Ethnobotany

[Gollum]

How and when did you first start becoming interested in Ethnobotany?

For me it was when i was about 20. AFOAF gave me some HBW seeds to try. He told me the type of effect i could expect and i was very interested but sceptical.

How could you get that type of experience off a few seeds i thought? Surely he is exagerating.................He wasnt!

I had an eye opening experience that changed the way i looked at the plant kingdom. It made me wonder what else was out there that i didnt know about.

On a trip down to Melbourne i stumbled into a shop that had a book called "Plants of the Gods" which i purchased along with a smaller book called "True Hallucinations" By Terence Mcenna.

Well that just made me want to find out more. I was put onto Shaman Australis by one of my mums friends who collects rare and endngered plants and here i am.

I would love to hear about everyone elses start into ethno.

Gol.

[Amulte]

Always had weed, mushrooms made the spark, pedro and scop got me burning. then i found out about HBWR and found SAB and life became complete :D

Edited February 2, 2006 by Amulte

[Dodie]

I had a mate who had mate who grew weed and had a few LST plants. The guy had to move back o/s so gave the plants to my mate. I was jobless then so i decided to look up on the net about how to grow weed to help the plants out. So after a couple months of learning I decided that I would of liked to grow it but becuase its illegal I didnt. So one day I was browsing a mary jane forum and I stumbled across a post about a San Pedro and read that they were legal and contained mescaline. Looked on the net for sources on san pedro, came across EB then SAB and I was hooked from that point on..

Best discovery in my life..

[teonanacatl]

i got interested in poisenous plants and my teacher at the time put me onto the teachings of don juan by carlos castaneda. i read it and wanted to grow and take datura and peyote, i stumbled across sab and eba but didnt sign up for ages, a few months past and i had been reading about other plants, khat, calea, etc and i decided to sign up, i ordered from sab and got started on some seed. at first i was only interested in plants with minor effects, ie no psychedelics (except datura and peyote lol) and missed getting sally before it went illegal. me and a friend started reading more, got into psychedelics and for me it was all about the plants, i could get people high on plants almost anywhere, from there i became more interested in the molecules that could cause these states and changed my degree from botany (taxonomy isnt for me) to chemistry. and this is me now. still havent grown a lot of peyote but im changing that.

[mescalito]

Very similar to Teo except it was actually my mum that suggested I read The teachings of Don Juan years before I actually found a copy and read it.

My first dealings with depression and my first panic attack saw me in the self-help sections of every 2nd hand book shop in Canberra.From there I started to cross over into the occult and spirituality sections where I sourced my first copy and like Teo wanted to experience Datura,peyote and the mushroom.

Not long after reading the book I found my first wild Datura and collected seeds and leaf and after searching the net I stumbled onto MGA where I was lucky enough to obtain an ounce of SD as it was still legal and also some kava.

....then I found SAB.

[Leo^]

I got into herbs thru things like tribulus and gurana, then met a dude at a wake who taught me about his DMT experiences, and I came straight home and asked everyone I knew if they knew it, then macrocosmos (from EBA) put me onto EBA and I was so amazed plants could do all this neat stuff then found SAB, and now see the truth ^_^ it was all you people and your great attitudes that made me get hooked

[apothecary]

Overgrow got me into growing, then a post there about peyote got me onto erowid, where I got the latin name for it.

Straight away I googled for "lophophora williamsii site:.au" and SAB was one of the first (if not the first?) to come up.

It took me about 15 seconds to order seeds lol! My first post on the forums was a question on how come the seeds I'd left in full sun inside an enclosed box weren't germinating

Of course I'd cooked them, and while I was waiting for my second order I spent my time reading everything I could on erowid and corresponding it back to posts by the great people here. Pretty much as soon as that SAB order arrived I was ready to make another one :D

I was hooked. I am hooked. Life couldn't be better.

