results of music in the case just quoted -
together with the habit of the Indians to combine the drum with mescal rites,
and my own observation that very slight jarring or stimulation of the scalp
would affect the visions - suggested to me to test the influence of music on
myself. I therefore once more put myself under the influence of mescal [taking
a somewhat smaller dose than on the first occasion], and lay for some hours on
a couch with my head more or less in contact with the piano, and with closed
eyes directed toward a subdued light, while a friend played, making various
tests, of his own devising, which were not explained to me until afterwards. I
was to watch the visions in a purely passive manner, without seeking to direct
them, nor was I to think about the music, which, so far as possible, was
unknown to me. The music stimulated the visions and added greatly to my
enjoyment of them. It seemed to harmonize with them, and, as it were, support
and bear them up. A certain persistence and monotony of character in the music
was required in order to affect the visions, which then seemed to fall into
harmony with it, and any sudden change in the character of the music would blur
the visions, as though clouds passed between them and me. The chief object of
the tests was to ascertain how far a desire on the composer's part to suggest
definite imagery would affect my visions. In about half the cases there was no
resemblance, in the other half there was a distinct resemblance, which was
sometimes very remarkable. This was especially the case with Schumann's music,
for example, with his “Waldszenen” and “Kinderszenen”; thus "The Prophet Bird" called up
vividly a sense of atmosphere and of brilliant feathery bird-like forms passing
to and fro, "A Flower Piece" provoked constant and persistent images
of vegetation, while "Scheherazade" produced an effect of floating
white raiment, covered by glittering spangles and jewels. In every case my
description was, of course, given before I knew the name of the piece. I do not
pretend that this single series of experiments proves much, but it would
certainly be worth while to follow up this indication and to ascertain if any
light is hereby thrown on the power of a composer to suggest definite imagery,
or the power of a listener to perceive it.
It would be out of place here to discuss the
obscure question as to the underlying mechanism by which mescal exerts its
magic powers. It is clear from the foregoing descriptions that mescal
intoxication may be described as chiefly a saturnalia of the specific senses,
and, above all, an orgy of vision. It reveals an optical fairyland, where all
the senses now and again join the play, but the mind itself remains a
self-possessed spectator. Mescal intoxication thus differs from the other
artificial paradises which drugs procure. Under the influence of alcohol, for
instance, as in normal dreaming, the intellect is impaired, although there may
be a consciousness of unusual brilliance; hashish, again, produces an
uncontrollable tendency to movement and bathes its victim in a sea of emotion.
The mescal drinker remains calm and collected amid the sensory turmoil around
him; his judgement is as clear as in the normal state; he falls into no
oriental condition of vague and voluptuous reverie. The reason why mescal is of
all this class of drugs the most purely intellectual in its appeal is evidently
because it affects mainly the most intellectual of the senses. On this ground
it is not probable that its use will easily develop into a habit. Moreover,
unlike most other intoxicants, it seems to have no special affinity for a
disordered and unbalanced nervous system; on the contrary, it demands organic
soundness and good health for the complete manifestation of its virtues.
Further, unlike the other chief substances to which it may be compared, mescal
does not wholly carry us away from the actual world, or plunge us into
oblivion; a large part of its charm lies in the halo of beauty which it casts
around the simplest and commonest things. It is the most democratic of the
plants which lead men to an artificial paradise. If it should ever chance that
the consumption of mescal becomes a habit, the favourite poet of the mescal
drinker will certainly be Wordsworth. Not only the general attitude of
Wordsworth, but many of his most memorable poems and phrases can not - one is
almost tempted to say - be appreciated in their full significance by one who
has never been under the influence of mescal. On all these grounds it may be
claimed that the artificial paradise of mescal, though less seductive, is safe
and dignified beyond its peers.
At the same time it must be remembered that at
present we are able to speak on a basis of but very small experience, so far as
civilized men are concerned. The few observations recorded in America and my
own experiments in England do not enable us to say anything regarding the
habitual consumption of mescal in large amounts. That such consumption would be
gravely injurious I can not doubt its safeguard seems to lie in the fact that a
certain degree of robust health is required to obtain any real enjoyment from
its visionary gifts. It may at least be claimed that for a healthy person to be
once or twice admitted to the rites of mescal is not only an unforgettable
delight, but also an educational influence of no mean value.
[P. Tarkas/Ajit Kulkarni]
Mind: Starts as a day-dreamer with indolent
self-complacence, and a poetical “weltanschauung” of
magnificence with apathy at immediate surroundings, developing finally (from
drugging, morphinism, inebriency
or stress) into a mystic schizophrenic quasi-insanity with ecstatic experiences
and sublimation. As though one shakes off his physical shackles (or existence)
and becomes one with the cosmic forces, with a panorama of beauty, grandeur and
colorful splendor: a
beautiful, blissful beatitude as it were. Normal perceptions of space and time
are upset or lost in the superb unearthly drama which he feels he has joined,
is no more an onlooker.
