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[Smoking was uncommon in sixteenth century England. There is a story that a servant panicked and threw water on a tobacco-smoking Walter Raleigh, thinking he was on fire.]

Sir Francis Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) described tobacco:

“Tobacco comforteth the spirits, and discharged weariness, which it worketh partly by opening, but chiefly by the opiate virtue, which condenseth the spirits. It were good therefore to try the taking of fumes by pipes, as they do in tobacco, of other things; as well to dry and comfort, as for other intentions. I wish trial be made of the drying fume of rosemary, and lignum aloes, before mentioned, in pipe; and so of nutmeg, and folium indum, etc.”

The Works of Francis Bacon: Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England, Volume 2. Pasted from <https://books.google.com/books?id=ta-8OnABVhMC>

[Nutmeg is a source of a psychoactive compound, but it’s not smoked, being oily. In Elizabethan times nutmeg was thought to be good against the plague. Folium indum may be cinnamon. Lignum aloe is presumably the aromatic resin, also known as agarwood, from now rare and endangered evergreen trees in southeast Asia. Like cinnamon, it is burned in incense.]

Around the turn of the 15th century, in Spain, one of Columbus’s former crewmen smoked in his home village:

‘Jerez picked up the tobacco smoking habit. When he returned to Europe in the Niña, he introduced the habit to his home town, Ayamonte. The smoke surrounding him frightened his neighbours: the Spanish Inquisition imprisoned him for his “sinful and infernal” habits, because “only Devil could give a man the power to exhale smoke from his mouth”. When he was released seven years later, smoking tobacco had caught on.’

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

[Tobacco is psychoactive in the wild, Central/South American species (Nicotiana rustica). It was used by shamans. That isn’t quite the same tobacco smoked today, which is Nicotiana tabacum. That is thought to be a hybrid of several other species of Nicotiana.]

“Nicotiana rustica is often used for entheogenic purposes by South American shamans. It contains up to nine times more nicotine than common species of Nicotiana such as Nicotiana tabacum (common tobacco). Other reasons for its shamanic use are the comparatively high levels of beta-carbolines, including the harmala alkaloids harman and norharman. Most commonly, in South American ethnobotanical preparations, it is allowed to soak or be infused in water, and the water is then insufflated into the stomach in a preparation known as singado or singa; it is also smoked in cigars, used as an enema, made into a lickable product known as ambil, and made into a snuff with the bark of a species of Theobroma, creating nu-nu. In the southeast part of Turkey, people use this herb and ashes of some tree bodies to make a moist snuff called maraş otu. They use this by putting the mixture under their lips like Swedish snus or Afghan naswar. It is also a common admixture of Ayahuasca in some parts of the Amazon.”
Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_rustica>

In the mid 16th century “cultivated” tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, the tobacco we are familiar with, was imported and grown in Europe, largely as a medicinal, then progressively it became more popular for smoking.

It was already somewhat known in England when Sir Walter Raleigh helped develop a fashion for smoking among the higher classes. Raleigh was an acquaintance of both Christopher Marlowe, the playwright who wrote England’s Doctor Faustus, and John Dee, the mathematician and Hermetic philosopher known as “Elizabeth’s conjurer,” and possibly an inspiration for Marlowe’s Faustus.

Cultivated tobacco is of course, not psychoactive in palatable amounts. Its addictive qualities were recognised immediately – that’s why sailors were carrying it back from the Americas – they were already addicted. By 1610 Francis Bacon was complaining about how hard it was to quit:

“The use of tobacco has immensely increased in our time. It affects men with a kind of secret pleasure, so that persons once accustomed to it can scarce leave it off: It tends no doubt to relieve the body, and remove weariness; and its virtue is commonly thought to lie in this, that it opens the passages and draws off the humours. But it may be more properly referred to the condensation of the spirits; for it is a kind of henbane, and manifestly affects the head, as all opiates do.”
Francis Bacon, Historia vitae et mortis (1623). Pasted from <http://www.sirbacon.org/historylifedeath.htm>

In the next few centuries tobacco’s harmful nature became obvious to physicians. Francis Bacon already has his suspicions:

