Henbane's active ingredient is scopolamine which, as with most strong anti-cholinergics, is a really bad trip. For Example: https://erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=110604

Henbane was used for all sorts, including brewing.

As for the trip… we have it growing wild at our place, and I’ve been schooling myself as a herbalist/botanist, mostly for practical purposes. I’ve smoked it and had it in tea. It’s not a “oh wow I want to do that again!” but it’s also not “oh sweet Jesus no”. Floaty, tranquil, visuals not unlike DMT, and a terrible stomach upset.

Some locals still use it, as an alternative to hemlock, to stun fish.

To build in the brewing part, before it was replaced by hops, it was the plant that gave its name "Bilsenkraut" to the city of Pilsen. So not just occasionally used, but significant enough that places where named for it

Very interesting, thanks. I think there's often a cultural "plant blindness" we have nowadays, but it's hard to overstate how influential many plants have been on all human cultures.

One fun thing I found out today: Linnaea is a genus of honeysuckle named after botanist Carl Linnaeus whose name derives from the Swedish lind or linden tree. So it's a plant named after a person named after a plant!

I bet I could find a lot more examples like this if I kept digging. I only recently realized how common it is for names to derive from plants and I've had a lot of fun digging into it

> Some locals still use it, as an alternative to hemlock, to stun fish.

Why is anyone using Hemlock to stun fish? Given there are dozens of plants that stun fish, it seems odd that folks would use one that's also absurdly toxic to humans.

Hemlock grows in poorly drained soils (e.g. next to streams) so it's likely very often the nearest plant you can find to use for this purpose

Makes sense. I wonder if pawpaw would work. It seems like it might if rotenone works, since they both have the same mechanism of action, but I’ve never seen it listed as a fish poison.

> Why is anyone using Hemlock to stun fish?

Because they are criminals. This is strictly forbidden in most countries.

And because they are stupid and like to play with their own health

Interesting. I've read it was used in cigarettes in part for its narcotic effects (and to treat asthma) and was wondering if that meant it's hallucinogenic or not

From what I understand it can be poisonous if consumed directly. You'd probably get poisoned from directly consuming tobacco leaves too so I wonder if this is a similar situation where smoking is safer than direct consumption

Would you describe the experience as a "trip" like other psychedelic plants and fungi?

You can get poisoned just by handling tobacco leaves - Green Tobacco Sickness. I had it as a kid after playing in a wet tobacco field - I honestly thought I was going to die.

And yes, it was a trip - but mild in the grand scheme of things.

Is that the ones that they call the zombie drug on the TV shows?

It's used in parts of Latin America by thieves to rob people. They become delirious and detached from reality and will do whatever the thieves want.

Circe also used it in the Odyssey to turn Odysseus's men into pigs. Odysseus prevented succumbing to Circe's poison by taking galantamine from the flowers of Galanthus nivalis, which is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Galantamine counteracts the effects of anticholinergics by inhibiting the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine.

> Circe also used it in the Odyssey to turn Odysseus's men into pigs.

What's that based on? I can't seem to find any mention (in this translation at least) of what Circe used. Beyond just "evil drugs", "baneful drugs" etc.

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...

For some reason, in the humanities, especially with "pop" stuff like this, you can find a lot of extremely strong claims with basically zero backing.

At any rate it's not a translation issue. You can see in your link, which also has the original Greek, that the phrase used is "pharmaka lugros", which means precisely what the translation said. Maybe there is some other tradition besides Homer that handed it down, but it's healthy to have a lot of skepticism with claims like this.

Read post #2

https://bluelight.org/xf/threads/scopolamine.765088/

Fair point. It's not really analogous to "dropping acid" as I put it, but we do have clear evidence of its use specifically for its hallucinogenic properties:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4224707/

> In the Norwegian tradition, women put an ointment contain mixture of some plants such as BH on parts of the body with thin skin and became hallucinated

> It Soothsayers applied BH as a component of their hallucinatory mixture

"anti-cholinergics"

Based on what little I know, that sound scary.

Crazy but there is no historical evidence (text or images) of psilocybin mushroom use in Europe, prior to 1957. So hard to believe, but we simply don’t have evidence otherwise…

What exactly does this even mean? The very origins of "Christmas" are from people drinking the piss of reindeer who have consumed Amanita muscaria. Amanita muscaria, while not of the Psilocybe genus, contains psilocybe but (unlike Psilocybe mushrooms) is poisonous. The poison is neutralized in the reindeer piss so you can consume it to have a fun trip

And Psilocybe themselves are global in distribution with hundreds of species. Almost all hallucinogenic and none are poisonous.

A quick google search shows we have evidence for magic mushroom use in Europe for at least up to 6k years ago:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928025-400-earliest...

