This paper seeks to emphasize what may be the most primary mode of altering consciousness in the ancient world: namely, the burning of substances for inhalation in enclosed areas. While there is abundant literature on archaic uses of entheogenic plants, the literature on psychoactive incenses is quite deficient. From the tents of nomadic tribes to the small meditation rooms of Taoist adepts, the smoldering fumes of plants and resins have been used to invoke and banish and for shamanic travels since humanity mastered fire. The text provides details of primary "incense cults" while highlighting some commonalities and shared influences when possible. Further speculation suggests that selective burning of certain substances, such as mercury and sulphur, may have contributed to their lasting use and veneration in alchemy from India and China to the Arabian and European protochemists. This article would have a companion online database for images and further examples of ingredients in various incenses from China to ancient Greece.
Many ancient cultures and religions engaged in various techniques and used various substances to instigate religious experience and to alter perception. These techniques of psycho-sexual drug yoga reached an unparalleled level of sophistication that arose and was often cloaked in practical terms of alchemy and metallurgy. The Vedic tradition describes this plant-based ritualism as soma, which has been identified by Gordon Wasson as the mushroom Amanita muscaria. This article traces these soma-influenced sects of esoteric Buddhism that exerted influences from India, China and Tibet to Japan. Some of the key components, practices and symbolism are retained despite numerous cultural filters. Japan's tradition of esoteric Buddhism can thus be seen to have preserved and incorporated the soma/amrita mushroom lore into its own traditions of mountain ascetic mystics.
This is an article in two parts. The first part discusses current research in psychoactive preparations of ergot in various religious systems with a particular emphasis on Persian, Greek, Jewish and Islamic sources. Certain poems, hadith, and scriptural writings suggest an entheogenic heritage to various ancient sects that exerted and received philosophical and ritual influences over large distances and over time. Particularly, some esoteric Shia and Sufi writings are highly suggestive of a "celestial botany" that employed psychoactive plants for initiatory and ritual purposes. The second part will address current research methods that render ergot alkaloids nontoxic and entheogenic, a most crucial part of the discussion in the absence of a modern bioassay. This is essential, as without a chemical reality to support that such a preparation of entheogenic ergot is possible, all ergot theories concerning mystery traditions would remain largely speculative.
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