13 Aug 2004
New Orleans Discovers Datura

As though this was a new "threat", the good City Fathers of The Big Easy are attacking a plant: datura inoxia, also known as angel's trumpet.

I have some bad news for them: this is nothing new at all. Daturas are referenced in Homer's Odyssey, and all over Shakespeare's plays: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Anthony and Cleopatra. It's appeared in herbals almost from the time such things were written down, and was a major subject of a best selling series of books from the 1960's about Yaqui Indian brujo's (shamans): The Teachings of Don Juan.

There is even some speculation that a datura species was a component of soma, used in Vedic India as a sacred drink. The genus name itself is derived from the Sanskrit dhatura, and the plant is still considered sacred to Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god. It has also been a candidate for the infamous "witches salve" of medieval Europe, which gave the illusion of flight.

Curiously enough, most deaths and injuries from datura are the result of risk taking induced by the psychdelic properties, and not as a result of atropine poisoning itself (although the latter is certainly possible). Information on these plants is not widely available: I daresay that if it were, and if the folks attempting to brew their tea were aware of the extreme effects, that these incidents could be minimized.

I guess it just tickles me when we "discover" a new "threat" that's been around since men crawled from caves and declare "war" on it. Have the people in charge of these efforts ever really thought about what they're doing: decalring war on a plant? It's absurd on the face of it, but dig a little deeper and I think you'll see the real agenda here. Notice that New Orleans didn't actually ban the plant, as that would've pissed off way too many gardeners. They just banned it's ingestion for recreational purposes.

The driving force behind puritianism is the dread fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time in a way that the puritan neither understands or approves. And that is what we're really trying to stomp out.

Responding to recent reports of young people abusing hallucinogenic substances derived from the popular garden plant known as angel's trumpet, the New Orleans City Council has passed a law banning the manufacture or sale of compounds made from the plant.

(link) [The Times-Picayune]

00:00 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

Not Much Happening Here

It's still too damn cold: feels like October rather than August.

I worked on some computer projects today, and actually found time to update the blogroll. You'll notice that orangeguru is back: Dieter just couldn't stop himself from blogging! And I may have discovered a couple of those rarest of creature: honest lawyers. Overlawyered is a blog about being, well, over-lawyered. Which certainly fits the United States. Legal Fiction is more of a politically liberal blog than anything else, but this guy can dig out some really nifty links, such as The Nestor Makhno Archive. I've always been fascinated by post revolutionary Russian history ...

A few others disappeared: I just wasn't reading them regularly. And so it goes.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Olympic Myths

OK, this guy needs some serious correction:

"Ultimately, it's up to the organizers how they will depict the past," Father Epifanios Economou, spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church, said of the opening ceremonies. "From what we know, it's going to be a theatrical performance, nothing more, because the religion of the ancient Greeks died 2,000 years ago.

"And it died on its own, starting with the philosophers Plato and Socrates, who denounced it, because they were searching for the real truth. They were searching for seriousness in their religious faith. And the answer was found eventually in the face of Jesus Christ."
May I suggest some reading material for the good father:

The philosophers mentioned by the good father wrote nearly a thousand years before the establishment of Christianity as the offical religion of the Roman Empire. Hellenic Heathenry didn't die of it's own accord, it was murdered by State edict. In fact, most of the spread of Christianity can be attributed to violence and subversion on the part of it's followers, and a too tolerant attitude on the part of it's enemies. When you're a polytheist, it's tough to come down hard on new gods. But go ahead and read the record for yourself. Most people are blissfully unaware how the "Prince of Peace" came to rule Europe by centuries of unremitting warfare.

Olympic organizers, church at odds on mythology's role at games

(link) [Myrtle Beach Online]

via rogueclassicism

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link