A Podcast

[trucha]

I am uncertain where this would best be posted but I anticipate some people may enjoy this interview by Joey Santore.

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-ancient-glaciers-affect-peyote-a-conversation/id1458563601?i=1000625578250

[fyzygy]

Keeper Trout speaks ... but I forgot my iTunes password. 

[Ishmael Fleishman]

7 hours ago, fyzygy said:

Keeper Trout speaks ... but I forgot my iTunes password. 

 

Listen online Here

 

https://www.spreaker.com/user/16676611/cactus-conservation-institute

[Ishmael Fleishman]

This is a truly great episode - and well worth the over two hours of your time. Full of data, and interesting historical and political tidbits.

 

A few interesting points for me.

 

If you harvest a LW button and you get say 5 pups in 8 years these new pups will only grow in mass as much as the original button would have grown in the same period. Which makes sense since the root system can only provide a finite amount of nutrients, so instead of the nutrients going to 1 button it goes to 5 pups. So it is a zero sum game.

 

The other one was the mescaline content of pups never equal the mescaline of the original button.

 

The Native American Church opposition to cultivation is driven by a faction of fundamentalist Christians that says that God made the medicine and  God and Jesus will always ensure that their will be enough medicine and since we are living in the end of days when Jesus returns he will click his fingers and all the problems will be fixed.

 

I will go back and listen again well worth it.

 

Plus I love the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't host remind of Anthony Bourdain.

[trucha]

One modification to that. *Eventually* the regrowth will equal the original crown. We just do not yet know how many years that will require. There is still a lot of work left to do.

 

A valuable book exploring the central role of religious ideology in stimulating and supporting magical thinking was written by Weston LaBarre. The book the Ghost Dance is rather dense but well worth the time. It may be the best book ever written on the how and the why underlying the irrational phenomenon that is commonly referred to as crisis cult thinking.

LaBarre's premise is that development of this type of ideation is most often fatal to the culture or group holding it (for example a Pacific island culture who's spiritual leader had a vision that the supply-bearing 'gods' who had been visiting them in shiny silver birds stopped coming because they are not happy with the islanders so they needed to kill their animals and not plant crops to regain the gods' sympathy -- obviously that did not turn out well) but sometimes circumstances allow its survival and it has then gone on to become one of the world's religions.

Edited September 10, 2023 by trucha
needed rewording for clarity

[fyzygy]

On 05/09/2023 at 4:24 PM, Ishmael Fleishman said:

The Native American Church opposition to cultivation is driven by a faction of fundamentalist Christians that says that God made the medicine and  God and Jesus will always ensure that their will be enough medicine and since we are living in the end of days when Jesus returns he will click his fingers and all the problems will be fixed.

I'm not sure. I have read (in Weston La Barre's earlier book on peyote cults) that Christianity was only ever a thin veneer, as is probably the case in other instances of religious syncretism under colonial influence. I don't see why Native Americans would be even more gung-ho and literal-minded about "end times" than white Christian fundamentalists are -- unless, of course, there were an Indigenous prophecy to that effect. Also worth noting, as La Barre points out, Protestantism (in Texas) and Catholicism (in Mexico) are not quite one and the same thing. 

 

In the context of peyote conservation strategies, I keep thinking about María Sabina and her declaration that synthetic psilocybin was the spiritual equivalent of the magic mushroom. Couldn't the US government, in the interests of peyote conservation, simply provide a regulated supply of synthetic mescaline to the NAC? This wouldn't satisfy every NAC member, but maybe enough to make a difference. Hamilton Morris makes a similar case for the endangered Sonoran toad medicine -- even though that argument has plenty of well-meaning (crisis cultist?) detractors. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by fyzygy

[Ishmael Fleishman]

What I got the the podcast is the how influential Christianity is depends on the tribe. With some tribes have zero Christian influences and other more so.

 

Everything I have heard about synthetic mescaline says that it does not compare to the whole plant which with over 50 active constituents which gives a very different experience.

 

And  it is my impression that Peyote is regarded as conduit connecting the people with the spirit of the land something a synthetic would never give you.

 

However eventually something will have to give as wild sources become extinct or endangered and then cultivation will kick in. Or we the US government driven by raciest and religious fanaticism kills the peyotism. Someone should talk to President Trump!

Edited September 12, 2023 by Ishmael Fleishman

[fyzygy]

https://chacruna.net/synthetic_mescaline_protect_declining_peyote_populations/

^ Chacruna takes the idea seriously, and even uses the ecological issue to leverage support for the legalisation of mescaline. Makes sense, no? Fast-growing Trichocereus spp. (esp. peruvianus?) make for a potential whole-plant medicine that could (and possibly should, for conservation purposes) be substituted for slow-growing peyote. It will come to that anyway, if wild peyote populations are decimated by over-harvesting. Even so, the NAC won't automatically be permitted consumption of this other sacred cactus; legalisation of mescaline, then, could go a long way towards protecting wild peyote. If Mexican is as good as Texan peyote for ceremonial purposes in the USA (as some suggest), then why not San Pedro?