[hebrew]

it was due to my interest in herbal medicine when i was young.

i found a herb book in a newsagency when i was 16 and there were some plants in thier that interested me.

i then began researching traditional plant use around the world mainly the americas, peyote datura tobacco mushrooms.

i also read castaneda and my interests was propelled even further. i also read books that mentioned ayahuasca and it's effects but could never find enough information to feel satisfied. a big influence was the film 'the emerald forest'.

alot of my interest in plant use was pushed aside by drug abuse.

after years of drugs i traveled australia and met a guy who was into cactus and mushrooms. he rekindled my interest in plants, we had some brug tea and i was inspired again to research plants. i had cactus and was in love with cacti. i was now in melbourne and of course how can you not come across subs

:D

one day i accidently found EBA and SAB the nook and othe rplaces and it has become part of my life. my interest in plants is an integral part of my being.

when i first got the internet i finally found a source of information where i do feel satisfied, i am no longer a boy reading some crappy encylopedia about what lsd is and where the ergot fungus grows or about mushrooms in australia. thinking back to these times i remeber lots of littel things that sparke interest.

one was hearing on the news about the police busting people picking mushrooms (i lived not far from ballingup), i always thought why are they being arrested, (i loved picking field mushrooms with my great grandparents on thier farm) and thought it was rediculous this made me ask questions and my parents told me about people that eat 'magic mushrooms'. Another spark of interest was from the news where there was something about poppies. and mum said that the guy who used to live in our house before we lived there grew 'opium'. i immediatly began my search for the plant but never foudn it, only to realise later it was the plant i used to pick to throw at my sister on the trampoline :D

anyway

[hebrew]

another influence on me was the use of opiumby artists in the 19th century.

in particular hector berlioz and his fantastic symphony.

it is a very sugnificant piece of music int he history of music as it is a perfect example of program music. which basically is music that follows a story or idea.

berlioz was inlove with a chick and she didnt know so he poisoned himself with opium and got wasted and had a dream that he killed here nad was tried and sentence to the guillotine (you hear his head fall in the music) and when he is dead he awakes a withches sabbath and the lady he killed was the head witch.

i thought opium sounds neat :D

[Meshwork]

Hi everyone

This is my first post and it seemed like a good one to introduce myself. I've always been deeply interested in philosophy and using various substances to explore different ways of seeing the world, however these things have kinda converged in recent times with some further study and some amazing mushroom experiences...I began doing some reading on Erowid and was blown away the range and variety of effects that various plants offer and immediately tracked down SAB to do some further experimenting of my own :D

Like Gollum, I also stumbled across a copy of 'Plants of the Gods', read it cover to cover and spent the last few months reading the posts on this board which have been invaluable in helping me set up a fledgling garden, which is already slowly flourishing. Anyway, I'm definitely hooked...

[Jack]

It was the year 2000 I had been abusing drugs for around 5 years, mainly e and meth for which I had a shockingly expensive habbit, I was working/living for drugs (it was my life) I happened to meet this guy who asked me if I had heard of this stuff called Salvia to which I replied No. He then said next time I see him he would give me some, so he gave me a small bag of Salvia leaf, I took it home smoked a bit and thought this is amusing. I then did some research on Salvia and came accross the erowid site, read up on it.

I was then at the Body mind and spirit expo at the Exhibition Centre and came accross this stall selling herbal highs I started talking to the guy we were chatting i bought some bits n pieces and then I asked about salvia. He pulled out a bag of leaf, I told him I already had some and asked about the extract, which he pulled out a small bag from under the table, and warned me about how strong it was, informed me of the correct way to smoke it ect.

A few weeks it was a sunday afternoon I had been awake since Friday and consumed multiple substances all weekend. I was at a mates place and decided it would be appropriate to pull out this salvia extract, I then informed them all that I really had no idea what to expect other than a strong psychedelic experience that would last for 5 minutes, even knowing this didnt prepare me or any of us for what we were about to experience. I smoked a couple of cones and left my body, I traveled through time and space to different dimensions and I came into contact with the female spirit of the plant who guided me on my journey showing me different things from my past and present, she showed me that i was on a path to self destruction and what was going to happen if I didnt clean up my act, I was losing it at this point didnt know who I was, were I was or if I was ever going to come back. I thought that was it that I had done myself over good and propper this time and that this was going to be the end of my life, when I came out of the experience I was very shaken up but felt like i had been reborn I gave up the life of drug abuse that I was living.