“It hath been observed that the diet of women with child doth work much upon the infant; as, if the mother eat quinces much, and coriander seed, the nature of both which is to repress and stay vapours that ascend to the brain, it will make the child ingenious; and on the contrary side, if the mother eat much onions or beans, or such vaporous food; or drink wine, or strong drink immoderately; or fast much; or be given to much musing; all which send or draw vapours to the head; it endangereth the child to become lunatic or of imperfect memory: and I make the same judgment of tobacco often taken by the mother.” The Works of Francis Bacon: Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England, Volume 2. Pasted from <https://books.google.com/books?id=ta-8OnABVhMC>

[Protection from poisons. Poisoning was a great way to get rid of your enemies – if you could get it to them. It sure beat raising an army or being hacked to death by bodyguards and you could do it without anyone suspecting it was you. With any luck, the victim would just… die, and nobody would even know it was murder. It was a great way to quietly nudge somebody out of the way without disturbing the rest of your plans.

Consequently the threat of poisoning was one which leaders throughout history faced, and there were several supposed protections against it. Foremost among them were mithridate and theriac:]

“Mithridate, also known as mithridatium, mithridatum, or mithridaticum, is a semi-mythical remedy with as many as 65 ingredients, used as an antidote for poisoning, and said to be created by Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus in the 1st century BC. It was among one of the most complex, highly sought-after drugs during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly in Italy and France, where they were in continual use for centuries. An updated recipe called theriac (Theriacum Andromachi) was known well into the 19th century.

Mithridate takes its name from its inventor, Mithradates VI, King of Pontus (134 to 63 BC) who is said to have so fortified his body against poisons with antidotes and preservatives, that when he tried to kill himself, he could not find any poison that would have an effect, and, according to some legends, had to ask a soldier to run him through with a sword. The recipe for the reputed antidote was found in his cabinet, written with his own hand, and was carried to Rome by Pompey. It was translated into Latin by Pompey’s freedman Lenaeus, and later improved upon by Nero’s physician Andromachus and Marcus Aurelius’s physician Galen. It likely underwent considerable alterations since the time of Mithradates.

In the Middle Ages, mithridate was also used as part of a regimen to ward off potential threats of plague. According to Simon Kellwaye (1593), one should “take a great Onyon, make a hole in the myddle of him, then fill the place with Mitridat or Triacle, and some leaues of Rue”. Until as late as 1786, physicians in London could officially prescribe mithridate. According to historian Christopher Hill, Oliver Cromwell took a large dose of mithridate as a precaution against the plague and found it cured his acne.”

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

“According to legends, the history of theriac begins with the king Mithridates VI of Pontus who experimented with poisons and antidotes on his prisoners. His numerous toxicity experiments eventually led him to declare that he had discovered an antidote for every venomous reptile and poisonous substance. He mixed all the effective antidotes into a single one, mithridatium or mithridate. Mithridate contained opium, myrrh, saffron, ginger, cinnamon and castor, along with some forty other ingredients. When the Romans defeated him, his medical notes fell into their hands and Roman medici began to use them. Emperor Nero’s physician Andromachus improved upon mithridatum by bringing the total number of ingredients to sixty four, including viper’s flesh, a mashed decoction of which, first roasted then well aged, proved the most constant ingredient. Lise Manniche, however, links the origins of theriac to the ancient Egyptian kyphi recipe, which was also used medicinally.

Greek physician Galen devoted a whole book Theriaké to theriac. One of his patients, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, took it on regular basis.

In 667, ambassadors from Rûm presented the Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty in China with a theriac. The Chinese observed that it contained the gall of swine, was dark red in colour and the foreigners seemed to respect it greatly. The Tang pharmacologist Su Kung noted that it had proved its usefulness against “the hundred ailments.” Whether this panacea contained the traditional ingredients such as opium, myrrh and hemp, is not known.[

In medieval London, the preparation arrived on galleys from the Mediterranean, under the watchful eye of the Worshipful Company of Grocers. Theriac, the most expensive of medicaments, was called Venice treacle by the English apothecaries.