Synaesthesia: Objects of sense-perception (light, colour, sound, smell,
taste, touch) materialize as substances, and even felt as if mutating mutually:
noise and touch are felt as colours; colours pulsate to the rhythm of music
form; a colour is felt as a taste; feelings become colours. Abstract
conceptions assume a solid bodily form. Exaggeration and reverberation of
ordinary sounds; every sound feels most melodious.
Life itself appears as a great impersonal march towards immortality with
extinction of all volition. Soares high in the
galaxies, feels himself a denizen (and not a mere spectator) of the higher
heavenly world (Agar.), with a complete withdrawal of worldly brotherhood,
kinship, sex or even appetite. He is as it were outside himself.
A religio-cataleptic state. Reminds one of the
fantastic religious and transcendental experiences (? hallucinations) or
elations of drinkers of Soma-juice. Sufis and our mediaeval saints like Meerabai and Narsinh Mehta (who
claimed to have witnessed or participated in the heavenly dance), which also
explains their resigned withdrawal from mundane activities, a retreat from
objective reality into inner and inner most depths and recesses of one's
personality, so rich and colourful that the outer world loses to them all
meaning. A state normal yet abnormal, highly represented also in the prophet
Jesus and mediaeval Christian saints and mystics, claiming to witness or even
participate in the 'cosmic drama'.
Head: Vertigo. Frontal (l.) pains with visual
zigzags. Occipital pain (or migraine) with disturbed vision; persistent ache
and a tired feeling there.
Eyes: Pupils dilated. Ptosis.
Accomodation impaired Heightened receptivity to blue
and green and lowered to red and yellow. Optical illusions, specks, stars,
threads, etc. Kaleidoscopy and spectroscopy. Shadows
deepened,
two dimensional objects appear as three dimensional. "Plastic
relief vision". Space orientation lost. All brightness; yet shuns light.
Powerful visual impressions may even block up mental functions.
Ears: Misorientation of
sounds. Splitting of tones. Tinnitus. Impressions of sound and vision greatly
heightened by any marked stimulation of skin.
Nose: Hyperosmia. Air
felt filled with some perfume. Later anosmia.
Mouth: Averse to facial gestures. Aphasia: speech
difficult; from both paralysis of tongue and dementia. Tongue cold, insensible,
everything is tasteless. Thyroid: pulsation; pressing in; swelling.
Stomach: No appetite (In crude doses it is given to
allay inordinate hunger and thirst).Nausea worse moving, better lying down.
Uro-genital: Frequent urination. Urine contains
phosphates. Genitals icy cold. Lowered libido.
Chest: Shallow breathing, faintness and bradycardia. Angina pectoris. Heart: apprehension in;
oppression; constriction (Anh.: Cactus without
terrible heart symptoms).
Limbs: Muscles tremble; a fine tremor in legs,
precluding the vision. Formication. Numbness. Motor incoordination. Rheuma. Sense of
position of extremities lost (another disorientation).
Sleep: Drowsiness, followed by a sense of unusual
energy; during day, with (nightly) insomnia due to mental erethism.
Thermic: A feeling of general coldness: as though a cosmic coldness from space penetrated into the body. Sweatiness (primarily); with headache.
[Dr. Anton Rohrer]
Um zu zeigen, wie verschieden über Arzneien im Laufe der letzten 50 Jahre erzählt wurde, das heißt, was die jeweilige Homöopathengeneration an den Arzneien interessiert, möchte ich als Beispiel die Erzählweisen von
Herbert Unger und Rajan Sankaran über die Arznei Anhalonium Lewinii gegenüber stellen.
Herbert Unger im Jahre 1958, der umfangreiche Prüfungen mit Anhalonium anstellte, zitiert nach Julius Mezger:
„Übersicht über seine Versuchsergebnisse:
1. Zunächst eine vegetative Reaktionssymptomatik, dann eine die gesamte Symptomatik beherrschende zerebrale Reaktionssymptomatik mit spezifischen Funktionsstörungen des gesamten optischen Systems, die auch
das Gedächtnis für alle optischen Funktionen in der Sehrinde erfasst.
2. Bei zunehmend massiver Dosierung tritt die vegetative Reaktionssymptomatik immer mehr in den Vordergrund in Form von sensorischen Funktionsstörungen aller Äste des Nervus trigeminus, besonders aber des
Ramus ophthalmicus im Sinne eines sympathikotonischen oculopupillären Erregungssyndroms, unter allmählicher Verdrängung der zerebralen Reaktionssymptomatik. Da in allen drei Trigeminusästen Bahnen zu den
Schweißdrüsen und Blutgefäßen verlaufen, kommt es zu Sekretionsstörungen der Nasenschleimhaut und Tränendrüsen (via N. petrosus superfic. major des N. facialis), der Speicheldrüse (via Chorda tympani) sowie
auch zu Geschmacksstörungen des vorderen Drittels der Zunge (zentripetale Geschmacksfasern des N. trigeminus), zu sensiblen Reizerscheinungen von Seiten des Kaumuskels sowie zu Verfeinerung der Hörfähigkeit
(Rad. parasympath. N. petrosi superfic. minoris, N. aurikulotemporalis, N. trigeminus I). Die Erregungsausbreitung befällt in überwiegendem Maße den Ramus opthalmicus des N. trigeminus.