Then I stumbled accross poppies growing in a garden, and I thought hey I wonder if these are "The Ones" So I posted a message on bluelight asking and was referred to this place and I have been here ever since.

After arriving here I purchased the Castaneda books, and I sent an email to Torsten asking about which books a beginner should get so I ended up with Plants Of the Gods, Psychedelic Shamanism, Food of the Gods. Shulgins books.

I have not looked back since. I still like to have a good time, and now i have an interest and a place to share my research and experiences.

What a wonderful place this is.

Edited November 18, 2008 by Jack

[Darklight]

I was interested in herbs and healing plants from about ten years of age, and a couple of years later got interested in other states of mind and belief systems inherent in other cultures. About 30 years ago when I was 12 I bought a copy of " Growing the Hallucinogens " and couldn't believe there was systematic knowledge on such a subject!

Being the pre- internet days info- good peer reviewed info- was hard to come by. I spent my teens and 20's taking buckets of street drugs whenever I could, read Castenada and hated it and couldn't find much else. I ferretted out a few interesting species such as Catha, but really, my early experimentation with entheogens was stupid and dangerous and ill-informed to a degree which makes me shudder. We're talking IV acid/ base catha extraction type stupidity here.... most of my fumblings didn't do much more than make me sick and slowly wake me up to the fact that I was a danger to myself

Post GUI browsers and I found I was starting to collect a fair amount of info and enough to make me better informed though admittedly more confused. But what interests me is that since I've been at SAB the quantity of drugs I consume now is so ironically minimal that even T calls me a sipper And when I do partake, I enjoy the experience more, in a safer environment and would consider myself better informed- or at least able to source information if I need a question answered. As a result of being here I'm also more aware of how diet and stress relate to neurotransmitters and mood- the space such knowledge has bought me has allowed me to set goals and plan, as opposed to being merely permanently fugdrucked and a victim of my own cyclonic impulses. IME the knowledge and informed debate here has been a major part in my personal harm reduction strategy.

Now I spend my days working around some fascinating plant species, and have acquired systematic and professional knowledge in a field I never believed I'd ever enter. An interest in ethnobotany led to my career, which I'm pretty proud of

Co-incidentally, last week I emailed one of the scientists who presented at the Basel conference- it turned out he is the dude who did the early neurological studies on Catha edulis in the 80's which back then stimulated me to take a scientific approach to my interest in plants. To this day his papers are way over my head- I'm neither a neurobiologist nor a chemist. But the fact that someone cared enough and found enough that was of interest in a plant species to publish considered, careful research on such an interesting topic made me realise it was possible. I got off my arse, got off the dole, went to TAFE and set up work here. He truly was one of my major inspirations. Now all I need is another lifeime or three so I can become a neurobiologist and chemist, cos I'll be flat out in this one playing with plant cells

Edited February 2, 2006 by Darklight

[Being]

I'm glad this topic has come up, because i have always been interested in how this happened for other people...

okay its a bit of a convoluted story, but this is really how it happened..

I was about 17, at home alone, very bored and feeling really 'funny' (a future echo of what was to come, i expect!) and suddenly this voice comes to me, very strongly saying "put on tape 2!!!" hmmm okay.. go through my video tapes, there is no 'tape 2'.. then find a box of my boyfriend's videos.. there's one with a little red '2' sticker on it.. put it on, 'randomly' fastforward press play and its a recording of Roseanne Bar's chat show (yes after the sitcom ended she had a chat show in the mid nineties!) and she's talking to Tori Amos about her album 'Boys for Pele'.

Roseanne brings up the song 'Father Lucifer' (there was a lot of controversy over this song as Tori's father is a christian minister!) and Tori explains the song is about an Ayahuasca journey she had which consisted of her having a tea party with the devil.. I was absolutely facinated by how she was talking about this 'magic potion'.. went onto google and typed in 'iowaska' heh.. nothing came up.. i'm really dissapointed..

