Notes – Faust

Flying ointment, also known as witches’ flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment

“Flying ointment, also known as witches’ flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment, is a hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period (first described by Alice Kyteler in 1324).” Pasted from [But did anybody really use this stuff? Or was is just fable? The ingredients sound plausible. …

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Attitudes change….attitudes toward drinking

[Attitudes change. Post-temperance movement we may be more inclined to view drinking harshly. Similarly, our attitude to other drugs have changed over time and are still changing. In considering other cultures and times, we can try to be careful about applying our own prejudices and expectations, but it remains difficult to imagine the unimaginable.] From …

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Rather than drinking the water…small beer contains very little alcohol

[Rather than drinking the water, people – including children – in past times preferred an alcoholic drink. But that does not mean they drank excessively. Drunkenness became more of a problem with the introduction of distilled drinks such as whiskey after the fifteenth century.] “Small beer (also, small ale) is a beer/ale that contains very …

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The Romantic period in England was toward the end of the Eighteenth century

[The Romantic period in England was toward the end of the Eighteenth century – three hundred years after Faust and two hundred after the first known manuscript and Marlowe’s 1590-ish rendition of the tale. But those early years were the beginnings of it. Marlowe’s time was England’s “Age of Discovery” when they explored the Earth. …

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Francis Bacon on Opium, Coffee and Tobacco, etc….

[Francis Bacon on Opium, Coffee and Tobacco, etc. He recommends a yearly course of opium, preferably in spring, but not too much, because while the Turks can handle it, too much kills Englishmen. Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English nobleman serving as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor. He is famous …

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Theatricum Botanicum—Wikipedia on Psilocybin makes reference to a “foolish mushroom…

[Wikipedia on Psilocybin makes reference to a “foolish mushroom,” mentioned in John Parkinson’s 1640 herbal, suggesting it was a Psilocybin-containing mushroom and that its effects were recognised in the mid-seventeenth century England. The reference Wikipedia offers says the same thing. Going directly to Parkinson’s herbal it still isn’t clear on a quick perusal if it’s …

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European use of psilocybin is undocumented…

[European use of psilocybin is undocumented, neither have we inherited much folk knowledge. Use of psilocybin for recreational/entheogenic purposes appears to have developed only from the 1960s onwards. As much as some people may have wanted to use it to discover God, they didn’t want to die to do it. We can’t assume that Europeans …

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Kykeon—While Christian Europeans shun ritual drug use

[While Christian Europeans shun ritual drug use (outside of the Eucharist we suppose), the ancient culture they admired most, the ancient Greeks, maintained an annual rite of initiation into the cult of Demeter & Persephone which featured a drink, Kykeon, which is thought to have been entheogenic. Nobody knows for sure, but it seemed to …

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The alchemical panacea

From Wikipedia: The panacea, named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy Panakeia, Panacea, also known as panchrest, was supposed to be a remedy that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. It was sought by the alchemists as a connection to the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance which …

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As well as knowledge Faust might seek immortality

[As well as knowledge, Faust might seek immortality, but, oh, right…. Immortality was something he didn’t ask for (though an eternity in Hell is a kind of immortality), but for many seekers of knowledge-at-all-costs, that is their prime pursuit – to find the alchemical elixir of life. Today we still look for it, but in …

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Beatific vision

Beatific vision[Drugs are often seen as a short route to knowing God because of the common experiences of gaining secret knowledge and new perspectives, and of seeing (illusory or not), or otherwise experiencing God or spirit. The Eleusinian Mysteries, referenced below, included a drink called kykeon, which is thought to have been psychedelic, although there …

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Potions can fulfill all of our alchemical and Faustian aspirations

[Potions can fulfill all the alchemical and Faustian aspirations of humans, from finding God, to gaining secret knowledge, to restoring health and promoting long life – even immortality. At least that’s what we’ve imagined over time. These are essentially also the same things promised by the two trees in the Garden of Eden in the …

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Poisoning was a steady business

[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 …

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Aqua Tofana, Acqua Toffana, Aqua Tophana, and Aqua Tufania and “Manna di San Nicola”

San Nicola – Saint Nicholas – was a saint known for secretly leaving gifts for people. We know him as Santa Claus. Some of Saint Nicholas’ remains are interred in Bari. Manna di San Nicola or Aqua Tofana was the poisonous gift you didn’t want. “Aqua Tofana (also known as Acqua Toffana, Aqua Tophana, and …

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Ergotism—Saint Anthony’s Fire—Food Poisoning

The first mention of hallucinogenic mushrooms in European medical literature

What is an entheogen?

Crazy bread—it was in the month of July that famine was at its worst

God cursed women, so suffer dammit

Moses and the Burning Bush

Flying ointment, also known as witches’ flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment

Attitudes change….attitudes toward drinking

Rather than drinking the water…small beer contains very little alcohol

The Romantic period in England was toward the end of the Eighteenth century

Francis Bacon on Opium, Coffee and Tobacco, etc….

Theatricum Botanicum—Wikipedia on Psilocybin makes reference to a “foolish mushroom…

European use of psilocybin is undocumented…

Kykeon—While Christian Europeans shun ritual drug use

The alchemical panacea

As well as knowledge Faust might seek immortality

Beatific vision

Potions can fulfill all of our alchemical and Faustian aspirations

Poisoning was a steady business

Aqua Tofana, Acqua Toffana, Aqua Tophana, and Aqua Tufania and “Manna di San Nicola”