> Amanita muscaria, while not of the Psilocybe genus, contains psilocybe

This is misinformation. It contains ibotenic acid and muscimol. The effects are very different than psilocybin containing mushrooms.

Reference on the chemical compounds: https://pharmacia.pensoft.net/article/56112/

Woops edited my comment, thanks. Either way my point was it's a psychedelic mushroom

> The very origins of "Christmas" are from people drinking the piss of reindeer who have consumed Amanita muscaria

I never heard of christmas deriving from reindeer, it is commonly associated with winter solstice, but given the first record of the festivity is in Rome in 336CE it seems odd.

Maybe you mean the "association of reindeer with christmas", but that seems likely to have originated in the 19th century.

Do you have any source?

the Siberian shamans’ use of (red and white) fly agaric mushrooms to enter the spirit world is believed to be the source of the Father Christmas myth.

And I mean... obviously. A red and white mushroom that can get you high as fuck with the help of some reindeer...

https://www.livescience.com/42077-8-ways-mushrooms-explain-s...

> the Siberian shamans’ use of (red and white) fly agaric mushrooms to enter the spirit world is believed to be the source of the Father Christmas myth.

but the "Father Christmas" in english tradition was green.

https://www.ssgreatbritain.org/why-is-our-father-christmas-g...

Perhaps that prehistoric cave painting does show psilocybin mushrooms. That makes it even more crazy that there is no historical evidence for their use again until 1957– even though, as you point out— multiple species of psilocybin mushrooms grow pervasively in Europe.

Honestly, it would be groundbreaking if one grandma told stories about how her mother used to make mushroom tea. But we don’t have those stories. And, there is nothing in all of the Latin and Greek texts of the past 2500 years. It is a real enigma.

I have no idea where the claim that there's "no historical evidence for their use" comes from and would like to see a source (or just evidence that you've done any amount of research before making this claim). I think you might be confused because the term "hallucinogenic" only came of use around the 1950s

For example, this paper[0] explores the ethnobotanic use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Slovenia says

> Use of hallucinogenic plants and fungi, believed to extend back thousands of years, is an important part of the human experience

> The term hallucinogen first became popular in the 1950s and was originally used as the substances were said to produce hallucinations, though we now know that this is often not the case at lower doses

Ancient Greeks drank psychoactive concoctions that contained a mix of psychedelic mushrooms and even reports from the Middle Ages document their use. Clusius (1525-1609), a physician and botanist, discovered ‘bolond gomba’, a mushroom known in Germany as Narrenschwamm or Fool's mushroom, which was used in rural areas to concoct a love potion. ‘Fools mushrooms’ were also documented around the same time in Slovakia, Poland, and in England

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790546/

Yes, you can find our investigation here. We scoured the literature for historical reference to psilocybin mushrooms. Also investigating art! That’s what led us to the 118 prehistoric mushroom carvings on Stonehenge. But even these are not psilocybin! https://research.tudelft.nl/en/publications/the-enigma-of-mi...

Fool’s mushroom also does not have psilocybin.

Just because you do massive amount of drugs does not mean everyone else does.

The comment didn’t say that they did drugs or that everyone does.

If you're European you should know your ancestors likely settled down to practice agriculture in large part so they could drink a massive amount of alcohol

Indeed it is not even clear whether "beer is a liquid bread" or "bread is a solid beer".

Alcoholic beverages existed for as long as agriculture itself. Cannabis use is found in many ancient civilizations. Just because you consider recreational drugs to be sanctimonious doesn't mean ancient humans shared the same arbitrary moral values as you.

> They always dance around hallucinogenic plants. Just admit people have basically been dropping acid for centuries

Because its medical use was for asthma. You could buy solanaceous cigarettes in the US until the 70s or so.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844275/

With ethnobotanically medicinal plants there's almost always many uses for them:

> Henbane is used in traditional herbal medicine for ailments of the bones, rheumatism, toothache, asthma, cough, nervous diseases, and stomach pain. It might also be used as analgesic, sedative, and narcotic in some cultures

Wow. That's one hell of a cure all. I wonder why you don't see it for sale anymore.

Imagine you're a big pharma company, are you going to lose market share to a plant? Cheaper to pay a media outlet to start a fear campaign, and hire lobbyist to pass laws against "The dangerous plant" that killed little Toby.

Pharma companies sell lots of medicine that is based on plants. Ever heard of Aspirin for example?

yes,lots of medicines are derived from plants. My comment was more about villifying herbal medecine which is routinely done.

Pharma guarantees exact amounts of the active compounds each single time. Herbal medicine can't, because 5 grams of this plant harvested at shadow is radically different than this other 5 grams of the same species but growing in a colder place, or in a sunnier place or in a short summer year, etc.

Therefore with herbal medicine there is always a risk of overdosing or receiving an useless (too low) dose. The importance of this fact when people deal with such evil things as Scopolamine shouldn't be dismissed.