I'm bored again (i used to be so bored quite often before all this happened!) I start flicking through 'The X-Files book of the Unexplained' which i hadn't picked up since i was like 13... Seriously the pages stopp flicking and it opens up to 'Dreams and Visions: Ayahuasca' (it was like the universe is going "okay spelling's never been a strong point, i'll help you out a little more here)..

Read through that section, was absolutely transfixed by this point, put the correct spelling into google and the first thing that comes up is The Vaults of Erowid.. at that moment my life changed and nothing would ever be the same again! It dawned on me very concretely that the world was nothing like what i had been conditioned to believe.. It was literally like Erowid was this portal that opened up onto an entirely new and magical landscape of consciousness.. i read through practically EVERYTHING and when i came to DMT i felt like some early explorer stumbling onto scrolls describing the secret to the universe..!

Went to the local library the next day, typed in 'psychedelics' to the search function and found Terrence's 'Food of the Gods', tore through that one and the transformation was complete! I actually spent the next four months or so reading (and obsessing) about psychedelics until i finally found someone else into it in Brisbane and had mushies and ayahuasca..

Only found SAB about a year later.. SAB successfully pulled me out of the isolation of my unhappy Brisbane life via EB2 and WWOOFing at Wandjina Gardens where i was connected to other people who shared this interest. My entire life story for the past five years, which has taken me across the seas and back many times, has been a mix of people and places which is all connected to that special time in '02. I'm so happy with where this journey has taken me and where my life is at now, and i'm so grateful to Torsten for inadvertantly making this so via SAB, Ethnobotanica and Wandjina, for being active in the community and bringing information and people together ^_^

[prier]

For me it all started when I was 12, it was my first year of highschool and in Health class we were on the topic of drugs. For an assignment we had to research using the internet, this is where I stumbled up on Erowid. For the next year or so everytime I went near a computer I had to look at erowid.

What really interested me was reading people's Salvia and DMT experience reports, they sounded crazy and I felt I must try these things some day.

For the next five years I experimented with lots of different chemicals mainly party types drugs, then at Rainbow Serpent last year there was this market stall, I got to chatting to the girl behind the counter and got up the courage to ask if they had any DMT or Salvia. I tried DMT for the first time that weekend and that is what really got me started on ethnobotanics.

I guess I'm still pretty new to this, come to think of it it was my one year anniversary with ethnobotanics last weekend.

It was actually my dad that got me onto Shaman-Australis. When I was telling him about my intersts in these things he did some internet searches for me and found out about Shaman-Australis and the Asutralian Free Seed Ring, from there I was hooked.

[Shroom-Aura]

this is a great thread. many very interesting replies. this is how I got into ethnobotany.

it started when I was 14 and my closest freind told me that he tried some marijuana. I thought he was going to turn into a drug addict or something because I thought it was very bad at the time and I objected to his smoking. a few weeks later Im starting to warm up to this marijuana and I become curious about it and ask my freind a lot of dumb questions. one day we go to the cinema and after watching the movie we go to the parking lot to wait for my dad to pick us up. then my freind sees his older brother with his mates, we goto his car and I see my friend have a bong. he coughed a shitload after exhaling the smoke. then I get offered some, this guy holds a bong out the car window and lights it for me while I try to smoke some. I breathed in as hard as i could but I didnt feel any smoke, i later found out that you have to hold the shotty closed when toking. I wanted to smoke another but my freinds brother said that was enough.

