Australians and many tribes
of North American Indians use tobacco for this purpose. In Western
Siberia a species of fungi, the 'fly Agaric,' so called because it is
often steeped and the solution used to destroy house flies, is used to
produce religious ecstasy. Its action on the muscular system is
stimulatory, and it greatly excites the nervous system.[23] An early
Spanish observer says of the ancient Mexicans that they used a kind of
mushroom, "which are eaten raw, and on account of being bitter, they
drink after them, or eat with them a little honey of bees, and shortly
after they see a thousand visions."[24] The mushroom was called the
"bread of the gods." The Californian Indians give children tobacco, in
order to receive instruction from the resulting visions. North American
Indians held intoxication by tobacco to be supernatural ecstasy, and the
dreams of men in this state to be inspired. The Darien Indians use the
seeds of the Datura Sanguinea to induce visions. In Peru the priests
prepared themselves for intercourse with the gods by partaking of a
narcotic drink from the same plant. In Guiana the priest was prepared
for his functions by fasting and flagellation, and was afterwards dosed
with tobacco juice.[25] In India the Laws of Manu give explicit
instructions as to the means of producing visions. Chief of these is the
use of the 'Soma' drink. This is prepared from the flower of the lotus.
The sap of this, says De Candolle, would be poisonous if taken in large
quantities, but in small doses merely induces hallucination. Opium and
hashish, a preparation of the hemp plant, have been in general use among
Eastern peoples, as a means of producing ecstasy from remote antiquity.
Opium, it is well known, produces an extraordinary state of exaltation,
intensifying the sense of one's personality, and inducing a pleasurable
consciousness of mental strength and clarity. Under its influence, as De
Quincey said, time lengthens to infinity and space swells to
immensity.[26] Belladonna, a drug much used by medieval witches and
sorcerers, has also had its vogue for purely religious purposes. With
the Greeks the laurel was sacred to AEsculapius. Those who wished to ask
counsel of the god appeared before the altar crowned with laurel and
chewing its leaves. Before prophesying, the Greek priestesses drank a
preparation of laurel water. This contains, although it was, of course,
unknown to them, two toxic substances--prussic acid a