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[Poisoning was a steady business. In Goethe’s Faust, Faust considers suicide by poison at one point, and later Mephisto gives Faust a potion to drink. Faust also gives Gretchen a potion to put Gretchen’s mother to sleep, but the potion kills her. Paracelsus said “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.”

While we know that it happened at the highest levels, ordinary people poisoned each other. It was suited to women looking for a way to get rid of their husbands. A witch knew something about the use of specific plants, but so did alchemists and apothecaries and herbalists. Fortune tellers, healers, astrologers – and even dressmakers – met privately with clients, heard their secret complaints, and arranged a “solution.”]

“Marie Bosse, also known as La Bosse (died 8 May 1679), was a French poisoner, fortune teller and alleged witch. She was one of the accused in the famous Poison affair. It was Marie Bosse who pointed out the central figure La Voisin.

Bosse, the widow of a horse trader, was one of the most successful fortune tellers in Paris. Unofficially, she was also a poisoner, who provided poison to people who wished to commit murder. By the end of 1678, Bosse attended a party held by her friend Marie Vigoreaux, the wife of a dressmaker, in the Rue Courtauvilain. During the party, she became drunk and boasted freely that she had become so wealthy by selling deadly poisons to members of the aristocracy that she would soon be able to retire. At the time, the Paris police was investigating poison sales in Paris. A guest at the party, the lawyer Maitre Perrin, reported the conversation to the police. The police sent the wife of a police officer to Bosse to ask for poison to murder her husband, and Bosse provided her with what proved to be deadly poison.
On the morning 4 January 1679, Marie Bosse was arrested with her daughter Manon and her sons, Francois and Guillame. Her older son was a soldier in the royal guard, the younger one was recently released from a working house. According to the report, when the family was arrested they were found in the only bed in the house and had committed incest. Marie Vigoreaux was arrested the same day, and was found to have close ties to the family, as she had sexual relations with all of the members of the family. Their confessions revealed that the illegal sale of poison in the capital was handled by a network of fortune tellers. This led to the arrest of the central figure La Voisin and the opening of the Poison affair. Marie Bosse confessed of having provided the poison used by Marguerite de Poulaillon in her murder attempt on her husband. Marie Vigoreux died during interrogation under torture 9 May 1679.
Marie Bosse was condemned to death by burning and executed in Paris on 8 May 1679. Her children and associates were also sentenced to death.

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Bosse>

[The distinction between magical and religious practices is in the context. A big difference between traditional Catholicism and fundamental Protestantism is that Catholicism comfortably embraced the magical traditions of the people while Protestantism advocated a return to original Christianity (by the Book) and strictly rejected the magical elements of Catholicism. Of course, Faust’s embrace of magic was sinful by either standard. In England, Anglicanism was designed as a “middle way” between Catholicism and fundamentalist Protestantism to keep everybody equally happy and unhappy.

Used in magic, apart from protecting the magician and punishing the demon, holy water superficially sanctifies the act and compels the lower spirits. On the other hand, attempting to compel God to do anything is sinful. That would include charms and prayers. After all, if He wanted something to be a certain way, that’s the way it would be. He knows everything—you think He needs people wheedling favours all the time?

Charms and blessings were often a sop to the ignorant peasant folk who didn’t understand Christianity and wanted to keep with the old pre-Christian and superstitious ways. When a field was sowed, they wanted the traditional pagan blessing. The priest would go along with it, but with Christian touches. Fortunately, if you were just an ignorant peasant, nobody expected much of you. Without being able to read, and having no Bibles, regular folk were pretty much ignorant of the fine details of Christianity and all they knew was what the priest said, and that was in Latin which they didn’t understand. They just pretty much did what the priest told them to do. If your opinion actually mattered, or you stuck your head out, and they wanted that head, once the interrogations started, Christianity could be a maze in a minefield.

Then around the time of Faust, with the printing press and affordable translations of the Bible into common language, people learned how to read and read the Bible. They were surprised at what was and wasn’t in it. Even today, that’s common. Who’s the Devil? What about Mary? Where’s the Pope in the Bible? Why’s he so rich? They got pretty upset, because they felt they’d been misled by the Church. Hence, Protestantism. That’s when the heads really started to roll. Anyway, this is about holy water….]