That's true to a large extent with pharmacological drugs, since you have huge variability between people's weighs, life style and diets (alcohol use for example). Usually the problem can be mitigated by starting with a safe low dose and adjusting until a benefit is seen in either case.

The profit motive of pharmacological companies is to have repeat customers. So no real incentive to cure.

You can't really dismiss this as a concern, as it's reflected in reality. Americans are some of the most drugged people in the world. The number of drugs Americans are now taking is growing exponentially. Yet this hasn't translated into life expectancy gains at all.

If anything, chances are you will be given the most drugs in the last year of your life. The risk of complications from taking so many drugs, will probably be working against benefit. As you get worse, the doctors will try to increase the dose. A feedback loop of sorts.

Hey, it's not like I'm against modern medicine. It's just it's a little more complicated, when game theory comes into play and individuals/companies have incentives that aren't always aligned with your best interest.

To be fair most herbal medicinalists tout the decreased potency of an herbal drug as a major benefit. You're usually instructed to, for example, drink some amount of some tea for a month. It might be hard to predict the content of a dose but with most herbs even if you tried to overdose you'd probably just puke out all that plant matter rather than actually die

Every year there's between 10 and 60 total fatalities due to plant and mushroom poisoning annually in the United States. But more than 106,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021. Obviously many more people take pharmaceutical drugs than take herbal medicines, but I do think that even if you adjusted the numbers to account for that you'd still see a huge difference

The fact is humans have been eating plant matter for millions of years and even though secondary metabolites of plants can be unique, they still often have certain chemical properties that our digestive system can evolve to account for. For example oxalic acid (rhubarb, brown rice, almonds, etc) and saponins (beans, asparagus, spinach, etc) are two very lethal poisons that will kill your cat but that us omnivores have evolved to neutralize and most of us consume daily. In comparison, pharmaceutical drugs are specifically isolated and optimized for potency and it's simply much more difficult for our bodies to adapt to individual chemicals like this (especially if they have novel chemical properties not seen in other parts of nature)

Herbal medicine doesn't need phama to discredit their reputations.

Lots of medicine is not just historically derived from plants but actually manufactured from them - extracting and purifying an active ingredient from plant mass often is cheaper than synthesizing it chemically, so lots of widely used products from 'big pharma' effectively are herb-based.

However, this 'extracting and purifying' step is one that must be done, you don't want to give the patient the whole 'cocktail' of active substances that happen to be in the herb along with the one thing that does have the desireable effect; so skipping that step and using the herb directly often is not appropriate; sure, it can work and have some beneficial effect as it was used historically, but that's something you stop doing once you have the practical ability to do it better by properly extracting the appropriate component.

It is! Scopolamine is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines.

Like I said this isn't that surprising. In ethnobotany if a plant is medicinally important across many cultures like this it's usually a sure bet that there's a ton of interesting secondary metabolites with interesting properties being produced by that plant. These "highly medicinal plants" are actually quite common

Some other examples of highly medicinal plants from PFAF:

Ammi visnaga[^0]

  Visnaga is an effective muscle relaxant and has been used for centuries to alleviate the excruciating pain of kidney stones[254]. Modern research has confirmed the validity of this traditional use[254]. Visnagin contains khellin, from which particularly safe pharmaceutical drugs for the treatment of asthma have been made[254]. The seeds are diuretic and lithontripic[46]. They contain a fatty oil that includes the substance 'khellin'. This has been shown to be of benefit in the treatment of asthma[238]. Taken internally, the seeds have a strongly antispasmodic action on the smaller bronchial muscles[254], they also dilate the bronchial, urinary and blood vessels without affecting blood pressure[238]. The affect last for about 6 hours and the plant has practically no side effects[254]. The seeds are used in the treatment of asthma, angina, coronary arteriosclerosis and kidney stones[238]. By relaxing the muscles of the urethra, visnaga reduces the pain caused by trapped kidney stones and helps ease the stone down into the bladder[254]. The seeds are harvested in late summer before they have fully ripened and are dried for later use[254].

Cinchona pubescens[^1]

  Red bark has a long history of native use, especially as a treatment for fevers and malaria. Modern research has shown it to be a very effective treatment for fevers, and especially as a treatment and preventative of malaria. The bark contains various alkaloids, particularly quinine and quinidine. Up to 70 - 80% of the total alkaloids contained in the bark are quinine[ 418 ]. The bark is a bitter, astringent, tonic herb that lowers fevers, relaxes spasms, is antimalarial (the alkaloid quinine) and slows the heart (the alkaloid quinidine)[ 238 ]. The bark is made into various preparations, such as tablets, liquid extracts, tinctures and powders[ 238 ]. It is used internally in the treatment of malaria, neuralgia, muscle cramps and cardiac fibrillation[ 238 ]. It is an ingredient in various proprietary cold and influenza remedies[ 238 ]. The liquid extract is useful as a cure for drunkenness[ 418 ]. It is also used as a gargle to treat sore throats[ 238 ]. Care must be taken in the use of this herb since excess can cause a number of side effects including cinchonism, headache, rash, abdominal pain, deafness and blindness[ 238 ]. The herb, especially in the form of the extracted alkaloid quinine, is subject to legal restrictions in some countries[ 238 ].

