Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant

Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant

By Havelock Ellis

Mescal (Anhalonium Lewinii) belongs to the group of plants which in various parts of the world have been intimately connected with religion and have received the honors due to divine beings. This group may indeed be said to be large, but mescal — on account of the special appeal to the supernatural which its peculiar properties make — belongs to the innermost circle of such plants. It is or has been venerated by the Indians of many tribes over a very large region in Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico, in New Mexico, in Texas and in Indian Territory, each tribe having its own name for the plant — mescal, hikori, peyote, kamaba, etc. Botanically it is a cactus, belonging to the special and little known group of the Melocacteae... Lewin and Henning in 1885 first described this cactus and made experiments on animals with it, from which Lewin concluded that it is "intensely poisonous," resembling strychnine in its action, and by its lethal action standing apart from all other Cacteae. This opinion probably rendered investigators of mescal cautious, and little further progress was made in our knowledge until 1894, when Mr. John Mooney, agent among the Indians, who had read a paper on this subject before the Washington Anthropological Society three years earlier, brought to the United States Bureau of Ethnology a large supply of mescal buttons which were entrusted to Professor Prentiss and Dr. Morgan, of Columbian University, for physiological investigation.

[Sections II and III, on the peyote rites of the Huichol, Tarahumara and other Mexican Indian peoples, and on the anthropological literature describing them, are omitted here.]

The first really scientific attempt to ascertain the nature of the peculiar effects of this drug on the human organism was made by Professor Prentiss and Dr. Morgan in their investigation, already mentioned, of the mescal buttons obtained by Mr. Mooney among the Kiowa Indians. These observers administered the drug, in what I should consider extremely large doses (in one case as many as seven buttons), to several subjects whose symptoms were noted and their color visions briefly described. These investigators made no observations on themselves. In the following year, however, Dr. Weir Mitchell, attracted by their account of the effect of the drug, obtained some of the extract from them and made an experiment on himself, taking a large dose. Dr. Weir Mitchell describes himself as a good subject for visions, and his vivid and elaborate account of his experiences, as read before the American Neurological Society, furnished the first really full and instructive description of the artificial paradise of mescal. In the early part of the next year, having been greatly interested by Dr. Weir Mitchell's experience, and thinking that this drug might help to throw light on various matters which I was trying to account for, I succeeded in obtaining a supply of mescal buttons in England and experimented on myself. As these observations, the first made outside America on the psychic effects of mescal, covered the same ground as Dr. Weir Mitchell's, while at the same time revealing new classes of phenomena which had not been noted by previous observers, it may be worth while to record them in full, as fairly typical of those vision-producing properties which procured for this plant its divine honors.

The Experiment, Good Friday 1897

The experiment took place on Good Friday, 1897, when I was entirely alone in quiet chambers in the Temple, the most peaceful spot in central London. I made a double infusion or decoction of three mescal buttons (a single infusion is inert) and drank this, in three doses, at intervals of an hour, beginning at 2:30 p.m., two hours after a light lunch. I had not touched alcohol or smoked during the day. The following notes are reproduced, with trifling omissions, exactly as written, during the course of the experiment.

"The most noteworthy, almost immediate, result of the first dose was that a headache which for some hours had shown a tendency to aggravation was somewhat relieved. At 3 began to feel drowsy. At 3:30 took another third of the infusion. My headache was speedily still further lightened, and I now felt a certain consciousness of energy and intellectual power. No color or other visual phenomena appeared, however, even when eyes were closed for several minutes... Some gastric discomfort now made itself felt, but was relieved (at 4 o'clock) by eating a few biscuits... At 4:30 took the remaining portion of the infusion... At 5 I felt slightly faint, so that it was difficult to concentrate my attention while reading and I lay down on a couch; the pulse was still lower (48) but no visual phenomena could be detected. At 5:45 while lying down reading I noticed (what Weir Mitchell noticed) that a pale violet shadow floated over the page around the point on which my eyes were fixed. Some little time earlier I had noticed that objects not in the direct line of vision, such as my hand holding the book, frequently tended to become obtrusive, and as it were heightened in color, monstrous and enlarged. At 6 the prevailing feeling was one of slight faintness with some muscular unsteadiness; there was no marked discomfort (except slight nausea); the headache had almost gone. No further visual phenomena except that it seemed that on closing the eyes after-images were marked and persistent.

"6:15. I should take more buttons in solid form, but refrain from doing so in consequence of the faintness which makes me disinclined to do more than make these notes. Also the thought of taking more of the drug and the sight of the glass produces a feeling of nausea. The blue-black color of the ink as I write seems unusually brilliant and the shadows on my left on the verge of the visual field seem unusually violet.

"6:40. Pulse now, lying down, is about 60. When lying with eyes closed I am more conscious than before of visions on the curtain of the eyelid; but they are vague and confused, the whole of the field seeming crowded with them, and even when definite images are seen they are not recognizable, but are of the same character as the images produced by the kaleidoscope — symmetrical groupings of spiked objects. Violet shadows are still conspicuous, and now also I see... occasional distinct green shadows on the outskirts of the visual field, while a green-toned newspaper lying on the floor, whenever I glanced at it, always seems unusually green.

"7:00. It is now dark, and chancing to glance out at the window for a moment and then close my eyes I was surprised at the astonishingly bright vision of light left in my eyes, a positive after-image. All objects seen not in the direct line of vision have a tendency to look startlingly large and prominent.

"Before 7:30, when lying with closed eyes, the visions had become much distincter, but still quite indescribable, mostly a vast field of golden jewels studded with red and green stones and ever changing and full of delight. And moreover all the air round me seemed at one moment to be flushed with vague perfume — producing with the visions a delicious effect. All feelings of discomfort have now quite vanished, except only a slight feeling of faintness showing itself by tremors in hands, etc.

"8:00. The chief character of the visions is their indescribableness; sometimes, however, they are like clusters of jewels — some bright and sparkling, others with a dull rich brilliance. Again they resemble a vast collection of the glistering, iridescent, fibrous wings of gorgeous insects. But the main impression is that they are constantly approaching and constantly eluding the semblance of known things. The human face is the only known form that is sometimes momentarily caught, or perhaps merely suggested.

"8:30. [Written with pencil.] Pulse now much higher (72 in sitting position). Muscular incoordination is so considerable that it is very difficult to use a pen, but still easy to write with a pencil.

"I find that it is easily possible to see the visions when lying down in a dark room with open eyes. (Weir Mitchell could not do this.) Sometimes the vision seems to be of a vast hollow vessel into the polished interior of which one gazes while the hue rapidly changes on its mother-of-pearl surface. The objects seen are very often extremely definite; the remarkable point is that they are always novel. There has been all along apparent hyperaesthesia to all sensory impressions.

"9:10. I had to break off as I cannot write for long at a time. The visions continue as brilliantly as ever: I think I see them better in a room lighted by fire than in a dark room. I have seen thick glorious fields of jewels which spring into forms like flowers beneath my view and then seem to turn into gorgeous butterfly-like forms. When I speak my voice seems strange to me and certainly sounds hoarse.

"As I write (by electric light) vague thin color washes seem to lie on the paper, especially a golden yellow, and even the pencil seems to make somewhat golden-tinged marks. My hands seen in indirect vision seem strange, bronzed, scaled, flushed with red. Except for slight nausea I am feeling well, my head perfectly well, though when watching the visions I once noticed slight right frontal pain. The chief inconvenience is decidedly the motor incoordination. It involves inability to fix attention long; but otherwise intellect is perfectly clear.

"9:40. [Written with pen.] I am now going to bed. Visions continue; I feel well, except for slight nausea when I move and the motor weakness. [What follows was written on the next morning.] Before going to bed I drank some hot water with a little wine in it, but took nothing to eat. On undressing I was struck by the red, scaly, bronzed or pigmented appearance of my feet, hands and limbs when I was not directly looking at them. After going to bed the nausea entirely disappeared, not to reappear, and except for thoracic oppression and occasional sighing there was no discomfort. But there was not the slightest drowsiness. I think, however, that the visions might easily have blended into dream visions but that I was kept awake by a certain consciousness of faintness and by auditory hyperaesthesia... At a later stage there was some ringing in the ear. There were also some slight twitchings of the larger muscles of the limbs. Before going to bed I had ascertained that there was marked exaggeration of the knee-jerk, and the pupils were dilated. I felt hot; the skin was dry, the kidneys active.

"Meanwhile the visions continued with but little diminution of brilliancy, and the same perpetual novelty. Some new kind of effect was perpetually appearing in the field of vision; sometimes there was swift movement, sometimes dull somber richness of color, sometimes glitter and sparkle, once a startling rush of flashes that seemed to approach me. Usually there was a combination of rich dark color with jewel-like spots of brilliant color. Every conceivable color and tint seemed to appear at one time or another (Weir Mitchell never saw blue). Sometimes the different varieties of one color, as of red, would spring up in turn — scarlet, crimson, pink, etc. But, in spite of the immense profusion of objects, there was always a certain parsimony and aesthetic value in the colors presented... I was struck not only by the brilliancy, delicacy and variety of the colors, but by the great variety and loveliness of texture which they presented — fibrous, waxen, polished, dull, glowing, veined, semi-transparent, etc. The glowing (jewel-like) and the fibrous (insect-wing) textures were perhaps the most prevalent. Although the effects were novel, they often vaguely recalled known objects — exquisite porcelain, elaborate sweetmeats, Maori architecture, Moorish windows. But in all these cases the objects grew and changed beneath my gaze without any reference to the characteristics of those real things of which they vaguely reminded me. I tried to influence their course but with very little success. It seemed that colors could to some extent be called forth but I could not evoke the simplest image by an act of will.

"On the whole, if I had to describe the visions in one word, I should say that they were living arabesques. There was generally a certain incomplete tendency to symmetry, the effect being somewhat as if the underlying mechanism consisted of a large number of polished facets acting as mirrors... Thus at a moment when uniformly jewelled flowers seemed to be springing up and extending all over the field of vision, the flowers still showed every variety of delicate tone and tint.

"Unlike Weir Mitchell, who could not see the visions with open eyes even in the darkest room, I could see them in the dark with almost equal facility when my eyes were open, though they were not of equal brilliancy. After observing them in the dark for some hours, I became a little tired of them and turned on the gas. I then found that I was able to study a new aspect of these visual phenomena. The gas jet (a common flickering burner) seemed to burn with great brilliance, sending out waves of light which expanded and contracted enormously. I was even more impressed by the shadows which were in all directions heightened by flushes of red, green and especially violet. The whole place became vivid and beautiful and the tone and texture of the whitewashed but not very white ceiling was immensely improved. The difference between the room as I saw it then and the appearance it usually presents was the difference one may often observe between the picture of a room and the actual room...

"I wished to ascertain how the subdued and steady electric light could influence the phenomena, and passed into the next room. Here the rich shadows which were evidently largely due to the stimulus of the flickering light were not obtrusive. But I observed that whatever I gazed at seemed to show a tendency to wave or pulsate. If I looked at the matting on the floor it showed a singular richness of texture, thick and felted, with a tendency to rise in little waves... In the same way a closed door seemed to be ajar, from the heightening of the shadows in the interspaces.

"I returned to bed still experiencing the same phenomena though in a less degree, and now for the first time there was a tendency for human figures to appear, fantastic and Chinese in character. There were vague hallucinations of smell, sometimes distinct recurrence of the freshly prepared mescal infusion; these olfactory impressions were pleasurable, I think because they involved deep inspirations, and thus relieved the respiratory oppression.

"At 3:30 a.m. I felt that the phenomena were diminishing and was able to settle down to sleep. When I awoke two hours later, after a peaceful and dreamless sleep, there was a slight headache and the visions were still present with closed eyes, though they were now in somber colors, brown and black. I slept again for an hour or so and rose at the usual time feeling by no means tired, and with an excellent appetite; except for a slight headache which passed off in the course of the morning, I felt none the worse but rather the better for my experiment. The only after-effect was a slightly hyperaesthetic vision for colored objects (as at the beginning of the experiment), lasting for a day or so, and more especially noticeable as regards blue, so that a familiar noticeboard in the Strand with dark-blue background was much more conspicuous and intensely blue than usual."

[The remainder of Section IV, describing a second, less pleasant experiment conducted on a young art student, and Ellis's assessment of mescal's negligible value as a therapeutic agent, is omitted.]

The chief interest of mescal is for the physiologist and the psychologist. It may be added that for every healthy person a single experience, at all events, of what mescal has to teach would be an educational advantage of no little value. As one of my subjects, who strongly feels this educational value of mescal though he has no wish to repeat the experience, remarks: "The connection between the normal condition of my body and my intelligence had broken — my body had become in a measure a stranger to my reason — so that on reasserting itself it seemed, with reference to my reason which had remained perfectly sane and alert, for a moment sufficiently unfamiliar for me to become conscious of its individual and peculiar character. It was as if I had unexpectedly attained an objective knowledge of my own personality." Thus it is that the Indians who raised this remarkable plant to divine rank, and dedicated to it a cult, have in some measure been justified, and even in civilization there remains some place for the rites of mescal.