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Kitchen entheogens

  
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:50 / 06.06.05
Was going to post this in the "Turning the Cosmic Crank" thread, but it felt a bit rotty.

(Note: I realise that I'm using the term entheogen very loosely here; feel free to supply another).

The use of drugs as part of (what I might sketchily describe as) entity work is interesting me right now. I'm currently experimenting with the ingestion of large quantities of coffee as part of my devotional practice.

From other people's accounts and based on my own experience, the god I'm mostly working with/relating to (Loki) seems to favour coffee as a libation. It occured to me to wonder why, since he originates in a part of the world where coffee was unknown until modern times. In the case of the ritual practices historically associated with the Northern pantheon, alcohol seems to have been the drug of choice, often mead. (Loki, of course, doesn't have any ritual practices historically associated with him at all).

It seemed to me that most libations offered to gods or spirits are either a) expensive, valuable substances representing a significant material sacrifice, or b) psychoactive in some manner. (Or possibly both, of course).

Accordingly, I've been experimenting with coffee as an entheogen to good result. A shot or several of espresso coffee seems to make the difference between a quiet, vague, rather lacklustre interaction (the kind where you're not entirely sure afterwards if anything really happened) and an amazing experience with visions, ecstatic dancing, ect. and lingering effects which carry over for the next few days.

Attempts to involve other caffeinated substances, such as cola, tea and yerba mate, have been gently but firmly rebuffed (though dark chocolate is acceptable). Tobacco, another relatively novel substance, has been a componant of these workings from the get-go, although as a lifelong non-smoker I dislike using it.

The interesting thing for me is that the coffee seems to be absolutely key to a successful interaction. I also use beer and spirits at times, and whilst these go over well they don't get things cooking like the coffee does.


Does anyone else use mild drugs such as these as part of their ritual practice? If so, are they used merely for the the chemical effects they provide--stimulation, relaxation, or whatever--or do you find that some entities "like" a certain drug?


(Still not sure where demands for orange Tang might fit into all this, but I daresay it'll become apparent.)
 
 
illmatic
14:17 / 06.06.05
Steve Wilson's book "Chaos Ritual" has a brief section on using coffee in invocation. he suggest a period of total abstinence so you can really tell what the effect is.

As for myself, I've noticed - not in my own work, more being around other people's stuff - after I've had a drink or a smoke tends to get me very "open" to feelings/"vibes" in a way that I'm not normally. Kind of carried away with the gestalt type of feeling, but I've never really experiemented with this formally.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:37 / 06.06.05
he suggest a period of total abstinence so you can really tell what the effect is.

(Cripes, yet another book I keep meaning to read...) I pretty much did the abstention thing automatically at the beginning. I'd have said that's always a good idea when you're experimenting with using anything--drugs, locations, techniques, shiny rocks, anything--to step back from it for a while so you can gauge the effect when you bring it in. I've also tried performing an altar service without various substances, just to see how changing the variables affects the interaction.
 
 
Sekhmet
14:52 / 06.06.05
My current practice goes far better when I've had a couple of bottles/horns of beer or cider. There's quite a marked difference to doing it sober.

Not to get all cultural-appropriationish and pantheon-confoundy, but Hot Stuff's apparent fondness for New World entheogens makes me curious about possible connections with Native American trickster entities, like Coyote and Kokopelli...

no idea 'bout the Tang, though...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:54 / 06.06.05
Hrrm, this is a difficult area for me because my invocation technique has changed distinctly in the past three years. For a time, before my alcohol allergy settled in, I was using social drugs- alcohol, amphetamines- in ritual practice and going out dancing.

That fell through, I'm very clean now, but left me with this odd relationship with my patron deity whereby I no longer invoke but usually just talk to her. Possibly because the ritual work I had been doing was intense. I think that's about to change.

Anyway I often use tobacco, usually as a distraction actually so that I'm doing something with my body while my head's somewhere else entirely but sometimes as an offering. Tbh she's never seemed that bothered about an offering unless it's a hedonistic night out.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:06 / 06.06.05
Hot Stuff's apparent fondness for New World entheogens makes me curious about possible connections with Native American trickster entities, like Coyote and Kokopelli...

...Not to mention cigar smokers like Papa Legba. (I've tried offering the clever guy cigars, but he's sticking with his cheap cigarrettes.)
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:43 / 06.06.05
Alcohol is a bit of a tricky one. In the context of an altar service, it doesn't seem to matter if I go a bit overboard (in fact, it can help). In respect of my other practices, the effect varies; I sometimes find a little beer helpful when I get stuck on a tricky reading, but too much just switches me off altogether. I avoid it when I'm using Reiki coz I get tremendous headaches otherwise.
 
 
sine
15:44 / 06.06.05
Thanks for not rotting my other thread MC - though I don't think it woulda been too bad -not hijacked, just broadened.

