Control of the Plants Around Us

Who Is Controlling Who?

As much as us humans, would like to believe that we are in control of the plants around us, it is the psychological transcendence of these plants that actually control us. We mutate, clone, fertilize, enhance, lace, and alter plants of mind bending properties to try and bridle our surrounding environment to our desire. Yet, it is the brain changing effects the plants produce that are motivating us to do this in the first place, even though we know they are harmful, addictive, or possibly deadly. We the people, put in extreme amounts of time, energy, and money into intoxicating plants around the world, serving THEM like masters, as Pollan states in The Botany Of Desire, "What a trick this is for a plant, to produce a chemical so mysterious in its effects on human consciousness that the plant itself becomes a sacrament, deserving of humankind's worship care and dissemination," (Pollan 144).

In The Botany Of Desire, Pollan tells the reader of how ancient people would take drugs such as Soma, and "The images and words brought back from these journeys-visits with the souls of the dead and unborn, visions of the afterlife, answers to life's questions- were powerful enough to compel belief in a spirit world and, in some cases, to serve as the foundation of whole religions,"(Pollan 144). The Aztecs practiced religious use of mushrooms, which they called teonanactl, or "flesh of the gods." Soma was a ritual drink taken by the Indo-Europeans. There are sacred texts called the Rig Veda that tell us Soma was an intoxicating plant worshiped as both a god and holy beverage by the Aryans. Many believe today that this plant was the mind altering mushroom. The Aryans, who introduced their Soma religion into the Indus Valley around 1600 B.C., believed that sacrifices were necessary to keep the world in peace.

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This peace or balance was maintained through the acts of ritual sacrifice and the offering of a hallucinogenic drink called Soma, and Haoma among the ancient Persians of Iran.

Today, you can go to websites such as www.sporetradingpost.com and www.azarius.net and buy "magic mushroom" kits to be delivered to your home. With these kits you can grow and cultivate your own hallucinogenic mushrooms right in your own closet! As much as we feel that since we are the ones producing the kits and putting in the time and equipment to grow such intoxicants, that we are controlling the substance, this seems oxymoronic to myself seeing as the entire reason we go through the process, is so we may in the end, be controlled by the powers of the substance. The same idea applies to alcohol. We grow, nurture, and water plants such as corn, potatoes, and barley so that we may turn them into alcohol. These plants would not have necessarily survived history solely as a food source if they could also not be turned into alcohol so that we as humans could celebrate at a Christmas party or after prom.

Alcohol, marijuana, mushrooms, opiates, all of these and more convert our minds to the state in which we want, or at least hope to attain other than our normal everyday consciousness. Many times, we as humans experience hurt and pain to which we wish for at least a