# From "The Hidden History of Beverages" by Alexander Lukashev

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

Part One (history), chapter 7 of 14 · 10 footnotes to 10 sources
Page: https://herbalmind.bar/history/what-the-church-banned/

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](https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723)
- Why was peyote banned while tobacco and opium were not?
  [The answer is in the book](https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723)
- What happened to mad honey, the dangerous honey from rhododendron?
  Short answer: 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?
  Short answer: The chapter’s example is the US state of Louisiana, which has prohibited it for human consumption since 2005.

Short answers only. The full account, with its sources, is in chapter 7 of the book — https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723

Sources:
- 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.
- 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](https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-8741%2891%2990002-U).
- 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.
- 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](https://doi.org/10.1007/s12012-012-9162-2).
- Goodman, Jordan. Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
- Urban VIII. Cum ecclesiae (30 January 1642).
- 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.
- Gautier, Théophile. “Le Club des Hachichins.” Revue des Deux Mondes 13 (February 1, 1846): 520–535.
- Moreau de Tours, Jacques-Joseph. Du hachisch et de l’aliénation mentale: études psychologiques. Paris: Fortin, Masson et Cie, 1845.
- 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](https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1942.44.2.02a00240).

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These are chapter cards — what each chapter covers, with a few short answers and the book’s free pages — not the chapters themselves.
Apple Books, with a free sample: https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723
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