Daturas, nightshades etc...what's all the fuss about?

[gtarman]

Just wondering why many ancient cultures and modern psychonauts have used and revered datura and belladonna as entheogens?

From what I've heard and read, the effects sound far from desirable, quite dangerous even...although it does seem to have a fascinating history.

[WoodDragon]

I think that you just answered your own question.

[gtarman]

Sort of....I think I half-answered it, insofar as I can understand why people grow it for the fascination with it's history and the beauty of the plant itself - I'm actually kinda tempted to grow it myself for those same reasons.

But I'm talking about the historical and contextual bulk of it's cultivation for practical use/consumption. From that perspective, I don't understand why it's valued so highly when from what I've read it seems to be wholly unappealing - to poison yourself, completely detach from reality and lose control of your faculties, possibly become extremely violent...and then to have little memory of the entire experience. It seems more akin to a dangerous and unpredictable form of psychosis than a mystical experience.

Edited October 2, 2012 by gtarman

[Torsten]

I know some serious psychonauts who got quite obsessed with these plants. I myself spent a couple of years exploring tropanes. There is nothing that can get you in touch with your dark and primal side more effectively than these. You really begin to understand some of humanity's evil if you are lucky enough to get the dosage right. And that's really the problem. There is little to be learnt at low dose tropanes [other than when in combination with other drugs], but higher doses usually just give you amnesia. So it takes a lot of trial and error and a very careful and skilled dose titration to get into that VERY narrow magic dose range where the darkest parts of your psyche are revealed. And that's the other thing - most people really don't want to know about the dark side. It is much easier to look at a torturer or serial killer on TV and say that you do not have that within yourself.

The other good use is to add complexity to other trips. If you know how to do it right then it can be a very important admixture to aya brews or even mushroom trips. In these cases it is used at very very low doses. if you consider doing somethign like that please use the search engine to find threads where I have explained the cautious use of these plants. They are certainly very dangerous.

The main reason why they are widely used though is that they are free and legal. Not that the latter would have much impact. Hospital emergency wards are very familiar with the less than optimal outcomes.

[nothinghead]

There's a discrepency between the history/ethnobotany of the plant, its beauty, and the unpleasant experiences associated with its modern/Western (often recreational) use. I don't have books here that I can refer to about traditional use, but you'll find that brugmansia has been used as an admixture (which usually comes with advanced knowledge of its effects), datura has been used in smoking blends (with a low risk of dramatic dosage), and so on. Whereas a lot of the negative reports you can find around the internet are from individuals making datura/brug tea without much knowledge about the plant and its pharmacology, and having an unpleasant experience. If you UTSE here you'll find questions about variable potency in datura, mandrake historical and contemporary use, etc. It sounds like what you're interested in is traditional uses of those kinds of plants, but learning about it by "hearing" (stories about mates of mates etc) registers a completely different type of use.

[kadakuda]

a couple years ago i saw a photo of a burugmansia in the paper and a short story talking about how a chinese herbal doctor wsa giving this to his patients for some kind of illness, i forget which. Long story short, he was fined and their hospital visits got the word out about angel's trumpets in this country.

For me personally, aside from all teh obvious dangers, i dont feel i have a good enough friend to be there making sure i stay alive during the experience

[totemgoat]

could be a whole number of reasons, but my first guess would be that perception of the effectiveness of tropanes as a shamanic tool is manipulated by knowledge.

by which, i mean that if one were living in the times of 'witches' and you had never heard of - let alone experienced - any kind of hallucinogen, one might naturally assume the use of 'flying ointment' to be a highly powerful, spiritual ritual.

in my opinion, it could even be assumed that the negative effects of tropane alkaloids found within plants such as deadly nightshade and mandrake were in fact also part of this experience, rationalised by such logic as that a coma is god's punishment for the user performing the ritual, or that delirium is a possession of the user by spirits contacted through the ritual.

those are just my guesses though.

in regards to the use of tropanes as ayahuasca admixtures, i've heard that nicotine counteracts the anticholingergic effects that tropane alkaloids produce.

with another typical admixture being Nicotiana rustica, apparently the poisonous aspects of tropanes could be reduced; leaving behind only the hallucinations and delirium.

i'd like to stress that i've only heard that last bit of information, i don't even have a single text to cite in regards to its authenticity,

the use of tropanes is inherently very dangerous, and definitely not something to be toyed with.

Edited October 2, 2012 by totemgoat

[Stillman]

Brugs really are a beautiful tree and some Daturas have exquisite flowers.

There is some interesting historic prospectives of the plants here and online. raketehemensch is probably very accurate in that the people who have the real trouble with these plants are the ones who go rush out and make a tea of 30 flowers after someone told them it fucked them up for 3 days and they couldn't read the newspaper for a week. The same crowd could end up in hospital on any given Friday night form many forms of misadventure. I call it the "Lemming gene" lol.

The plants have a certain majesty to them, they, at the end of the day are poisonous just like Oleander and Adeniums and many other flowering ornamentals. People just need to be very sensible about putting them on fence lines etc to keep the Lemmings away.

[gtarman]

Thanks all, some very well-thought-out and interesting responses. It sounds like T might have summed it up best, although I don't care to test it out - that it's dangerous and tricky to get the dosage right, and that the experience even then is not for everyone.

I think totemgoat is also onto something in explaining that ancient cultures would have interpreted the experiences very differently than we would in our day and age. And also raketehemensch and Stillman with Lemming Theory. Although to be fair raketehemensch, I had done some research prior to posting on both sides of the fence (ie historical use and responsible modern exploration, as well as some of the "lets get fucked up" crowd.), and no mates of mine would be that stupid.

One last thing - Torsten's post reminded me of a book that may be of interest for anyone wanting to explore humanity's darker side - it's called Bad Men Do, What Good Men Dream. It's written by a criminal psychiatrist, but it was really not my cup of tea. I could see the point that the author was making, but I think he goes a little too far in making it. I never even got half way through that book.

Edited October 3, 2012 by gtarman