The Path of Poisons online course

His­tor­i­cal and Anthro­po­log­i­cal Dimen­sions of Poi­son in the West­ern Tradition

• Intro­duc­tion
• Course Syl­labus

Introduction

It seems the allure of Poi­sons is irre­sistible to us. Despite rep­re­sent­ing what is dan­ger­ous and for­bid­den, we can­not seem to ever escape their call­ing; poi­sons inspire some­thing primeval and pow­er­ful­ly seduc­tive, they offer us the chance to unveil oth­er­wise unfath­omable mys­ter­ies of our sur­round­ings and our­selves. Human­i­ty and its his­to­ry are for­ev­er linked to poisons.

In this online course, we will address the dif­fer­ent masks that Poi­son has assumed in the west­ern tra­di­tion through the ages, and the paths that it has offered to human­i­ty: paths of illu­mi­na­tion, paths of life, paths of heal­ing, and paths of death and destruc­tion. We will dis­cov­er the dif­fer­ent man­i­fes­ta­tions of the poison/medicine dichoto­my, the ori­gin of drugs the way we know them today, and their usage with­in reli­gious and mys­ti­cal con­texts. We will offer a his­tor­i­cal and anthro­po­log­i­cal con­text in which to place indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ence, per­haps serv­ing as a start­ing point for inter­act­ing with Poi­sons at a deep­er spir­i­tu­al or mys­ti­cal lev­el. We have incor­po­rat­ed a prac­tice sug­ges­tion each week which we think can help the atten­dant reflect upon what has been taught in each class.

We think this course can help give cohe­sion and coher­ence to the atten­dants’ prac­tice (whether it revolves around sor­cery, mag­ic, herbal­ism, alche­my, or witch­craft) by adding a long-for­got­ten and yet cru­cial ele­ment: the mys­teric key of Poison.

Course Syllabus

Part I: The Hands of Gods: Poi­sons in Ancient and Ear­ly Medieval Times

• Intro­duc­tion
• Phar­makós and phármakon
• Rit­u­al usage of drugs in mys­teric rites
• Shift­ing the Par­a­digm: Poi­son becomes the enemy
• Ven­efi­ci­um or the gifts of Venus
• Prac­tice I

First, we will talk about the clas­si­cal idea of ​​the phar­makós, a struc­tur­al term in which Poi­son and cure, mag­ic and sci­ence are fused togeth­er. This con­cept would change its mean­ing over time. We will unveil the mys­ter­ies of ini­tia­to­ry paths like the Eleusin­ian or Dionysian mys­ter­ies, and the resur­gence of ven­efi­ci­um as one of the first instances of the sys­tem­at­ic pros­e­cu­tion of poi­sons, whose mas­tery and knowl­edge would quick­ly be relat­ed to Witchcraft.

Main plants/allies that will be com­ment­ed and analysed in this unit: 

• opi­um poppy
• reed
• bar­ley
• hops
• fly agar­ic
• ergot
• Syr­i­an rue
• cannabis
• vine

Part II: The Gifts of the Dev­il: Poi­sons and witchcraft

• Met­z­i­na and Met­zine­r­ia: the medieval phar­makós
• The Witch­es’ Ointment
• Dead­ly and not so dead­ly nightshades
• Prac­tice II

In the sec­ond class, we will deal with the inter­est­ing rela­tion­ship between poi­sons and witch­craft, the elu­sive and inspir­ing con­cept of the medieval met­z­i­na, the ori­gins and inter­pre­ta­tions of the infa­mous witch­es’ oint­ment, and the con­se­quences of deal­ing with cer­tain hex­ing herbs belong­ing to the night­shade fam­i­ly (hen­bane, bel­ladon­na, thor­nap­ple, and mandragora).

Main plants/allies that will be com­ment­ed and analysed in this unit:

• bel­ladon­na
• thor­nap­ple
• scopo­lia
• hen­bane
• man­drake

Part III: The Quest for a Vision: Post-Enlight­en­ment and the Poi­son Path

• Paracel­sus: “sola dosis fac­it venenum”
• Poi­sons in alchemy
• Con­se­quences of ratio­nal­ism: Phar­ma­crat­ic inqui­si­tion and the psy­che­del­ic culture
• The poi­son path
• How to, when to, where to?
• Prac­tice III

In the third les­son, we will talk about the dif­fer­ent changes in the social and spir­i­tu­al par­a­digm of poi­sons and drugs, and how the­o­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal elites have mod­i­fied our usage and per­cep­tion of Poi­sons until the present day, going from the empir­i­cal view of the Enlight­en­ment, Paracel­sus’ con­tri­bu­tions to our cur­rent-day con­cep­tions of med­i­cine and tox­i­col­o­gy, the enig­mat­ic teach­ings of alche­my, the revi­sion­ist approach of the psy­che­del­ic cul­ture, and the cur­rent mys­tique of the Poi­son Path.

Main plants/allies that will be com­ment­ed and analysed in this unit:

• toad ven­om
• aconite/monkshood
• fox­glove
• hem­lock
• yew
• white helle­bore
• black helle­bore

*Each part of this course includes a series of prac­tice sug­ges­tions for which you will not need any materials.