 

Of course, it is up to the NAC members themselves to decide what is the best way to proceed with their ceremonial activities. (Cultural safety and justice for First Nations peoples are principles that inform the Chacruna Institute's advocacy of psychedelic medicine, and so presumably they have had Native American input on the peyote conservation issue). 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by fyzygy

[trucha]

Makes total sense from a Western perspective but it is actually a nonstarter despite the very rational sanity that exists in your suggestion.

For the vastly largest part NAC members do not view or use mescaline or mescaline containing plants as their sacrament. They use peyote. That might sound like I am merely splitting hairs but San Pedro has different effects, a different taste and a different personality. This is a religious activity for them and it is not regarded to be a drug experience.

For you and me such substitution would no doubt pose no problem as Western reductionism is valid in Western ideology.  

This subject goes far beyond what we are talking about there as a rather large portion of the NAC is still strongly opposed to cultivation even if done within the NAC itself due to their belief that it shows a lack of faith in the ability of the peyote to protect itself. Instead harvesting for users north of the border increased in Mexico. Thankfully this is now slowly in the process of changing or at least NAC people who do not object to cultivation have openly begun cultivation activities as of 7-8 years ago. It has been going on quietly for some time but I also know of one chapter which stopped growing around 12 years ago when their supplier threatened to cut them off of their peyote supply if they did not cease cultivating peyote. Cultivation within the NAC would likely be much more widespread if not for the pressure against it that became very vocal in the early 1990s.

This is all an internal matter for the NAC to work through and resolve as no outsiders have the right or the wisdom to tell other people how to practice their religion.

 

Spokespeople from the NAC have repeatedly stated to legislators and to the press that mescaline is not their medicine and San Pedro is not their medicine so have boxed themselves into a corner should their minds someday change. Only in the last several years have we heard claim being laid over them and that has been entirely in the context of decrim efforts and a desire to keep mescaline from being decriminalized. There has been a lot of effort directed at keeping not just peyote but mescaline out of DN proposals. It has in a growing number of cases been successful in omitting mescaline and any mescaline containing cacti and in others has only kept peyote and mescaline derived from peyote excluded. In far fewer instances peyote HAS been included in the decriminalization initiatives that were passed.

One more bit of subtlety is that *only* the 'nondrug use' of peyote is viewed by DEA as having protection. Not only is there no guarantee that respect would be extended to the NAC for using other mescaline containing cacti or mescaline but since that would be based on recognizing they the same active drug, and therefore are drug use, it might actually go against them. Saying "peyote is not a drug" is more than just words for them, in DEA's eyes it is their legal defence for being able to use it in ceremony.

 

One element to bear in mind is the NAC is not a homogenous organization in thought or beliefs. It is actually not an organization. It is a loose affiliation of around 170 chapters; each of which have their own charter and can write their own bylaws and membership rules. Most of them are formally incorporated. Many are fundamentalist Christians, some still have their original religion and are not Christianized and many are somewhere in between. Similarly many chapters strictly preclude others from participating (65 or so percent) and others welcome anyone who is sincere. This is easily missed if hearing the most vocal rhetoric appearing in the press.

 

I know a very tiny number of NAC people who do use San Pedro. I know far more who absolutely reject it. I have never met any NAC member who would accept synthetic mescaline as a sacrament. There certainly may be someone out there but I have not met them and far more members would protest against the idea rather loudly.

 

The discussions referenced at chacruna are generally about the concern for protecting peyote populations by insisting that only synthetic mescaline should be used for therapeutic applications rather than peyote or mescaline that has been extracted from peyote.  There are at least five psychedelic start-ups based around the use of mescaline so that is a great idea.

As was mentioned earlier, one can also find this notion being embraced in a number of the Decrim Nature initiatives.

 

The thing which would go farthest to resolve the dilemma with the least complexity would be repealing the controlled substances act and also declaring peyote to be a federally listed endangered species. Congress gave all people in the USA who qualify for federal aid by virtue of being recognized as a member of any indigenous entity (group, tribe, pueblo, etcetera) the right to harvest, possess, transport, and consume peyote and to cultivate it in a regulated manner so adding that layer of protection to peyote would not affect NAC peyote access or use.

 

[trucha]

The fundamentalist Christian element is an artifact of the formation of reservations and the ten member Board of Indian Commissioners created by Ulysses Grant when he was president. Grant wanted all ten to be Quakers but other Protestant groups protested so oversight of the reservations was divided among the "Reformed Protestants". Due to the intense anti-papal sentiment of the day the Catholics were excluded on the first round and had to fight to eventually be granted oversight of a reservation.

People can view the conversion as a veneer intended to cover and protect their use of peyote but I suggest that is not entirely accurate. I would actually suggest most of the fundamentalist Christians are sincere in that belief. Keep in mind all indigenous religion, including the very existence of their medicine people, was made illegal in 1888. Conversion was not something people on reservations got to choose as failure to comply was punished by withholding food from them. That is a huge motivation. Similarly people had their children removed and re-educated in distant schools on how to be good Christians and productive citizens suitable to feed back into the great melting pot. The deliberate effort to destroy indigenous culture by forced acculturation was among the biggest crimes and travesties of US history. What a lot of people miss in this is that these reformers believed they were being helpful as a lot of other people would have preferred they were all completely exterminated.