Cane Toads

[Seeker]

I've heard the grapevine that cane toads contain bufetonine, and that this is why toads are associated with english witches who used the witches brew to go on sabbats.

Apparently bf causes a sensation of flying.

I'm also looking for the name of the hallucinogenic grass smoked by the summerians and mentioned in the necronomicon.

Thanks.

[Guest Ramon]

From Natural highs FAQ

CANE TOAD

Family: Bufonidae

Genus: Bufo

Species: marinus

Introduced from Hawaii to Queensland in 1935 this toad has spread across

Queensland westwards into N.T. and southwards into northern N.S.W. It is

up to 20 cm long, has very warty skin and has a grey to brown, olive brown

or reddish brown colour. The underside is a whitish to yellowish colour.

The cane toad has a pair of large, highly visable poison glands located at

the back of the head. It eats anything smaller than itself and is poisonous

to anything larger that might eat it.

The bufotenin in the poison, while classed as a hallucinogen is not

particularlly healthy or a nice thing to do to your body. So below is

J's recipe for the conversion of bufotenin into something more

interesting.

Guessing the grass is Phallaris aquatica

[Guest wira]

Cane toads [bufo marinus] have generally been shown to only contain small amounts of bufotenine in their venom, but has much higher levels of related compounds like dehydrobufotenine, bufothionine, serotonin, and N-methyl-serotonin, as well as large amounts of adrenaline [epinephrine]. The venom is still psychoactive, but for bufotenine Bufo viridis is one of the best toad sources.

Hallucinogenic grass smoked by the Sumerians? That's interesting, where did you read about this? Which necronomicon is that?

take care,

wira

[Lupus]

An interesting tidbit, don't know if your interested but... Cane Toad (Bufo marinus) I have found as an ingredient in numerous recipes for "zombie powder" from Haitian Voodoo. In one of the recipies the toad is sealed in a large jar with a certain venomous snake (I forget what kind) and burried for a day. When they dig it up the jar has quite a bit of the toads toxin in it, and probably a little snake venom, and the animals are dead (obviously). I belive they use the remains and the toxin from the jar. If anyone is interested I could try to dig up the recipies.

-Lupus.

[This message has been edited by Lupus (edited 25 August 2000).]

[dutchie]

Hi lupus, I was wondering if you could find those papers on the zombie powders. I have been interested in this for years, after seend an old docco on the subject. Facinating!

D

[Torsten]

I am also VERY interested in zombie powders!!!!

cane toads also contain steroidal substances in the venom, which will make you blind on contact and have the ability to stop the heart on ingestion.

[Guest UV1]

Originally posted by Torsten:

I am also VERY interested in zombie powders!!!!

For decades scientists have believed the only active ingredient in zombie powder is tetrodotoxin from the bones of the puffer fish. I don't think there have been any new discoveries. I don't know if our local puffer fish contain tetrodotoxin but our blue-ring octopie and stone fish sure do.

[This message has been edited by UV1 (edited 30 August 2000).]

[Guest Ramon]

Can't remember where I first heard this information but from memory.

How to make a zombie.

1) powder the remains of liver and roasted bones of puffer fish. This mimmicks death which is why zombie's are thought to be the living dead.

2) After you dig up the body you keep the person mad and compliant with datura and the poison of a cane toad.

Don't know if anything is given to counteract the puffer fish poison after they are dug up from the grave or if the poison wears off.

[Seeker]

"In my solitary ceremonies in the hills, worshipping with fire and sword, with water and dagger, and with the assistance of a strange grasxs that grows wild in certain parts of the MASSHU, and with which I unwittingly built my fire before the rock, that grass that gives the mind great power to travel tremendous distances into the heavens, as also into the hells..."

From the Necrinomicon, Passage taken form "The Testimony of the Mad Arab".

[Guest theobromus]

Are you sure of the accuracy of the translation? Can you give the edition and translator? Grass and plant are interchangeable terms in some languages. Often botanical niceties are ignored for the sake of a more poetic turn of phrase.

[Seeker]

Originally posted by theobromus:

Are you sure of the accuracy of the translation?  Can you give the edition and translator?  Grass and plant are interchangeable terms in some languages. Often botanical niceties are ignored for the sake of a more poetic turn of phrase.

I did some nosing around, and the name of the grass is Olieribos, apparently it exists but no one seems to know what it's called now. As to the accuracy of the translation, the manuscript was probably knocked together on someones typewriter about thirty years ago, during the big mystical revolution of the seventies.

[Guest theobromus]

Note the winking icon in my last post. You might as well ask what is Death in A Scanner Darkly by P K Dick.