INTRODUCTION
To raise the crops the farmer copulated with his wife in the fields. To seek the drug that would
send his soul winging to the seventh heaven and back, the initiates into the religious mysteries
had their priestesses seduce the god and draw him into their grasp as a woman fascinates her
partner’s penis to erection.
For the way to God and the fleeting view of heaven was through plants more plentifully endued
with the sperm of God than any other. These were the drug-herbs, the science of whose
cultivation and use had been accumulated over centuries of observation and dangerous
experiment. Those who had this secret wisdom of the plants were the chosen of their god; to them
alone had he vouchsafed the privilege of access to the heavenly throne. And if he was jealous of
his power, no less were those who served him in the cultic mysteries. Theirs was no gospel to be
shouted from the rooftops: Paradise was for none but the favoured few. The incantations and rites
by which they conjured forth their drug plants, and the details of the bodily and mental
preparations undergone before they could ingest their god, were the secrets of the cult to which
none but the initiate bound by fearful oaths, had access.
Very rarely, and then only for urgent practical purposes, were those secrets ever committed to
writing. Normally they would be passed from the priest to the initiate by word of mouth;
dependent for their accurate transmission on the trained memories of men dedicated to the
learning and recitation of their “scriptures”. But if for some drastic reason like the disruption of
their cultic centres by war or persecution, it became necessary to write down the precious names
of the herbs and the manner of their use and accompanying incantations, it would be in some
esoteric form comprehensible only to those within their dispersed communities.
Such an occasion, we believe, was the Jewish Revolt of Al) 66. Instigated probably by members
of the cult, swayed by their drug-induced madness to believe God ad called them to master the
world in his name, they provoked the mighty power of Rome to swift and terrible action.
Jerusalem was ravaged, her temple destroyed. Judaism was disrupted, and her people driven to
seek refuge with communities already established around the Mediterranean coastlands. The
mystery cults found themselves without their central fount of authority, with many of their priests
killed in the abortive rebellion or driven into the desert. The secrets, if they were not to be lost for
ever, had to be committed to
INTRODUCTION
writing, and yet, if found, the documents must give nothing away or betray those who still dared
defy the Roman authorities and continue their religious practices.
The means of conveying the information were at hand, and had been for thousands of years. The
folk-tales of the ancients had from the earliest times contained myths based upon the
personification of plants and trees. They were invested with human faculties and qualities and
their names and physical characteristics were applied to the heroes and heroines of the stories.
Some of these were just tales spun for entertainment, others were political parables like Jotham’s
fable about the trees in the Old Testament, while others were means of remembering and
transmitting therapeutic folk-lore. The names of the plants were spun out to make the basis of the

stories, whereby the creatures of fantasy were identified, dressed, and made to enact their parts.
Here, then, was the literary device to spread occult knowledge to the faithful. To tell the story of a
rabbi called Jesus, and invest him with the power and names of the magic drug. To have him live
before the terrible events that had disrupted their lives, to preach a love between men, extending
even to the hated Romans. Thus, reading such a tale, should it fall into Roman hands, even their
mortal enemies might be deceived and not probe farther into the activities of the cells of the
mystery cults within their territories.
The ruse failed. Christians, hated and despised, were hauled forth and slain in their thousands.
The cult well nigh perished. What eventually took its place was a travesty of the real thing, a
mockery of the power that could raise men to heaven and give them the glimpse of God for which
they gladly died. The story of the rabbi crucified at the instigation of the Jews became an
historical peg upon which the new cult’s authority was founded. What began as a hoax, became a
trap even to those who believed themselves to be the spiritual heirs of the mystery religion and
took to themselves the name of “Christian”. Above all they forgot, or purged from the cult and
their memories, the one supreme secret on which their whole religious and ecstatic experience
depended:
the names and identity of the source of the drug, the key to heaven — the sacred mushroom.
The fungus recognized today as the Amanita muscaria, or Fly—Agaric,
had been known from the beginning of history. Beneath the skin of its
characteristic red— and white-spotted cap, there is concealed a powerful
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INTRODUCTION XV
hallucinatory poison. Its religious use among certain Siberian peoples and others has been the
subject of study in recent years, and its exhilarating and depressive effects have been clinically
examined. These include the stimulation of the perceptive faculties so that the subject sees objects
much greater or much smaller than they really are, colours and sounds are much enhanced, and
there is a general sense of power, both physical and mental quite outside the normal range of
human experience.
The mushroom has always been a thing of mystery. The ancients were puzzled by its manner of
growth without seed, the speed with which it made its appearance after rain, and its as rapid
disappearance. Born from a volva or “egg” it appears like a small penis, raising itself like the
human organ sexually aroused, and when it spread wide its canopy the old botanists saw it as a
phallus bearing the “burden” of a woman’s groin. Every aspect

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