after that night, even though I didnt get stoned, i become extremely interested in weed. I started asking people at school and I soon found a dealer, back then I got about 2 grams for 10 bucks, megacheap! anyway I started to smoke everyday, soon my parents find out and they go kinda nuts, like I was using heroin or something. they gave me a hard time everyday trying to make me quit. two years later im smoking weed and my mum is kinda getting used to it but she is still very much against it. at this point I kinda bored of weed and want to try something else, I remember looking up LSD and mushrooms, around this time is when I first found erowid and the shroomery. i was fascinated with LSD, id read a shitload of trip reports and basic information. I knew enough about it that I wanted to try it. one time me my brother and freind were out in the city asking random people for weed (very dumb I know). this one guy my brother asked said he didnt have weed but he had "wangers", i said i dont wanna try ecstasy, but he said wangers arent E they are LSD. so i buy a couple rainbow dolphins and had my first trip that night. at first after an hour or so I thought that I got ripped off, then I see a visual distortion while on my computer. a couple minutes later the whole world around had become alive and everything was breathing and moving. i became even more interested in LSD and psychadelics, about a year after I find a reliable hookup for blotters, I started buying ten packs because they blotters worked out to $7 each that way. i started taking multiple blotters and became a real acid head. about 10 10packs later i start to realise I was abusing lsd taking too much too often.

the people that hooked us up with blotters had mentioned goldtops growing in mt crawford forest during a trip one time. these "goldtop" mushrooms intrigued me, could they be actual hallucinogenic mushrooms? I asked about them and they said they find them early morning before the sun comes up after rain in winter. this being the extent of their knowledge I had to find out more. one day my brother found an aussie forum called EBA, from there I found out a lot of good information like where and when subs grow, their substrates and potency. a year passed and I still havent found mushrooms, but I think around this time I found SAB and made an order of peyote seeds and hbwr. when the next winter came I knew a lot more about mushrooms through the forums, and me and my brother finally stumble across our first patch. I had the indentity confirmed on SAB from then on finding subs was easy, we found patches all over the adelaide hills. another year of hunting passes and although I found heaps of subs ive only tripped of them about 5 or 6 times. the rest of the year passes and its 2006, Im 20 and still very much into psychadelics.

[ballzac]

Hmmm....My interest in mind altering substances started at a very young age. I was alway one to experiment with things. I asked Mum for a drag of her cigarette a couple of times when I was about four years old (Little did I know that also contained within that cigarette was an illegal drug ). She gave me a drag saying that it was only because I wouldn't like it and it would discourage me from taking up smoking later in life . At about the age of eight I discovered that not only did I like the smell of glue and spray cans, but it also made me feel kinda funny. In fact, I found that if I inhaled the contents of a spraycan for long enough, I could go to a place that felt like nothing else on earth, and see things that weren't there. I continued using inhalants from time to time until about the age of thirteen when I began to realise that what I was doing was really damaging to the body and quite frankly dangerous. It was around that same time that I discovered LSD and I started tripping all the time because it is fairly safe and I always had enjoyable and enlightening experiences. I was lucky in that when I began to take an interest in the idea of hallucinogens, I also coincidently met someone who had a steady supply. I also started smoking marijuana because I liked the effects (this was a year or two before discovering LSD), but the magic had gone by about the age of fifteen and I was addicted. My LSD supply dried up, and I had a few trips from time to time when I came across them, and I also tried mushies, but did not know enough about them to be able to find them myself. I had heard that there were plants out there that you can trip off, but I knew how dangerous the tropanes were, and didn't really take the idea of morning glory seriously. I started having Es as a terribly poor substitute for LSD, but not very often as I find them quite boring. Anyway, over the past couple of years I started getting interested in other drugs from trip reports on Erowid, and started realising that maybe LSD isn't the only substance I can fall in love with. Recently I decided that the internet might be a good place to find out how to find and identify mushrooms. After a while researching, but finding very little info specific to mushrooming in australia, I noticed a link on shroomery for this site. Once I came here I realised how well this kind of thing fits with me. Most plants that contain mind altering substances are perfectly legal and I also believe that growing the plants oneself helps one gain a lot of respect for the drugs contained therein and encourages one to use them responsibly. Also, a couple of my close friends are into botany in general so it's something that I've always felt close to. After finding this site I started my own garden and I must say that I feel indebted to this community for the invaluble information and help I've recieved being a member of this site . Well, that's MY life story .

-Zac

[wandjina]

great thread...and some wonderful replies.

My interest in plants began when i was a kid...as did my interest in altered states, however it wasn't till I dropped LSD at 15 that my eyes were really opened to their great potential.

I took as much acid as I could get my hands on over the next few years...the net was in its infancy in those days, and it was hard to find information on other substances.

