WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF SALVIA DIVINORUM?

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF SALVIA DIVINORUM?

By J. Hawk

THE EFFECTS OF SALVIA DIVINORUM ARE DISCOVERED BY THE WEST

Salvia Divinorum is a very rare plant in nature and it only occurs in a few mountainous ravine locations in the Sierra Mazateca region of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is a member of the botanical family that includes sage and mint, and it is increasingly cultivated from clones in modern times.

Salvia Divinorum was initially reported by Swedish anthropologist Jean Basset Johnson in 1939 as part of his research on Mazatec shamanism, and he later documented its usage and made the first personal reports of the effects of Salvia Divinorum to Western audiences.

However, despite Johnson’s pioneering work, Salvia Divinorum remained virtually unknown outside of Mexico until the effects of Salvia Divinorum were described in English in 1983 by Albert Hofmann in his book “LSD: My Problem Child”.

Hofmann was the famous Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and first isolated the active principles in the psilocybin-containing Magic Mushroom species found and used ceremonially in Mexico.

Hofmann and his wife Anita had traveled to Mexico in September, 1962 to meet with R. Gordon Wasson and go in search of the rare magic plant called “Ska Maria Pastora” or The Shepherdess Mary that is now known botanically as Salvia Divinorum.

Wasson and his wife were already well-known for having introduced the Mexican Magic Mushrooms to the West in an article published in Life Magazine. Wasson had learned about the Ska Maria Pastora plant that was being used by the Mazatec priest healers or “curanderas” for divinatory purposes while he was traveling in the mountains of Southern Mexico.

Although this scientific expedition was readily given a few botanical samples of the magical plant, they were turned away by virtually all of the Mazatec curanderas from taking part in a religious ceremony with the plant. Hofmann suspected that this was probably due to a code prohibiting them from sharing the sacred medicine with outsiders.

Nevertheless, they were eventually offered the plant medicine in a secret ceremony with the curandera Consuela García in San José Tenango, located in the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca. Wasson and Anita Hofmann accepted her offer and imbibed the bitter plant extract that the curandera ceremoniously prepared from six pairs of crushed fresh leaves per full dose.

At the time, Anita described seeing “striking, brightly bordered images”, while Wasson also reported experiencing effects from the medicine, which was accompanied in the ceremony by copal incense, prayers and a divinatory inquiry of the curandera.

Soon afterwards, Hofmann was able to experience the effects of Salvia Divinorum himself in a ceremony with the curandera Maria Sabina who had been made famous by Wasson’s publications at her home in the mountains above Huautla de Jiménez.

After ingesting the plant in the traditional way, Hofmann subsequently found himself in a state of “mental sensitivity and intense experience” for a time; however, he did not experience pronounced visual effects from the plant medicine.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING SALVIA DIVINORUM

Most of the Salvia Divinorum plants commercially available and distributed today are clones of the collection done in 1962 by ecologist and psychologist Sterling Bunnell that is often incorrectly attributed to Wasson and the Hofmanns. Some plants are also derived from a second strain, reported to be more “palatable”, that was collected by Bret Blosser in 1991. Additional strains of this rare plant are reported in private collections that originated from seeds or mutations, such as the Luna Strain from Hawaii.

The active ingredient responsible for the effects of Salvia Divinorum of interest to those interested in psychedelic drugs has been identified as a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid named Salvinorin A. It is one of the very few non-alkaloid psychedelics known and has been found to be active as an agonist on the kappa-opioid receptors in the brain. Salvinorin A has the extraordinary distinction of being the most potent naturally-occurring psychedelic substance currently known, with activity detected in the 200 microgram range.

Salvia Divinorum received widespread publicity in the mid-1990’s from psychedelic enthusiasts, including Terence McKenna, Dale Pendell and D.M. Turner, who each had access to and wrote about their experiences with the extremely strong psychoactive ingredient Salvinorin A. As a result of their reports, the plant began to be widely cultivated and to reach a much wider audience via sales of live plants, leaf and concentrated extracts that were arranged and promoted over the Internet as a new and powerful “legal high”.

Unfortunately, this publicity led both to greater use and to a resulting crackdown as YouTube videos reportedly showing kids acting silly under the effects of Salvia Divinorum panicked both parents and prohibitionist legislators into making the plant illegal to possess or distribute in several states and countries.

Despite this hysteria, fanned primarily by people who have no personal experience with the medicine, Salvia Divinorum is non-toxic when used in appropriate doses, not addictive, and not especially popular as a recreational drug. Furthermore, Salvia Divinorum does not cause a hangover and has not been directly attributed to any fatality, ever. Animal experiments also indicate that Salvia Divinorum may be therapeutically helpful in the treatment of cocaine addiction.

INGESTION TECHNIQUES  AND THE EFFECTS OF SALVIA DIVINORUM

Those who take this sacred plant medicine report the effects of Salvia Divinorum to vary considerably, in part depending on how the plant is consumed. Those who take the medicine in more traditional ways such as by drinking a tea, herbal tincture, smoking the plain leaf or sucking the juice from a wad of leaves chewed and held in their mouths report milder effects such as: visuals with closed eyes, mild feelings of dissociation, trance states, and a heightened access to intuitive communication that aids in divination.

Nevertheless, an increasingly popular modern method of ingestion involves purchasing and smoking an extract of Salvia Divinorum concentrated onto some dried leaf. High quality, standardized extracts are available from www.thebestsalvia.com that range in concentration from 5x to 60x, with 25x being a common choice for those experimenting with the medicine for the first time.

The effects of Salvia Divinorum taken in its stronger extract forms are considerably more dramatic and come on quickly when smoked. They tend to reach peak intensity at around one minute that lasts for several minutes before gradually returning to baseline after twenty minutes, with an improvement in mood or “afterglow” often reported. Chewing the leaf makes the experience come on slower and last up to an hour or more with peak intensity experienced at a lower level.

In terms of quality, the effects of Saliva Divinorum are quite subjective and unique to the individual and dosage. Reports often include effects such as: laughter, memory recall, movement sensations, tunnel vision, merging with objects, seeing closed-eye visuals and membranes, in addition to experiencing multiple realities and time distortions. Furthermore, a completely dark or very dark environment is optimal for enhancing the medicine’s visual effects, which can be subtle in bright or partial lighting.

Since the effects of Salvia Divinorum can impair coordination or cause astonishment, those taking high doses of smoked Salvia extracts should not operate heavy machinery or be in a public place. Also, having a sitter present is highly recommended to watch over the person taking the medicine in order to insure their safety.

Finally, it remains the personal responsibility of everyone embarking on the psychedelic adventure of taking Salvia Divinorum to respect the power of this ancient sacred medicine, and to insure their own safety and privacy when under its influence in order to avoid giving those who would prohibit its use further ammunition to fuel their cause of eliminating the freedom to commune with this rare and ancient sacred plant.