Subject: Re: Mexican Mint (Salvia divinorum)
From: Christopher B Reeve <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 21:31:34 -0400
Newsgroups: alt.psychoactives

> Does anyone know anything about S. divinorum?
> (Mexican Mint)
>  
> I know that the Mazatecs used it for medicinal purposes,
> but i havent been able to find out what kind of stuff 
> that they did with them.
>  
> I also have had a hard time digging up any articles on it,
> i've found one that cites a couple others, but thats about it.

I'll do my best.  Hope you don't already have this information.  Before
me, I have a copy of _The Psychedelic Reader_ (selections from _The
Psychedelic Review_), Edited by Gunther M. Weil, Ralph Metzner, and
Timothy Leary (University Books.  New Hyde Park, New York - available
via your local interlibrary loan; mine's from Johns Hopkins):

"All of these attributes fit the _hojas de la Pastora_ that the Mazatecs
generally use as a divinatory plant.  In September 1962 we gathered
specimens of the _hojas de la Patora_, and they were found to be a
species new to science: Epling and Jativa named it _Salvia divinorum_. 
Among the Mazatecs I have seen only the leaves ground on the _metate_,
strained, and made into an infusion.  The colonial records speak of an
infusion made from the roots, stems and flowers.  But this is not
incompatible with our information about _Salvia divinorum_: the Mazatecs
may confine themselves to the leaves of a plant that has the divine
virtue in all its parts.  I suggest that tentatively we consider
_pipiltzintzintli_, the divine plant of pre-Conquest Mexico, identical
with the _Salvia divinorum_ now invoked in their religious supplications
by the Mazatecs." (170)

"And here we revert to the miraculous plant that we think is the _Salvia
divinorum_, called (as we believe) in Nahuatl _pipiltzintzintli_, in the
records of the Inquisition dating from 1700.  This is obviously related
to the name for the sacred mushrooms used by Marina Rosas.  Dr. Aguirre
Beltran translates it as 'the most noble Prince' and relates it to
_Piltzintli_, the young god of the tender corn.  In the accounts of the
visions that the Indians see after they consume the sacred food -
whether seeds or mushrooms or plant - there frequently figure
_hombrecitos_, 'little men,' _mujercitas_, 'little women,' _duendes_,
'supernatural dwarfs.'  Beginning with our maiden at her _metate_, here
is a fascinating complex of associations that calls for further sutyd
and elaboration.  For example, are these Noble Children related
perchance to the Holy Child of Atocha, which gained an astonishing place
in the hearts of the Indians of Middle America?  Did they seize on this
Catholic image and make it a charismatic icon because it expressed for
them, in the new Christian religion, a theme that was already familiar
to them in their own supernatural beliefs?" (182)
--

"There are a number of us these days who do not seek deliberately to go
to prison but cherish a dream of being sent there to enjoy,
paradoxically, true freedom." (Anthony Burgess, _1985_)