3. Die vegetative Reaktionssymptomatik ist ein Gemisch von sympathikotonischer und parasympathikotonischer Reaktionsform. Mit zunehmender Vergiftung treten bei tieferer Potenz Pulsverlangsamung, Extrasystolen,
Kreislaufstörungen auf mit dem Gefühl „existenzieller Angst“. Dieses essentielle Syndrom charakterisiert sich beim beginnenden Erlebnis der Bewusstseinsspaltung und nicht beeinflussbaren Sehstörungen durch völlige
Abgeschiedenheit, Einsamkeit, Verlassenheit und drohenden Verlust jeder Verbindung mit der Außenwelt.
Es hat nicht peripheren, sondern vielmehr thalamischen Charakter“.
Erstaunlich, was unsere Kollegen in den 60er Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts alles interessiert hat und wie sie die Prüfungssymptome gedeutet haben. Aber nicht minder erstaunlich werden in 50 Jahren unsere
zukünftigen Kollegen die Erkenntnisse von Rajan Sankaran finden, denen wir heute fasziniert folgen. Sankaran zu Anhalonium, Einblicke ins Pflanzenreich, 2003: „Die Wahnidee vom Vergrößertsein ist charakteristisch
für die Cactaceae-Familie. Der Grad des Vergrößerungsgefühls im Arzneimittelbild und in den Fällen weist aber auf das Krebs-Miasma hin. Das zentrale Gefühl im Krebs-Miasma besteht in dem Gefühl, alles geben zu
müssen, was man hat, und noch viel mehr, in einem intensiven Kampf ums Überleben. Man muss sich über die Grenzen der eigenen Fähigkeiten strecken. Die Situation bei Anhalonium besteht darin, dass eine Person sich
über sich selbst strecken muss, andernfalls verliert er seine Existenz.
In Herricks Anhalonium-Prüfung kommt ein Gefühl des Überwältigtseins vor, unfähig, die Dinge zu regeln... Wir finden auch folgendes (Einzel-) Symptom: Wahnidee von Unsterblichkeit. Das weist wieder auf Ausdehnung
hin, darauf, dass die Zeit nicht geschrumpft und nicht begrenzt ist. In gewisser Weise lässt es uns auch an das Krebs-Miasma denken, da es um etwas geht, was über die Grenzen des realistisch Erreichbaren hinausgeht.
Das Gefühl ist demnach wie folgt: Muss Kontrolle bewahren in einer Situation, in der er zusammengeschrumpft und eingeschnürt ist. Bei Anhalonium wird alles eng und geschrumpft, und ich muss mich deshalb ausdehnen,
sonst verschwinde ich. Das ist das Gefühl des spirituellen Suchers: Als individuelles Ego werde ich immer kleiner, bis kein Ich mehr übrig ist; daraus erwächst spirituelle Ausweitung, und ich werde Alles und zu Allem...
Es (Anhalonium) hat viel mit einer Ausdehnung des mentalen Bewusstseins zu tun. Es geht um Depersonalisierung und um Auflösung der Grenzen und des Selbst, um eine Ausdehnung hinaus in das gesamte Universum.
Es vermittelt das Gefühl, als löse sich die Form auf. Der Körper wird immateriell und dehnt sich aus; Objekte werden größer oder kleiner. Mit der Umwelt zu verschmelzen ist im Prinzip eine Ausweitung des Selbst.
Das ist das Hauptsymptom von Anhalonium. Und das Gegenteil davon muss Zusammenziehen sein. Das Thema ist demnach: Groß und Klein, Ausdehnen und Zusammenziehen.“
Es erstaunt uns selbstverständlich nicht, dass das Thema Ausdehnen und Schrumpfen oder des Überwältigtseins, das bei Sankaran die Hauptrolle spielt, bei Unger gar nicht vorkommt. Ist Homöopathie eine Art der
Erzählkunst und wollen wir heute andere Geschichten hören als unsere Kollegen vor 50 Jahren?
Will jede Homöopathengeneration andere Geschichten, einen anderen Mythos, über ihre Arzneien hören? Es scheint fast so, als ob die Halbwertszeit des homöopathischen Wissens 25 Jahre beträgt, denn das, was
Unger über Anhalonium vor 50 Jahren wusste, wissen wir heute zu 100 % nicht mehr. Einfach, weil uns heute etwas Anderes interessiert. Preisfrage: Was am homöopathischen Wissen ist und bleibt zeitlos und überdauert
die Jahrhunderte?
Das aus gedrucktem Papier bestehende Buch hat bewiesen, dass es die Jahrhunderte überdauern kann. Für das elektronische Buch steht dieser Beweis noch aus. Ich plädiere ich für den Erhalt der Wissensaufbewahrung
nach der altmodischen Art des vorigen Jahrhunderts im kiloweisen Sammeln von Papier in Buchform. Es besteht ja die Gefahr, dass sonst Wertvolles und auch vieles Unnützes unwiederbringlich für die Menschheit
verloren ist.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum