November 2000
Peter McCaig
Potent Plant Potions: psychoactive drugs under the microscope
Before his sudden death in a car crash in South Africa in 1998, Nicholas Saunders - bestselling author of E for Ecstasy - was researching this book which has been completed by his widow, Anja, and Michelle Pauli.
Drugs as they are portrayed in the media are the big taboo in our society, viewed as either corruptors of youth and destroyers of life or as nihilistic, escapist panaceas for weak-minded people. This may be true of the 'mass market' addictive substances like cocaine or heroin, but there is a long history and growing appreciation of other substances which may play a vital part in helping people gain greater insight into themselves and their place in the greater scheme of things.
Known as 'psychoactives' little is generally investigated or understood about their beneficial effects or the role they may play as educators and liberators of the human mind. Or indeed the spiritual insights, when taken in the proper setting, they can induce.
The famous Good Friday experiment of 1962, when in double blind scientific conditions ten theology students were given psilocybin and another ten a placebo, came to the conclusion that those who took the drug had significant religious experiences, and experienced positive and persisting effects in their attitude and behaviour. Twenty five years later they still testified that the experience had made a uniquely valuable contribution to their spiritual lives.
These days there are several churches and ethnic groups around the world who have won the right to take substances such as ayahuasca, iboga, or mescaline as part of their religious rituals and ceremonies.
This book is heavily based upon anecdotal stories of those who have participated, including the authors, in various drug induced states, and it is a pity that more research has not yet been done on how brain chemistry is affected by these potions.
But this book is a valuable guide to the current state of knowledge and provides some remarkable stories of what happens to people who dare to sweep aside the 'doors of perception'.
There is also valuable insight into the healing properties of psychoactives even to the extent of weaning people out of addiction to other drugs or allowing them to 'let go' of held traumas.
This book is certainly an effective antidote to our collective myopia on the subject.