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07Part One · History

Blessed, Banned or Simply Ignored: What the Church Actually Prohibited

Which consciousness-altering substances the Church actually banned, and why — fly agaric, peyote, mad honey, tobacco, opium, hashish and wine.

Questions this chapter answers

  • Did the Church ban visionary plants because they alter consciousness?

    The answer is in the book →

  • Why was peyote banned while tobacco and opium were not?

    The answer is in the book →

  • What happened to mad honey, the dangerous honey from rhododendron?

    Nothing: neither church nor treasury took any interest in it, and it is still made on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, where most known poisonings come from.

  • Where is fly agaric banned today?

    The chapter’s example is the US state of Louisiana, which has prohibited it for human consumption since 2005.

Short answers only. Chapter 7 gives the full account, with 10 footnotes to 10 sources.

Read more in the book

Sources

10 footnotes to 10 sources. Full references are in the bibliography.

  1. Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Santa Fe: School of American Research; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1950–1982.
  2. Saar, Maret. “Ethnomycological Data from Siberia and North-East Asia on the Effect of Amanita muscaria.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 31, no. 2 (1991): 157–173. DOI 10.1016/0378-8741(91)90002-U.
  3. Louisiana State Act 159 (2005), codified at La. Rev. Stat. 40:989.1, “Unlawful Production, Manufacture, Distribution, or Possession of Hallucinogenic Plants.” Signed June 28, 2005; effective August 8, 2005.
  4. Jansen, Suze A., Iris Kleerekooper, Zonne L. M. Hofman et al. “Grayanotoxin Poisoning: ‘Mad Honey Disease’ and Beyond.” Cardiovascular Toxicology 12, no. 3 (2012): 208–215. DOI 10.1007/s12012-012-9162-2.
  5. Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
  6. Urban VIII. Cum ecclesiae (30 January 1642).
  7. Pharmacy Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 121), “An Act to Regulate the Sale of Poisons, and Alter and Amend the Pharmacy Act 1852.” United Kingdom.
  8. Gautier, Théophile. “Le Club des Hachichins.” Revue des Deux Mondes 13 (February 1, 1846): 520–535.
  9. Moreau de Tours, Jacques-Joseph. Du hachisch et de l’aliénation mentale: études psychologiques. Paris: Fortin, Masson et Cie, 1845.
  10. Leonard, Irving A. “Peyote and the Mexican Inquisition, 1620.” American Anthropologist 44, no. 2 (1942): 324–326. DOI 10.1525/aa.1942.44.2.02a00240.