It it is compelling that, in the first recorded appearance of psychoactive substances in the New World, drug use presents itself as a mechanism used by a population to meet social, economic, and religious needs. Pecos people and their neighbors consumed their drug as a means of confronting the fear and anxiety of the hunt or the war, the economic imperative of locating food in perilous environments, the drive some individuals felt to achieve power, ritual privileges and leadership, and the possible standards ordinary members of society might apply in judging an individual’s capacity for leadership.
Something of comparable value can be said about the use of pituri by pre-European Aboriginal Australians. Although no white knowledge exists of how this population conceptualized pituri use, nor or any significant social-cultural features which linked to pituri consumption, it was obvious to white observers that people who controlled access to the drug wielded power over others, and that individuals possessing sufficient surplus of the drug could initiate the annual flow of complex trading systems. Demand for the drug was so high that at least one community seems to have responded by an intensified use of land.
Given that both these ancient drug histories illustrate a linkage between drug consumption and economic, political, religious and social goals, could these patterns be discerned through time? Probably some of them, I concluded, perhaps enough to establish that frequently drug consumption is culturally useful and appropriate, as well as potentially dangerous.
If modern accounts of psycho-active substances are added to ethnographic data, to fragmentary evidence from archaeology, information from old pharmacopoeias, the findings from linguistic, botanical, and folkloric studies, and references to drug use in ancient scripts, what emerges is that societies generally find three major tasks for drug consumption in the socio-cultural area. In the economic and political field, the picture is more complex. Drug use is frequently associated with profound changes in these areas. And in many situations the relationship seems a causal one, in which those who control access to drugs manipulate supply for their own gain.
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Societies and individuals address one or more of three socio-cultural issues with drugs
- People employ drugs to facilitate communication with the ‘supernatural’. Under this term I include all those abstract entities, referred to by terms such as god/s, spirits, deities, religious and heavenly beings, and inspirers of creativity.
- People consume drugs to create a socially-shared and altered reality in which structured, differentiated society loosens its hold, creating an ‘anti-structure ‘in which role playing and hierarchies diminish, human interaction increases, and social bonding occurs.
- People consume drugs to create or emphasize an image of themselves or others which is relevant to a particular situation. In this case, use lies along a spectrum from the instrumental to the symbolic
Communication with the supernatural. All societies seek the values of the ideal life and the practices by which these can be achieved. Communication with supernatural forces is a means to this end in most ethical/religious systems. ‘Upwards’ go petitions, prayers, request for help, spiritual offerings, and sacrifice. In return down come advice, warnings, omens, occasional divine appearances, demands for further human privations such as fasts or quests for enlightenment, plus rewards for virtue and punishment for evil. In most parts of world societies have,or still do, link this communication with consumption of mind-altering substances. As mentioned earlier in the post of March 15th 2012, Paleolithic people living in the Northern Hemisphere employ plant drugs for this reason, as did those first populations who migrated into North, South and Middle America. At least ten thousand years elapsed as this pattern of use continued in the Americas alone. Australian Aborigines have a 5, 000 use of pituri in what appears to be a spiritual connection.
The archaeologist/anthropologist Andrew Sherratt from the University of Oxford wrote that it can no longer be doubted that drug consumption has been ‘fundamental to human life and is likely to be at least as old as the emergence of Homo sapiens (1995). Taking this statement as written, Sherratt is not claiming outright that drug use and spiritual communication are as old as humanity. But since drugs alter states of consciousness, drugs by definition allow consumers to transcend ordinary or common experience, thoughts or beliefs and interrogate alternatives. From an atheistic and humanist perspective, this potentially links drug consumption to spiritual concepts.
Providing a comprehensive account of this association between drugs and religion world-wide is un-achievable, given the vast number of instances, the fragmentary nature of the evidence, and the fact that no written languages existed prior to 5000 BC. Nevertheless,two instances have intrinsic interest: one because it is the oldest written record drug use in a religious context; , the second because its probably the last significant bloom of ancient shamanism in European history. I repeat them below
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Perhaps as long ago as 4 000 B.P, a nomadic people calling themselves Aryans spread south-east from their point of origin, finally settling in the Indus valley in what is now Iran. They were patriarchal cattle herders who spoke Sanskrit, and were the first peoples to domesticate the horse. Not surprisingly, their religious beliefs and rituals related to cattle and the way of life which herding imposed on them. Intrinsic to their prayers, wishes and rituals was soma, an intoxicating, and now, today, a mysterious, plant substance. Soma was also a male moon god, perhaps a unique conjunction in mythologyy. The insights and pleasures soma bestowed appear in The Rig Vedas, the oldest literary product of Hindu religio.n
Thy juices, purified Soma, all pervading, swift as thought, go of themselves like the off-spring of swift mares…
He [Soma] excites reverence, watches over the herds, and leads by the shortest road to success…
He makes the sun rise in the heavens, restores what has been lost, has a thousands ways and means of help, heals all, chases away the black skin and gives everything into the possession of the pious Ary
Soma is an example of difficulties faced by researchers seeking information about psycho-active plants in the distant past. For some unknown reason, the Aryans gave up the consumption of soma soon after arriving in the IndusValley. Perhaps they failed to get the plant to grow in their new territory. Consequently nobody today is certain of the plant’s identity. After decades of studying the issue, R.Gordon Wasson, the ethno-botanist from Harvard University’s Museum of Botany, argued that soma is the hallucinogenic fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria). This is the mushroom of Alice in Wonderland and other children’s tales, with its red top spotted with white. Many disagree with Wesson’s conclusion. One caveat is that, during ritual, priests produced a juice from soma, and this seems unlikely were the latter a mushroom. Other suggestions identify soma with Ephedra, (the source of the stimulant ephedrine), or fermented mares milk, or haoma, a chemical found in Syrian rue (Peganum harmala). The secret may never be revealed. Scholars able to translate the Rig Veda usually lack skills in botany, pharmacology and pharmacognosy, and perhaps miss significant clues to the plant’s identity.
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