At the time of the Black Death in the mid 14th century, Gentile da Foligno, who died of the plague in June 1348, recommended in his plague treatise that the theriac should have been aged at least a year. Children should not ingest it, he thought, but have it rubbed on them in a salve.

In 1669, the famous French apothecary, Moyse Charas, published the formula for theriac, seeking to break the monopoly held by the Venetians at that time on the medication, thereby opening up the transfer of medical information.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theriac#Theriaca_Andromachi_Senioris<

Meher Baba wrote, “If God can be found through the medium of any drug, God is not worthy of being God.”

[While not a Christian, and writing in 1966, Meher Baba succinctly sums up many Christian’s attitudes to drugs. While one may be left with an impressive, even legitimately life-changing experience, one has to question the source and can never be entirely sure it wasn’t all just an illusion. Is this a route Faust would have taken, and if so, what would the consequences have been for him? If Christianity and other religions are truly founded or shaped by drug experiences then perhaps they are the ones deceived by the Devil’s illusions (and he being one himself)—and Faust is the only rational one.]

From Wikipedia:

‘God in a Pill? Meher Baba on L.S.D. and The High Roads was a 1966 pamphlet containing messages from Meher Baba speaking out against taking illicit drugs such as marijuana and LSD, ultimately saying they were harmful “physically, mentally, and spiritually.”

The pamphlet was published in 1966 by Sufism Reoriented using quotes by Meher Baba where he disparaged the view that hallucinogenic and psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, but also marijuana, psilocybin, and other drugs, might be used to elicit meaningful spiritual insight. Meher Baba wrote, “If God can be found through the medium of any drug, God is not worthy of being God.” It was compiled from letters to several academics in the West including Allan Cohen, Robert Dreyfuss and Richard Alpert.’


Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_a_Pill%3F>

Furthermore, consider this: Simulacra and Simulation. Is it just coincidence that our age of technological advancement with its “modifications” and simulations of reality is simultaneously an age of psychoactive drug use? Are entheogens just part of the simulation or a simulacrum? Are the experiences they give us real, a simulation of reality, or an experience of something that doesn’t exist?

[Christians may or may not have made use of entheogens – psychoactives – to see God, but the Greeks did, and so did some eastern Europeans and the people who lived and travelled through the Middle East and India, of course. ]

Fresco at Plaincourault Chapel. 12th c. chapel. Knights Hospitaller. Mérigny, Indre, France.

[Wikipedia on entheogens in Europe historically:]

“Fermented honey, known in Northern Europe as mead, was an early entheogen in Aegean civilization, predating the introduction of wine, which was the more familiar entheogen of the reborn Dionysus and the maenads. Its religious uses in the Aegean world are bound up with the mythology of the bee.

Dacians [Eastern Europe. Today approximately Romania – west of the Black Sea] were known to use cannabis in their religious and important life ceremonies, proven by discoveries of large clay pots with burnt cannabis seeds in ancient tombs and religious shrines. Also, local oral folklore and myths tell of ancient priests that dreamed with gods and walked in the smoke. Their names, as transmitted by Herodotus, were “kap-no-batai” which in Dacian was supposed to mean “the ones that walk in the clouds”.

The growth of Roman Christianity also saw the end of the two-thousand-year-old tradition of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony for the cult of Demeter and Persephone involving the use of a drug known as kykeon. The term ‘ambrosia’ is used in Greek mythology in a way that is remarkably similar to the Soma of the Hindus as well.

A theory that natural occurring gases like ethylene used by inhalation may have played a role in divinatory ceremonies at Delphi in Classical Greece received popular press attention in the early 2000s, yet has not been conclusively proven.

Mushroom consumption is part of the culture of Europeans in general, with particular importance to Slavic and Baltic peoples. Some academics consider that using psilocybin- and or muscimol-containing mushrooms was an integral part of the ancient culture of the Rus’ people.

Middle East

It has been suggested that the ritual use of small amounts of Syrian rue is an artifact of its ancient use in higher doses as an entheogen (possibly in conjunction with DMT containing acacia).

