What Did They See?

     Psilocybin, mescaline, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), various alkyloids, narcotics, cannabis...human beings are very adept at finding the naturally-occurring sources of 'mind-altering' drugs (see post: Altered States of Consciousness) in their environment.

Humans with Antelope Heads, Cave Art South Africa

     Today, the use of drugs in rituals and religion is still with us but drug use for non-religious reasons (depression, anxiety, escapism, addiction) is probably the major reason for drug consumption. Human ingenuity has found artificial ways to transform these drugs into more powerful products (heroin) and even created entirely new compounds to produce the same effects (lysergic acid diethylamide-LSD, derived from ergot).
     The images/experiences that the users see or undergo are often filled with color, wide, unending spaces and often the presence of a godly figure. But what else did the ancient users see when under the spell of these drugs? In most cases, in every ethnic group, in every region of the world, whether isolated from or in contact with other cultures, the users would 'meet' therianthropes, beings half-human, half-animal, usually with the body of a man and the head of a beast. Pre-historic cave-wall art in Europe and Africa shows beings, half-human, half-animal.

Anubis-Ancient Egypt

     Pharaonic Egypt is the best known example with several animal-headed gods. In the Mayan culture, Quetzalcoatl was the 'Feathered Serpent' god. Many Greek and Roman gods and mythological creatures were mermaid-like. Scylla was a guardian of the Strait between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Dagon, a god of the Philistines, was half man, half fish.

     Fu Xi in Chinese myth, also half human and half fish, was the inventor of writing, fishing and trapping. The first incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu was named Matsya again half man and half fish. 

     The Dogon tribe of Mali, Africa venerate the humanoid fish creatures called Nommo, said to be ancestral spirit deities. 

     Sedna is a mermaid-like goddess of the Arctic Inuit.

   

Quezalcoatl

     Paintings created by users of ayahuasca will often show creatures that are part reptile-part human, some part human and part ape. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy have reported 'visions' of  'heavenly beings' (see post: Epilepsy and the Divine). 

     People who have ingested DMT, whether synthetically made or derived from plants (ayahuasca), recount encounters with supernatural or alien beings.

     But there is one drug derived from the root of a plant from Central Africa that, in terms of vision and 'ecstasy' is very special.

     It is a substance that, when taken in the correct fashion and quantity, is a 'Drug to See the Dead'.

   

Ayahuasca

     *Paranormal experience: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.