From Wikipedia:

“Holy water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy or a religious figure. The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions, from Christianity to Sikhism. The use of holy water as a sacramental for protection against evil is common among Anglicans and Roman Catholics.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_water>

Protection against evil
Saint Teresa of Avila, by Rubens, 1615

‘Catholic saints have written about the power of holy water as a force that repels evil. Saint Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the Church who reported visions of Jesus and Mary, was a strong believer in the power of holy water and wrote that she used it with success to repel evil and temptations. She wrote:

“I know by frequent experience that there is nothing which puts the devils to flight like Holy water.”

In Holy Water and Its Significance for Catholics Henry Theiler states that in addition to being a strong force in repelling evil, holy water has the twofold benefit of providing grace for both body and soul.’

[…]

“In Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and some other churches, holy water is water that has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects, or as a means of repelling evil.”

[…]

“The use of holy water in the earliest days of Christianity is attested to only in somewhat later documents. The Apostolic constitutions, which go back to about the year 400, attribute the precept of using holy water to the Apostle Matthew. It is plausible that in earliest Christian times water was used for expiatory and purificatory purposes in a way analogous to its employment in Jewish Law. Yet, in many cases, the water used for the Sacrament of Baptism was flowing water, sea or river water, and it could not receive the same blessing as that contained in the baptisteries in the view of the Roman Catholic church.”

[…]

“Sprinkling with holy water is used as a sacramental that recalls baptism. Holy water is kept in the holy water font, which is typically located at the entrance to the church (or sometimes in a separate room or building called a baptistery). Smaller vessels, called stoups, are usually placed at the entrances of the church, to enable people to sprinkle themselves with it on entering. In recent years, with the concerns over influenza, new holy water machines that work like an automatic soap dispenser have become popular.

In the Middle Ages the power of holy water was considered so great that in some places fonts had locked covers to prevent the theft of holy water for unauthorized magic practices. The Constitutions of Archbishop Edmund Rich (1236) prescribe that “Fonts are to be kept under lock and key, because of witchcraft (sortilegia). Similarly the chrism and sacred oil are kept locked up.”

In Catholicism, holy water, as well as water used during the washing of the priest’s hands at mass, is not allowed to be disposed of in regular plumbing. Roman Catholic churches will usually have a special basin (a Sacrarium) that leads directly into the ground for the purpose of proper disposal. A hinged lid is kept over the holy water basin to distinguish it from a regular sink basin, which is often just beside it. Items that contained holy water are separated, drained of the holy water, and then washed in a regular manner in the adjacent sink.”

[Twentieth century psychedelic adventurer Terence McKenna suggested that the Biblical manna which sustained the Jews during their migration from Egypt to the promised land had characteristics of the Psilocybin mushroom. That’s different from claiming it was the biblical manna, but the broader point is that entheogens could have had a role in Biblical events, as entheogens have prominent roles in other religions. While Psilocybin may have some characteristics of manna, it doesn’t have many.]

“A number of ethnomycologists, including Terence McKenna, have suggested that most characteristics of manna are similar to that of Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, notorious breeding grounds for insects, which decompose rapidly. These peculiar fungi naturally produce a number of molecules that resemble human neurochemicals, and first appear as small fibres (mycelia) that resemble hoarfrost. Psilocybin, the primary psychoactive molecule in the “Psilocybe cubensis” mushroom, has shown to produce spiritual experiences, with “personal meaning and spiritual significance” when test subjects were evaluated 14 months later. In a psilocybin study from 2006 one-third of the participants reported that the experience was the single most spiritually significant moment of their lives and more than two-thirds reported it was among the top five most spiritually significant experiences. A side-effect from psilocybin consumption is the loss of appetite. The speculation that manna was an entheogen, also paralleled in Philip K. Dick’s posthumously published The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, is supported in a wider cultural context when compared with the praise of soma in the Rigveda, Mexican praise of teonanácatl, the peyote sacrament of the Native American Church, and the holy ayahuasca used in the ritual of the União do Vegetal and Santo Daime churches.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna>

[Humans have forever speculated about the powers of the gods. In the Biblical Garden of Eden there were trees of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and of immortality. In the Greek myths the foods of the gods conferred immortality. Even today some think there is some basis in reality for those foods. Is it simply driven by a subconscious desire for them—wishful thinking? The desire to avoid death and suffering, to be reassured that everything can be made good, underlies Faust’s ambitions and our own. In that, we are all the same, but what price will we pay?