Philologist John Marco Allegro has argued in his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross that early Jewish and Christian cultic practice was based on the use of Amanita muscaria, which was later forgotten by its adherents. Allegro’s hypothesis is that Amanita use was sacred knowledge kept only by high figures to hide the true beginnings of the Christian cult, seems supported by his own view that the Plaincourault Chapel shows evidence of Christian amanita use in the 13th century.”


Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen#Europe>

[We imagine some would say that historical psychoactive drug use in Christian Europe, where it was available, would be tempered by religious faith which was capable of bringing people closer to the divine – otherwise, frankly, what good was it? That someone like Faust would turn away from such an opportunity was the scandal, but for some, faith is not enough. Then again, was Faust interested in becoming closer to God? He had been that route, and was already dissatisfied. People have taken mind-altering drugs, it seems, for thousands of years with the intent of altering perception and even finding God.]

‘Psychoactive drug use can be traced to prehistory. There is archaeological evidence of the use of psychoactive substances (mostly plants) dating back at least 10,000 years, and historical evidence of cultural use over the past 5,000 years. The chewing of coca leaves, for example, dates back over 8000 years ago in Peruvian society. Medicinal use is one important facet of psychoactive drug usage. However, some have postulated that the urge to alter one’s consciousness is as primary as the drive to satiate thirst, hunger or sexual desire. Supporters of this belief contend that the history of drug use and even children’s desire for spinning, swinging, or sliding indicate that the drive to alter one’s state of mind is universal.”

One of the first people to articulate this point of view, set aside from a medicinal context, was American author Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1836–1870) in his book The Hasheesh Eater (1857):

[D]rugs are able to bring humans into the neighborhood of divine experience and can thus carry us up from our personal fate and the everyday circumstances of our life into a higher form of reality. It is, however, necessary to understand precisely what is meant by the use of drugs. We do not mean the purely physical craving…That of which we speak is something much higher, namely the knowledge of the possibility of the soul to enter into a lighter being, and to catch a glimpse of deeper insights and more magnificent visions of the beauty, truth, and the divine than we are normally able to spy through the cracks in our prison cell. But there are not many drugs which have the power of stilling such craving. The entire catalog, at least to the extent that research has thus far written it, may include only opium, hashish, and in rarer cases alcohol, which has enlightening effects only upon very particular characters.’

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

[Following is the same section quoted from Archive.org’s copy. It’s trivially different we suppose, but it is different. This is from an edition from the same year (1857) as the above, which we cannot find.]

‘But there is one ground upon which the righteousness of the tendency toward stimulants may be upheld without the fear of any dangerous side issues, namely, the fact that it proves, almost as powerfully as any thing lower than direct revelation, man’s fitness by constitution and destiny by choice, for a higher set of circumstances than the present. Let it, however, be understood what, in this instance, is meant by the tendency to stimulus.

We do not mean that mere bodily craving which, shared equally in common by the most bestial and the most spiritual of men not disembodied, urges them alike to some expedient which will send their blood throbbing with a livelier thrill of physical well-being, blind them to the consideration of disagreeable truths, and eclipse all thought by the dense shadow of the Animal.

That of which we speak is something far higher — the perception of the soul’s capacity for a broader being, deeper insight, grander views of Beauty, Truth, and Good than she now gains through the chinks of her cell. It is true that there are not many stimuli which possess the power in any degree to satisfy such yearnings. The whole catalogue, so far as research has written it, will probably embrace only opium, hasheesh, and, acting upon some rarely-found combinations of temperament, liquors. ‘

Pasted from <The hasheesh eater : being passages from the life of a Pythagorean by Ludlow, Fitz Hugh, 1836-1870>

The Vienna Dioscurides or Vienna Dioscorides….

It’s a boy! A pot plant from around 512 AD. Apparently males provide better, softer fibre.]

