Addiction in the Path of Poisons

It’s usu­al to receive con­cerned ques­tions on the top­ic of the poten­tial dan­ger of Poi­sons, and the threat of addic­tion in the Poi­son Path. Addic­tion, as we know it, is the inabil­i­ty to con­trol the need for a sub­stance, thus cre­at­ing a sen­sa­tion of lack or pain in the body. This sit­u­a­tion seems to be scary to prac­ti­tion­ers of mag­ic and witchcraft.

When ana­lyzed in depth, the con­cept of addic­tion is vague and real­ly rel­a­tive. We are con­stant­ly sur­round­ed by addic­tions; in fact, the whole West­ern civ­i­liza­tion is addict­ed to some­thing. How­ev­er, the addic­tive drug need­n’t be a sub­stance, but it can be an object, a rela­tion­ship dynam­ics, etc. These addic­tions do not seem to mat­ter very much in com­par­i­son with Poi­sons. When con­front­ed with nature in the raw, peo­ple become ter­ri­bly fright­ened of a reck­less uncon­trol­lable addic­tion, as if such thing was nor­mal to happen.

Plant Addic­tion

The major part of sub­stances cat­e­go­rized as Poi­sons in the plant realm, i.e. mem­bers of the night­shade fam­i­ly, salvi­ae, diverse psy­choac­tive cac­ti, and hal­lu­cino­genic fun­gi, etc. are not usu­al­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to cre­ate a feel­ing of addic­tion when treat­ed with com­mon sense and respect for the spir­it that inhab­its it. Poi­sons are indeed dan­ger­ous, for their dosage can become dead­ly, but if ana­lyzed in depth, only an irreflex­ive usage car­ried out by an inex­pe­ri­enced and unpre­pared prac­ti­tion­er can lead to unwant­ed situations.

But there comes the dif­fi­cult part: how do we know we are to tres­pass a com­fort zone when deal­ing with Poi­sons? Is get­ting a place­bo dosage only fool­ing one­self? Here, my view is very rel­a­tive as well: there are no place­bo dosages when inter­act­ing direct­ly with a Poi­son because every con­tact with it, as small as it can appar­ent­ly be, is a total game chang­er. Nev­er­the­less, there comes a point when the prac­ti­tion­er and wan­der­er of this path knows that he/she must tread fur­ther, but Fear and Inse­cu­ri­ty may stop him/her, and thus he/she looks for excus­es not to face his/her lim­its. There is when excus­es take the mask of fear to com­fort our­selves. If you get to this part, as Dale Pen­dell states, ‘you deserve what you get (…) to walk about in a worlds where mere thoughts and whims change the col­ors and con­tours of phys­i­cal space (…) you deserve to sud­den­ly find your­self in the world of the old sor­cer­ers knew (…) you deserve to see the hell realms also (…) you deserve to see the heart of exis­tence, the essence of All, or Ally, or is it?’ (Phar­makog­no­sis)

There is yet a sub­ja­cent prob­lem to cov­er: why do we con­ceive addic­tion to a plant as some­thing bad? As we have pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, every inter­ac­tion with a Poi­son implies a close rela­tion­ship with the spir­it inhab­it­ing the plant. Thus, every sit­u­a­tion that results of that inter­ac­tion is to be seen as a mes­sage from the Otherworld.

Let’s imag­ine for instance that we grow ‘addict­ed’ to drink­ing mug­wort infu­sions every night for we have the impres­sion that the plant helps us remem­ber our dreams. This is indeed a tricky sit­u­a­tion. We should exam­ine the rea­son for such addic­tion: is the plant try­ing to tell us some­thing? Should we give up using it? Have we offend­ed the plant spir­it some­how with mind­less usage? Should we try to stop using/abusing it? We should exam­ine the rea­sons under­neath the sit­u­a­tion, and here Pen­dell becomes clear and use­ful once again: ‘Intent is involved in addic­tion. (…) The impor­tance of intent has to do with the nature of the dis-ease being treat­ed: whether the intent is to relieve phys­i­cal pain from a spe­cif­ic organ­ic ail­ment, or whether the intent is to relieve spir­i­tu­al pain. If it is a phys­i­cal pain that is being treat­ed, when the cause of the phys­i­cal pain is gone, you can stop tak­ing the med­i­cine with no or few unto­ward effects. If the pain is spir­i­tu­al, the mat­ter is more com­pli­cat­ed. If the spir­i­tu­al pain is caused by some par­tic­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal mal­a­dy, such as being in a com­bat zone in Viet­nam, the cause of the pain will dis­ap­pear when you fin­ish your tour of duty. Most of the vets who returned to the Unit­ed States as addicts gave up their habits when they gave up their rifles.
But if the spir­i­tu­al pain is from with­in your­self, how will you ever escape? And there is a par­tic­u­lar­ly per­ni­cious feed­back loop in nar­co­ma­nia: the pres­ence of the ally in your body impedes the very spir­i­tu­al work need­ed to relieve the pres­sure, and so the pres­sure increas­es.’ (Phar­makopoeia 231)

In any case, every­thing depends on the mes­sage the Plant Spir­it has tried to unfold, and yours is the task to read it cor­rect­ly. A good prac­ti­tion­er knows how to deal with Poi­sons, that is, when to sur­ren­der to addic­tion if need­ed, when to stop using them, and when to get intox­i­cat­ed by them: that wis­dom is acquired with tri­al and error, rev­er­ence and worship.

The Real Fear

After reflect­ing on this prob­lem for a long time, the con­clu­sion reached is that we West­ern­ers do not fear addic­tion per se, but we fear the loss of con­trol, we fear pain and death that it is entailed. Addic­tions can be dealt with and solved, but death and pain make us face the ulti­mate fron­tier. Nonethe­less, we should dis­tin­guish here between the animal/instinctive fear, and the fear imposed by the sys­tem. The first is to be revered and under­stood, used as the spark that revives our flame.

The lat­ter type of fear is the one which has been imposed by our ratio­nale and soci­ety, which still demo­nizes nat­ur­al raw sub­stances labelling them as unsta­ble and inse­cure. The effects of a Poi­son in our body can not eas­i­ly cal­cu­lat­ed, for dosages come not in the shape of a pill, they must be found out by each of us, they must be explored, while death and pain lurk in the shad­ows. The trans­gres­sion of such taboo is not for the faint heart­ed, as in many occa­sions inter­ac­tion and expo­sure to the teach­ers of Poi­son may change us unexpectedly.

As bril­liant­ly stat­ed by Daniel Schulke: ‘For those who tread the Poi­son Path, per­haps the best Knowl­edge of Anti­dotes lies not in any enchant­ed balm or chemist’s receipt, but in the bal­anced and prop­er Devo­tion to Fear. In its exal­ta­tion, Fear is the simul­ta­ne­ous knowl­edge and respect of those pow­ers which can anni­hi­late us. Its irra­tional axis, man­i­fest in action, is cow­ardice and impulse; its flow­er­ing is courage and pru­dence.’ (Ven­efi­ci­um, 26)

Let’s not fool our­selves: we fear not the usage of Poi­sons that leads to addic­tion, we fear the moment of rev­e­la­tion that it entails, we fear the unshak­able pan­ic it can cre­ate, we fear the poten­tial to open a door that, once it’s crossed, there is no turn­ing back.

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