Page 172 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

Mysteries of the Mind 153

shipped to Japan before the Wassons could resembled sleep. They were both entranced
protest. At the time of the ceremony, he had for 20 hours and awakened with mammoth
been not in Boston but in New York. The last hangovers, complete with dry mouths, sore
portion of the curandero’s prognostication throats, and headaches. Peuckert and his
also came true when one of R. Gordon Was- friend both claimed that they had witnessed
son’s first cousins died of a heart attack within the Black Sabbat of the witches.
the one-year period the man had foreseen. In spite of the hangovers both men had
Intrigued by the witch doctor’s perfor- upon awakening from the trance, they imme-
mance, the Wassons became interested in try- diately set about writing separate accounts of
ing the mushrooms themselves. They traveled what they had envisioned. Except for differ-
the back trails of Mexican bush country until ences in wording, they described the same
they found a village where the natives were scenes. Peuckert’s theory is that the Sabbat was
willing to let them join a mushroom ceremony. often manifest with the use of such salves, and
The Wassons were given explicit instruc- although the people involved actually had no
tions on what and what not to eat before they physical experiences, they could be made to
consumed the mushrooms. The gathering was confess to their witchcraft because they could
held in the basement of one of the villager’s not separate hallucinations from reality.
dwellings, and each person present consumed Dr. Sidney Cohen, a Los Angeles psychia-
six pairs of the greasy-tasting mushrooms within trist-pharmacologist, author of The Beyond
a half an hour. The scene was lit by the moon Within: The LSD Story (1972), commented, “It
that shone through an opening in the wall. is hardly necessary to invoke supernatural
About a half an hour later, Wasson said explanations for the mind’s more exceptional
that he felt as if his soul had been scooped activities.…Intuition, creativity, telepathic
from his body and had been projected to a experiences, prophecy—all can be understood
point far away. He went on to describe scenes as superior activities of brain-mind func-
resembling those commonly described by the tion.…The experience called hallucinogenic
users of mind-expansion drugs. Yet, in his will play a role in leading us into the future. It
case, there was no instance of any kind of points out the existence of unique mental
prophecy or clairvoyance. states that must be studied and understood.”
The question of whether psychedelic drugs
can induce or enhance psychic phenomena or
extrasensory abilities remains poised before
researchers without an answer. Although the LYSERGIC acid is found naturally in ergot, a
drug-induced experiences are similar qualita- fungus that grows on rye and other grains.
tively to those described by mystics and medi-
ums all over the world, they may be only an
accompanying manifestation of the brain state On May 2, 1938, Dr. Albert Hofmann of
of these sensitives. the Sandoz Research Laboratories in Basel,
In 1960 Dr. Erick-Will Peuckert, professor Switzerland, first synthesized Lyserg-Saeure-
at Germany’s Gottingen University, found a Diaethylamid (LSD). Lysergic acid is found
formula for witches’ salve in an ancient book naturally in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye
on witchcraft. Peuckert was aware that the and other grains, and throughout history it has
salve was known to contain such psychedelic been used in various medications. Some
drugs as the thorn apple, the Deadly Night- researchers have even attributed ingestion of
shade, and other regional fruits and roots, but ergot to hallucinations that in the Middle
he and an unnamed attorney friend decided to Ages may have caused people to believe that
test the ancient recipe in the exact ritual they could fly through the air like witches or
manner prescribed by the book of magic. transform themselves into werewolves.
After the salve had been applied, both Five years after synthesizing the drug, Hof-
men fell into a state of consciousness that mann accidentally inhaled a minute quantity

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