Hamamelis virginiana[^2]

  Witch hazel bark is a traditional herb of the North American Indians who used it to heal wounds, treat tumours, eye problems etc[254]. A very astringent herb, it is commonly used in the West and is widely available from both herbalists and chemists[222]. It is an important ingredient of proprietary eye drops, skin creams, ointments and skin tonics[238]. It is widely used as an external application to bruises, sore muscles, varicose veins, haemorrhoids, sore nipples, inflammations etc[238]. The bark is astringent, haemostatic, sedative and tonic[4, 14, 21, 165, 171, 222]. Tannins in the bark are believed to be responsible for its astringent and haemostatic properties[222]. Bottled witch hazel water is a steam distillate that does not contain the tannins from the shrub[222], this is less effective in its action than a tincture[238]. The bark is used internally in the treatment of diarrhoea, colitis, dysentery, haemorrhoids, vaginal discharge, excessive menstruation, internal bleeding and prolapsed organs[238]. Branches and twigs are harvested for the bark in the spring[238]. An infusion of the leaves is used to reduce inflammations, treat piles, internal haemorrhages and eye inflammations[213]. The leaves are harvested in the summer and can be dried for later use[238]. A homeopathic remedy is made from fresh bark[232]. It is used in the treatment of nosebleeds, piles and varicose veins[232].

Pueraria montana[^3]

  The kudzu vine, known as Ge Gen in China, is commonly used in Chinese herbalism, where it is considered to be one of the 50 fundamental herbs[218 ]. Recent research has shown that compounds called 'daidzin' and 'daidzein', which are contained in the roots and the flowers, are a safe and effective method for treating alcohol abuse[238 ]. They work by suppressing the appetite for alcohol, whereas existing treatments interfere with the way the alcohol is metabolised and can cause a build-up of toxins[238 ]. The plant is often used in combination with Chrysanthemum x morifolium in treating alcohol abuse[254 ]. The flowers and the roots are antidote, antiemetic, antipyretic, antispasmodic, demulcent, diaphoretic, digestive, febrifuge, hypoglycaemic and hypotensive[174 , 176 , 218 , 222 , 238 ]. A concoction of the flowers and tubers is used to treat alcoholism, fever, colds, diarrhoea, dysentery, acute intestinal obstruction etc[174 , 176 , 218 , 222 ]. It is useful in the treatment of angina pectoris and migraine[218 ]. The root is frequently used as a remedy for measles, often in combination with Cimicifuga foetida[254 ]. The root contains puerarin. This increases the blood flow to the coronary artery and protects against acute myocardial ischaemia caused by the injection of pituitrin[176 ]. The root can be harvested from the autumn to the spring and is used fresh or dried[238 ]. The flowers are harvested just before they are fully open and are dried for later use[238 ]. The stems are galactagogue and are also applied as a poultice to incipient boils, swellings, sore mouths etc[218 , 222 ]. The seed is used in the treatment of hangover and dysentery[218 , 222 ]. The leaves are styptic[218 ].

Ethnobotany is still the main source of new drug discoveries. Culturally medicinal plants like these are easy to identify and then it's just a matter of isolating the active ingredients and investigating ways to manufacture it or increase its effects. We often think of drugs as being single dimensional or serving a single use-case but I think this is mostly a product of how the modern scientific and legal process works and how much work it takes to approve a drug for a particular use-case.

[^0]: https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Ammi+visnaga

[^1]: https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Cinchona+pubescen...

[^2]: https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Hamamelis+virgini...

[^3]: https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Pueraria+montana

>I wonder why you don't see it for sale anymore.

Potato family. Common secondary effects, Permanent insanity and death

Henbane contains Scopolamine which is, in my opinion, the best drug available for long term motion sickness prevention. Makes sense the Norse had it on a ship. You can get patches of it today, one on the neck lasts 3 days, transforms a person who gets seasick easily to one with the stomach of a seasoned sailor. Never used the stuff myself but have had to get it prescribed for buddies who couldn’t keep their dinner (or water) down after dark.

Scopalamine is amazing. Being on the ocean is otherwise a debilitating ordeal for me. Worked really well on cruises I've been on.

The doses are perfect too apparently. Put on 2 patches and you'll hallucinate pirate ships on the horizon, one patch and you're immune to seasickness with just a bit of dry mouth.