At 17 I was briefly the singer in a band, one of whose members was passionately interested in psychedelics. He was constantly rambling on about something called dmt, and this guy in the states who wrote books about it....anyways, he dissapeared overseas for awhile, and returned with knowledge and experience.

After years of mega-dosing on LSDand mushies, I was sceptical of his extraordinary claims for dmt.

But it was everything he promised and more. I'd known for years that I had chosen a certain path...but dmt really sealed the deal, and aya cemented it. I devoured books and any other info I could find.

Although I never lost interest in ethnobotany, following the death of my partner (in crime ) in 1997,

i moved away from certain social circles, and kinda fell out of the aussie ethno loop. Child rearing and a 2 year relationship with a 'normal' kept me distant...and i began to feel that I would lose my mind if i didn't reconnect.

Then, on a particularly shitty day, I was trawling the web at the uni library when i stumbled upon EB and SAB.

Wow, there were so many people who shared my interest...I had no idea. It was the first time in a long while I felt connected.

Although life continues to have its rough patches, i can honestly say its all been uphill since I found the forums. I've made some good friends, and have learnt so much from you. You are all such special beautiful people. Thankyou for having me!

[Rev]

My parents were trippers

Theres a good chance i was concieved on acid and champagne on my mothers 21st birthday

as a kid id go for walk in the adelaide hill with my mum and dad with their friends collecting moss and rockferns and rocks for dads terrariums he made up

Of course they were also collecting subs which didnt click till much later

i used to go to parties and chill with their friends. An embarrasing moment hapenned the time the teacher in yr 2 asked if my mum smoked and i answered 'only the ones you pass around'

Life was great.

Then something strange happenned. Maybe it was just the 80's kicking in...

the fixtures changed in the house. less organic, less alternative

dad stopped the terrariums and didnt work 2 jobs at HL banana and the juice van anymore

he got a job in real estate. Mum got a job in kitchen appliance sales

Both became born again christians

A dark age descended on my life.....

Age 11 my mother bought a set of encyclopaedia. britannica. an immense library of knowledge towering above me. 2 sets of refernce texts. one brife the other very in depth. plus 56 great books of the western world, a 20 volume science and technolgy set to go laongside all my existing animal and science books. I was engrossed. particularly with botanical dadta and specifically what was called economic botany or ethnobotany though i never knew these names.

One night i stumbled on a section about narcotic plants and hallucinogens. Arcane knowledge.

i comitted the names of them to heart

Trichocereus pachanoi, lophophora williamsii, coryphantha macromeris, Ariocarpus fissuratus

Erythroxylon coca, cannabis sativa and indica,

that nutmeg could be snuffed as a narcotic

obviously i had no money, no mobility and religious zealots as parents therefore as an 11 year old

it stopped there. Kinda.

I took on herb growing and gardening, of the culinary then medicinal kind

I discovered weed at 14. bought my fisrt 50 with a note i slipped from my mums purse one opportune time.

I kept it stashed in my telescope. Life got better, what inbetween the emotional rollercoaster of early adolescence in a twisted and breaking home. Adelaide before the hydro revolution and before couchlock had some really good shit too.

when my friend brett and i would run out of weed wed wonder if we could smoke anything else. i researched and thought maybe lemon balm might do something. it did, nothing like weed but it satisfied something of an urge. we nicknamed it 'bounce'. I took up smoking tobacco. preferably camel no filter but who could be picky...

I took up brewing after seeing an sbs doco on wine around the world. In georgia they crush the grapes stem skin and all and put it in giant communal urns below ground where it ferments over winter. In spring, in shades of the old pagan rebirth of the god, the wine is reborn. a light sparkling rose.

so in the frosty adelaide hills and under the distracted eye of parents i started making Cider from the old apple tree up the back, and a sparkling wine from sultanas and currants georgian style. I recall a few time my little sister and i pissed on cider and we played cards while home alone.I also made dandelion beer in the summer from the dandelion roots grubbed out of the backyard.

I left home. or more specifically home dissolved and where the furniture went i did not.

