Ritual Ingestion: Ancient and Modern Use of Plant Healers in Sacred Containers

In today's newsletter we share an excerpt from Christine's upcoming book, Mantra, Tantra and Ayahuasca: Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll in Search of the Sacred. The essay reflects some of our thinking here at Radiant Farms: Medicines for human physical, mental and spiritual health and wellness have co-arisen across the planet, anywhere a human colony has been long established. From common herbs to transportative sacraments, nature provides. Earth provides. We hope you enjoy the writing.   We also want to share with you that, while everything we offer is legal, that we are being censored by Meta and Google, who this week turned off our ability to advertise. While we continue to converse with them on this subject, if you are enjoying the formulations, please share with others. Word-0f-mouth, or as I prefer to say it, Word-of-Heart, or sharing your direct experience, is super helpful.  By now, those of you who have ordered Dream: Blue Lotus and Expand: Bobinsana will have had a chance to try them- please let us know your experience! Please tag @weareradiantfarms on Instagram. Finally, our giant dehydrator has arrived and we have some sugar-free superfood formulas in development.   To your perfect joy, Billy and Christine

From Section 4 of the new book: Ancient Plant SacramentsIngestible sacraments have been a consistent presence in religious and spiritual ceremonies worldwide since the beginning of recorded history. Various plant sacraments are used 1) to honor deities symbolically, 2) to aid intermediaries such as medicine women, priests, or shamans in entering a state of communion, or 3) to summon direct transcendent experiences in congregants themselves. One example, from Bronze Age India and Iran, is the sacrament of Soma, or Haoma in Persian.  Donald Teeter writes in The Sacred Secret,"Haoma acquired a place of sacramental significance in the worship of Mithra (an Indo-Iranian god of light). The sacred wine gave vigor to the body, prosperity, wisdom, and the power to combat malignant spirits and to obtain immortality.” In ancient India, Soma was an unidentified plant whose juice played a crucial role in Vedic rituals. The plant's stalks were crushed, and the extracted juice was filtered through sheep’s wool, then combined with water and milk. After being offered as a libation to the gods, the leftover Soma was consumed by the priests and the sacrificer. It was greatly prized for its exhilarating and hallucinogenic, effects. Soma was also personified as a deity, revered as the “master of plants,” a healer of disease, and a bestower of wealth.New scholarship suggests that Soma isn’t just one plant but a class of plants with shared properties that create an altered state of deep well-being and upliftment. Theories on what the drink’s composition might be include opium poppies, ephedra, and fly-agaric (amanita) mushrooms.We see the echo of these ancient rituals in the Christian sacrament of communion today, with wine replacing Soma. In fact, the Eucharist may have originally been psychedelic. One of my favorite deep reads on this subject is Brian Muraresku’s The Immortality Key, which painstakingly documents the role of mind-altering sacraments in early Christianity, aiding in the rapid spread of the church. He theorizes in part that laypeople were invited into psychedelic sacraments formerly reserved for the elite at the Temple of Eleusis, giving all takers a taste of unity consciousness.Here are a few examples of other entheogenic plant collaboration in world religions: Psilocybe (magic mushrooms) in Sami culture Amanita Muscaria in Egyptian culture Ergot derivatives (similar to LSD) in the temples of Eleusis Huachama (San Pedro Cactus) in Quechua Andean tribes Ayahuasca in the Huni Kuin and Shipibo tribes of South America Cacao among the Mayans Tobacco and Peyote in North America Cannabis (Bhang) in the worship of Shiva in India  Modern Use in Churches Churches today also use sacraments to access a direct experience of communication with the spirit realms and the ineffable radiant light. In the Santo Daime church, a syncretic tribal-Christian sect originating in Brazil and spreading globally, the main sacrament is Ayahuasca. In the United States, the Native American Church legally conducts Peyote ceremonies. There are now approved churches in Texas that conducts rituals with psilocybin and other entheogenics, specifically for healing those living with life-blunting trauma. The Neo-Gaians Globally, in the reawakening of celebratory earth-based spirituality, we see a reengagement with ritual sacraments. I call this movement the Neo-Gaians. Many communities that a lot of you have been part of worldwide, from Ubud to Goa to Tulum to Crestone to Puna, engage with sacred plant as pillars of their practices, in the service of transpersonal awakening—a transcendence of the self and a reconnection to earth and cosmos- in community, but without the formal structure of a church. Sacred plant ceremonies aren’t limited to strong psychedelics; people often enter deep meditations and “dietas” with milder, more subtle plants and herbs like lavender, mint, or kanna, or even cacao. Deeper Invitation from Plant TeachersThe invitation from these medicines goes beyond healing personal trauma or gaining personal insight. Plant teachers, especially mushrooms, ayahuasca, kambo, and DMT, are thought to be conduits for the plant kingdom to speak to humans on behalf of the earth. The rapid spread of these healing plants through underground communities is seen as one of Earth or Gaia’s defense mechanisms against ecocide: the plants give people a direct experience of their connectedness to the web of life and other realms, often inviting them to change eco-harming ways. Many report, after using plant medicine, seeing the planet anew, as a living entity they are indivisibly intertwined with. Many who engage with these ceremonies begin to shift their values and experiences away from consumption of material goods toward creation and connection—to the earth, themselves, and each other. Experiences with plant medicine often have a profound impact: changing awareness of reality, self-location in the cosmos, and even understanding of concepts like math. It can also alter relationships to authority, shift life values, and inspire new purpose in the world. Often, there are experiences of profound love and deep relaxation, feelings many report encountering for the first time. One of my teachers, Thomas Hübl, refers to taking psychedelics as "borrowing the light," which means accessing states of expanded consciousness or insights temporarily through external means rather than through the slow development of one's intrinsic capacity. He suggests that while psychedelics can provide profound experiences and glimpses into higher states of awareness, the goal should be to develop the ability to reach these states naturally through practices like meditation, mindfulness, and inner healing work. His approach emphasizes sustainable personal growth and integration rather than dependence on external substances.I land in more of a BOTH-AND camp. Deep practices, AND leaning into the medicine’s ability to guide you into holding more of your experiences and opening to more insights.For the most part, those who engage in these practices experience positive shifts. An easefulness comes over them, things are taken less seriously, there is more laughter, looseness in their limbs, and the unquantifiable impact of abandoning the experience of being an anthropocentric, anxiety-ridden, modern person. Post journey, many instead begin to see themselves as part of something universal, great, and magnificent. For more like this, visit Christine's substack.