[Witches’ weeds—Datura plants are often mentioned along with henbane, belladonna, mandrake and nightshade as plants used by witches for the sensation of flight and other things. All of those plants are closely related—and as closely related to the potato. While it appears the Datura (and Brugmansia) species are almost entirely American, and would have been unavailable before the fifteenth century in Europe, Datura metel was apparently known in Eurasia before Columbus, possibly since the first millennium.¹

We worry about people taking Datura as a way to find God/god(s). Taking Datura is especially dangerous and unpleasant. That’s an understatement. Not referring specifically to Datura, but particulalry relevant to Datura, here’s part of what you might expect from a bad trip (according to Wikipedia):]

“… states of unrelieved terror.”

[That, and the oh-God-let-me/don’t-let-me-die physical effects including death, are worth contemplating beforehand. We think anybody thinking they’d like to meet the Devil has the wrong idea of the Devil. That probably explains why adolescents toy with Devil fantasies—innocence, ignorance and impulsiveness. Word to adolescents toying with Devil fantasies – you have to ask yourself why adults don’t do certain risky things and then consider it might be wise to wait and find out why not rather than rushing into it. You’re sure not the first try to (blank) and then (blank) with some (blank) and then (blank). Wait six years and then find out why you shouldn’t.]

Also from Wikipedia:

“All parts of Datura plants contain dangerous levels of poison and may be fatal if ingested by humans and other animals, including livestock and pets. In some places it is prohibited to buy, sell or cultivate Datura plants.”

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

“Datura inoxia, like other Datura species, contains the highly toxic alkaloids atropine, hyoscine (scopolamine), and hyoscyamine. The Aztecs called the plant toloatzin, and used it long before the Spanish conquest of Mexico for many therapeutic purposes, such as poultices for wounds where it acts as an anodyne. Although the Aztecs warned against madness and “various and vain imaginings”, many Native Americans have used the plant as an entheogen for hallucinations and rites of passage. The alkaloids of these plants are very similar to those of mandrake, deadly nightshade, and henbane, which are also highly poisonous plants used cautiously for effective pain relief in antiquity.

Datura intoxication typically produces a complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy (delirium, as contrasted to hallucination); hyperthermia [rise in body temperature]; tachycardia [fast heart rate]; bizarre, and possibly violent behavior; and severe mydriasis [pupil dilation] with resultant painful photophobia that can last several days. Pronounced amnesia is another commonly reported effect. There can easily be a 5:1 variation in toxins from plant to plant, and a given plant’s toxicity depends on its age, where it is growing, and local weather conditions. These wide variations make Datura exceptionally hazardous to use as a drug. In traditional cultures, users needed to have a great deal of experience and detailed plant knowledge so that no harm resulted from using it. Such knowledge is not widely available in modern cultures, so many unfortunate incidents result from ingesting Datura. In the 1990s and 2000s, the United States media contained stories of adolescents and young adults dying or becoming seriously ill from intentionally ingesting Datura.”

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

“All Datura plants contain tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine, primarily in their seeds and flowers. Because of the presence of these substances, Datura has been used for centuries in some cultures as a poison. There can be a 5:1 toxin variation between plants, and a given plant’s toxicity depends on its age, where it is growing, and the local weather conditions. These variations makes Datura exceptionally hazardous as a drug.

In traditional cultures, a great deal of experience with and detailed knowledge of Datura was critical to minimize harm. Many tragic incidents result from modern users ingesting Datura. For example, in the 1990s and 2000s, the United States media contained stories of adolescents and young adults dying or becoming seriously ill from intentionally ingesting Datura. There are also several reports in the medical literature of deaths from D. stramonium and D. ferox intoxication. Children are especially vulnerable to atropine poisoning.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura#Toxicity>

[Having said all that, we’re not informed about any actual history of witches using Daturas or any other plants to gain the sensation of flying. Since there’s a Wikipedia page on flying ointments, and since the ingredients list is impressive enough that it must do something appropriate, we don’t doubt the stories and we expect someone’s tried it, but we don’t know who. Let us know, but for the love of God, don’t come knocking on our windows.]

1. Geeta, R., and Waleed Gharaibeh. “Historical Evidence for a Pre-Columbian Presence of Datura in the Old World and Implications for a First Millennium Transfer from the New World.” Journal of Biosciences 32.S3 (2007): 1227-244. Web. [↩]