Anyway: when I bought a good Italian espresso machine a few years back, it became my standard offering to Hermes-Mercury...brew two, very sweet, shoot one and leave the other steaming on the altar. I always felt that for the communication gods, caffeine was the obvious choice, and it did seem to create a sizzle beyond just me being wired.

Tobacco I've only used ritually once: in an invocation of Mars designed to fight off what I felt were bad influences taking root in me. The crux of the 'working involved rapidly chain-smoking twenty Marlboros until the room spun and flushed and I puked. I was trying to hold the idea that the nicotine was 'crusading' inside me, forcing me to vomit out the nasty...in practice, the experience was itself nasty...I felt like hell and I'd never do it again, but it did seem to work at the time.

Alcohol I use rarely. Sometimes a glass of red wine informally toasted to the 'working, but that's about all. I feel have too much Dionysian influence around me now; by and large I try not to invite more. Others I know say that in quantity it can work wonders - I have a friend who drifts in-and-out of dipsomania and likes to regularly combine heroic binge drinking sessions with dramaturgy - he swears that once it gets a hold of you, your Will can act unimpeded in a way sobriety can't match. I'm not sure I agree, but it seems to work for him.
 
 
unsubscribe
09:01 / 08.06.05
93,

Good coffee may be the perfect combination with the ingestion of hashish. There is a very sympathetic relationship which enables the hashishin to maintain enough clarity to gain from the state rather than simply nod off.
I use this for divinatory work and opening channels of communication. The offering is to my Angel rather than another deity.

There is also a good deal of the coffee preparation process that can be ritualised. I do this by hand, but enjoyed reading Sine's steam-powered mercury machine approach.

Orange tang? Surely another aspect of Mercury.

As an aside, when AC was in Paris the police confiscated his elaborate coffee machine believing it to be used in the preparation of some exotic drug. Judging by this thread they were right.

Will
Love

Peter Grey
 
 
Chiropteran
13:12 / 08.06.05
In my service to Papa Legba, I usually offer rum and (increasingly good) cigars. Not being a smoker, myself (a combination of distaste and asthma), I had only performed the smoke-blowing by sucking in a mouthful from the cigar, without inhaling into my lungs. This past week, though, I realized (mid-ritual) that I couldn't get by with that anymore - that I was shortchanging the offering by not mixing the smoke with my own breath. I inhaled, held, and blew, and it felt like it made a real difference to the quality of the service.

I've also been feeling light prompts to use tobacco smoke in my hoodoo work, though I'm not sure where those prompts are coming from, or quite how to use it.

Meanwhile, this was also the first week I offered coffee (very strong, black) to Papa, as well. I made the single cup by hand, as part of the ritual. It seemed to go over well.

I like to drink tea before ritual, personally. I feel like it gives me a slight edge without the jitters - enough caffeine to focus my attention, plus the theophyline helps my lungs compensate for the effects of the incense (it's a mild bronchiodilator).
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:11 / 08.06.05
I've managed to come to an agreement over the cigarettes; normally I can get away with taking a couple of drags and then burning the rest of the ciggy in my offering bowl, cracking it open and sprinkling the loose tobacco over the charcoal. (Not always, though. Monday night I had to smoke two, and smoke 'em properly.) You could try that with Papa Legba; maybe some decent pipe-tobacco burned like loose incense would go down well.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:14 / 08.06.05
As for using smoke in your hoodoo work, two things come to mind. One is for purification. Another is that tobacco seems to be widely noted as a martial incense, so maybe you could use it to dedicate items or artifacts that might have a warlike aspect to them--hunting money springs to mind.
 
 
archim3des
16:23 / 14.06.05
I really don't know the chemistry behind it, but one of the most potent combinations of 'mild' drugs would be a combo of caffeine and thc. it seems to open up the floodgates, especially when used in a guided meditation.

other than that, getting wildly drunk is fun as hell in an urban environment. never forget that another term for alocohol and liquours are spirits. there's probably a reason for that. i live right down the road a bunch of bars, and after night of copious drinking and dancing i like to go for long walks, letting the alcohol do its work. i live in the older once-cuban part of tampa, so there's a lot of really interesting architecture, and its really something else to let the alcohol shape the experience of interacting with those spaces.

and tang? i would say vodka. i remember the 90's commercials for tang. they used to be filled with tang oceans and orangutans. orangutans as the totem of shitty advertising? the gatekeeper of the inner mysteries of the venerable schools of the succesful marketing of junk food and useless products?
 
  
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