I tried nitrous and acid at 15 (not together unfortunately or my life would have been far different in retrospect) and started growing weed. I discovered that opium poppy seeds from the shop WERE viable but never followed that through at the time. I discovered Travelcalms. Had my fisrt E.

the next 3 years are somewhat hazy. alot of shit went down and i smoked an awful lot. I drank alot. We picked alot of subs.

The internet had appeared but had no money for a computer, and what would i have done anyway? when i saw the net the fisrt time it was as a group of 5 chatting to one dude in the USA on alt.drugs. I saw my fisrt obscure images of cultivated magic mushrooms and file dit with the encyclopaedic material in my mind.

I quit weed and as it happenned changed states and took up binge drinking in earnest...

For the most part all my inteterst went back on hold and i stuck at edible and medicianl herbs only

then first year of Uni - free library internet access

my memory jolted....

Trichocereus pachanoi, lophophora williamsii, coryphantha micromeris, Ariocarpus fissuratus

Erythroxylon coca, cannabis sativa and indica,

that nutmeg could be snuffed as a narcotic

eureka!

i tracked down forums

entheogen.com

shroomery

drooldonkey

and supplier

medicine garden

i spent about $400 of my nonexistent money on plants there. close to getting myself evicted but i didnt care

it was a fulfillment of a vision. my life was back on track...(despite not actually getting all those plants..)

a month later i found SAB and signed on as member number 11 on 30 march 2000

almost 6 years and 5070 posts later here i sit still hungry for knowledge, experience and many more plants. Life is fucking excellent

Edited February 4, 2006 by Rev

[faustus]

LOL good to hear the stories.

as a kid i'd always been interested in hallucinogens. as a birthday present my brother got the "L" volume of some encyclopaedia set. inside was LSD, and a very frightening painting of someone's hallucinations... i;d constantly gaze at that picture with intrigue...

remember writing a story in year 6 about a guy who had a bad acid trip... only alluded to it at the end, last line of the story was something like "then i woke in the hospital, to find that my mother had given me too much of my prescription drug -- LSD". the teacher thought it was brilliant and showed the principal so although i thought that LSD gave you nightmares, it definitely still fascinated me.

then when i was around 16-17 i wanted a plant for my room. figuring that a cactus would be best i ordered some peyote seeds from the ads section in the back of my bizarre magazine (not harper's bazaar... it's a UK mag, pretty unique though filled with too much bizarro sex these days).

damn seeds never came in! but stumbled upon SAB and erowid, and as they say in the classics, the rest is history

[Dirty Old Man]

I was always terrified of entheogens but through my early twenties the curiosity slowly grew.

It all really started at EB04. Although I was pretty shy and did not really conect, I met some amazing people and learned some amazing things. 150 posts and several Brisbane meets later it has become a consuming passion.

I can't wait for the next big conference

[trixxy3]

big day out in 99 i think there were stalls selling "legal highs?" like liquid extacy, kava and stuff of the like, made the papers before hand, and got me interested. Got some friend to buy some kava and some tablets of something, but that sort of bought legal highs to my attention, searched the net for these substances and other legal highs. wondered the net and somehow found this place when salvia d was still legal, never got around to it though. bought a few cactuses and other plants from around the place, they grow still. interests in ethnobotany wanes and pans over times, have no idea of half the stuff that goes on in these forums, or what half the substances are, but its fun and interesting, just gotta get off my arse and meet some of you people.

[indigo264nm]

The childhood factor would me the most significant. I used to always flick through my mother's books on herbs and naturopathy. She is a qualified naturopath trained under Dorethy Hall. I remember her always slipping bach essences into my drinks.

Then I started growing mad chillies when I was 11 or so.

By 13 I had started researching all these lovely entheogens as I had just started smoking erb. Combined with research into magick, herbs and psychedelia I got myself involved slowly but with alot of research... ended up with me dropping out of school to study horticulture, and next on the agenda is a herbal medicine course.

Ethnobotany was the best thing to ever happen to me... so many possibilities with ways to direct my life, and all of which will make me happy.