When faith is not enough, in desperation, what will we do? Faust rejects God, but he is shown to be a fool. Faith is all there is. But must we really content ourselves with that, or can we become gods ourselves? Like the ancient Greeks, and the alchemists of Faust’s age, we look for the substance which will transform us. Are we finally on the cusp of that transformation, or are we eternally deceived? Is attempting to identify the ambrosia of the Greek gods really just an academic exercise or another go round wherein we confuse nourishment and poison?]

From Wikipedia on Ambrosia:

“In the ancient Greek myths, ambrosia (Greek: “immortality”) is sometimes the food or drink of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus by doves, so it may have been thought of in the Homeric tradition as a kind of divine exhalation of the Earth.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia>

“Ambrosia is very closely related to the gods’ other form of sustenance, nectar. The two terms may not have originally been distinguished; though in Homer’s poems nectar is usually the drink and ambrosia the food of the gods; it was with ambrosia Hera “cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh”, and with ambrosia Athena prepared Penelope in her sleep, so that when she appeared for the final time before her suitors, the effects of years had been stripped away, and they were inflamed with passion at the sight of her. On the other hand, in Alcman, nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides, ambrosia is the drink. When a character in Aristophanes’ Knights says, “I dreamed the goddess poured ambrosia over your head—out of a ladle,” the homely and realistic ladle brings the ineffable moment to ground with a thump. Both descriptions, however, could be correct as Ambrosia could be a liquid that is considered a meal (much like how soup is labeled the same).

The consumption of ambrosia was typically reserved for divine beings. Upon his assumption into immortality on Olympus, Heracles is given ambrosia by Athena, while the hero Tydeus is denied the same thing when the goddess discovers him eating human brains. In one version of the myth of Tantalus, part of Tantalus’ crime is that after tasting ambrosia himself, he attempts to steal some away to give to other mortals. Those who consume ambrosia typically had not blood in their veins, but ichor.

Both nectar and ambrosia are fragrant, and may be used as perfume: in the Odyssey Menelaus and his men are disguised as seals in untanned seal skins, “and the deadly smell of the seal skins vexed us sore; but the goddess saved us; she brought ambrosia and put it under our nostrils.” Homer speaks of ambrosial raiment, ambrosial locks of hair, even the gods’ ambrosial sandals.

Among later writers, ambrosia has been so often used with generic meanings of “delightful liquid” that such late writers as Athenaeus, Paulus and Dioscurides employ it as a technical terms in contexts of cookery, medicine, and botany. Pliny used the term in connection with different plants, as did early herbalists.

Additionally, some modern ethnomycologists, such as Danny Staples, identify ambrosia with the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria: “it was the food of the gods, their ambrosia, and nectar was the pressed sap of its juices”, Staples asserts.

W. H. Roscher thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing powers of honey, which is in fact anti-septic, and because fermented honey (mead) preceded wine as an entheogen in the Aegean world; on some Minoan seals, goddesses were represented with bee faces (compare Merope and Melissa). There are many modern proprietary medicines which use honey as an ingredient.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia>


[On Ichor (the blood of the gods):]

“In Greek mythology, Ichor is the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of the gods and/or immortals.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichor>

[Well, perhaps if we kill a god and drink its blood we can become like them…. Or, perhaps not…. If God were to appear tomorrow, would we kill Him to have His powers? How long would it take us to go from faith and adoration to envy and lust? We think we are too far gone already, and God is wise to keep His distance. Perhaps that’s why when the Renaissance astronomers turned their new telescopes to the firmament, it suddenly wasn’t there. It wasn’t that the ancients were wrong to conceive of the heavens as a fixed dome, but that the act of observation caused a supernal collapse. We are chasing God away!]

“Ichor originates in Greek mythology, where it is the ethereal fluid that is the Greek gods’ blood, sometimes said to retain the qualities of the immortal’s food and drink, ambrosia or nectar. It was considered to be golden in color, as well as lethally toxic to mortals.

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichor>

[Hemp was a critically important product – it provided the maritime fleet’s sails and ropes, among other things, but hemp was useless for getting stoned. Despite a desire to think that the history of entheogen use in England and northern & western Europe has been suppressed or was underground, any significant use appears unlikely. Social, religious and natural conditions precluded it.]

“Hemp (from Old English hænep) is a commonly used term for high-growing industrial varieties of the Cannabis plant and its products, which include fiber, oil, and seed. Hemp is refined into products such as hemp seed foods, hemp oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper, and fuel.

Hemp is not to be confused with the close relative of the herb Cannabis which is widely used as a drug, commonly known as marijuana. These variants are typically low-growing and have higher content of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and other cannabinoids.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp>