9 Medieval Drugs That Got People Tripping Hard

Psychedelic Practices in Ancient China

• 💡 In ancient China, shamans known as the Wu used 'spirit mushrooms' for religious and spiritual purposes, aiming to commune with deities.
• 🌿 Daoist adepts experimented with hallucinogenic plants, seeking to transcend the mortal world, with texts detailing spiritual herbs granting immortality.
• 🍄 Texts like 'Biographies of Transcendents' and 'Master Who Embraces Simplicity' describe 'spirit mushrooms' enabling users to experience visions of riding clouds, seeing heaven, and communicating with the afterlife.
• 蟾蜍 (Toads) were also mentioned in immortality recipes, alongside cannabis, wolfsbane, datura, and rhododendron, with some plants still used in Asian spiritual practices.

Hashish and Debates in the Arab World

• 💨 During the Middle Ages, parts of the Arab world were relatively open to cannabis, with Sufi mystics reportedly introducing it.
• 🌿 By the 13th century, hashish became popular in Egypt, known by nicknames like 'shrub of emotion' and 'branch of bliss,' and was consumed smoked, baked, or in pill form.
• ⚖️ The legality of hashish was debated, with proponents citing mood enhancement and improved music perception, while critics noted downsides like bad breath, hair loss, and decreased mental sharpness.
• 📜 Debates extended to granular topics, including divorce under the influence and permissibility for animals, reflecting a complex legal and religious discourse.

Psychoactive Brews and Folk Magic in Europe

• 🍺 Medieval European beer was often supercharged with spice blends like 'gruit,' containing ingredients such as wormwood, mugwort, and henbane, which had documented psychoactive and even toxic effects.
• 🌿 Opium, derived from the poppy, was used as a sedative and painkiller, with medieval Muslim doctors recommending it for melancholy and using it in surgical anesthetic blends with mandrake.
• 💀 'Mandrake' was an umbrella term for psychoactive herbs like monkshood and henbane, containing scopolamine, and was used for its hallucinogenic effects and in folk medicine.
• 👁️ Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), also containing scopolamine, was used in folk medicine and even as a cosmetic to dilate pupils, despite its poisonous nature.

Witchcraft, Ergot, and Flying Ointments

• 🍄 Ergot, a fungus on wheat, could cause delirium and hallucinations due to lysergic acids, though historians debate its role in phenomena like the Salem witch trials.
• 🩸 Ergot was used in small doses by midwives to induce labor or control postpartum hemorrhage, and is still found in modern migraine medications.
• 🧹 'Flying ointment,' a concoction of wolfsbane, potentilla, and potentially mandrake or belladonna, was applied topically, often via a 'greased staff,' to induce vivid hallucinations and out-of-body experiences.

Indigenous Use of Psychoactive Substances

• 🌵 In the American Southwest, tribes like the Huichol used peyote, a cactus containing mescaline, for ceremonial purposes, with archaeological evidence dating back 5500 years.
• 🌿 Ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew from the Amazonian region, has roots in shamanistic traditions dating back to at least 2000 BC, prepared from vines like banisteriopsis caapi.
• 🇦🇺 Indigenous Australians in Queensland used 'pituri,' derived from the pitchuri thornapple, for mood enhancement, to stave off exhaustion, and for its hallucinogenic properties, also using it in trade and even to disorient animals for hunting.