Strange Fires, Weird S01okes and Psychoactive CoDlbustibles : Entheogens and Incense in Ancient Traditions

Frederick R. Dannaway, Strange Fires, Weird S01okes and Psychoactive CoDlbustibles : Entheogens and Incense in Ancient Traditions

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 

Volume 42, 2010 - Issue 4

Early humankind's mastery of fire ignited new evolutions in humanity's quest for survival. In caves or in nomadic excursions, the fire's magic warmed, protected and cooked and later gave dominion in metallurgical explosions of culture as smith guilds formed, pounding out tools and weapons. The dead were burned, their spirit mingling with the heavens in wafting smoke. The shaman, standing between the two worlds, was the master of the fire, inhaling the smoke for ecstatic trances and bathing in the smoke for healing and the power to heal. Cults formed around the hearth and later separate sacrificial altars evolved to allow ever more formalized rituals centered upon the mysteries of the flames. Researchers are only just beginning to understand the effects of incenses on the brain, and even seemingly innocuous substances like frankincense (Boswellia sp.) are now understood to provoke psychoactivity (Moussaieff et a!. 2008). Scientists have long debated the possibility that certain Boswellia species have distinct psychoactive effects.

(Menon & Kar 1 971) with some speculating that geography, species, time of harvest or even the climate where burned could increase the active components (Luck 2006). Some scholars and media have discussed possibilities that THC is produced from "pyrochemical modifications" that occur when the resin is burned (Ratsch 2005; Faure 1 990; Martinetz, Lohs & Janzen 1 989). Even "olibanum [frankincense] addiction" is discussed and, as Martinetz (Martinetz, Lohs & Janzen 1 989) writes, it is an example of a "mild narcotic whose effects are appreciated in religious rituals." The addition of other psychoactive substances, like the kundur incense mentioned in Shia Islamic hadith, which combines frankincense and the entheogen Peganum harmala (Flattery & Schwartz 1 989), would obviously synergize and potentiate the effects with inhalation of MAO-Inhibiting b-carbolines. It is clear that the ancients made a very thorough investigation of all vegetation they encountered as a potential food source, medicine, entheogen, weapon, or even fuel source, such as the use of Peganum harmala in hard Iranian winters Flattery & Schwartz 1 989). A very logical method of investigation would be to note the effects of burning a plant to judge its smoke in terms of aromatic and magical (psychoactive) qualities, noting more toxic examples whose inhalation could be lethal. A plant's effects on the mind and body would be remembered and enshrined as holy or as containing a god or the means of communicating with the spirits. Ancient texts and scholarly treatments reveal a highly developed complex of psychoactive incense cults, some of which held secret recipes for incenses used for oracular purposes. The B iblical associations of illicit magical incenses and foreign women informed the world-view of religious persecutors into the Early Modem Era and revealed the persistent use of psychoactive plants. This article discusses Old World incense mystics in the context of the "strange fires" ( 'e.\: zara) mentioned in the B ible, extending to peripheral nomadic groups and ancient cultures and to Medieval mystics, witches and alchemists.
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Some of the ingredients may be deduced from other examples in the ancient world of incense cults and their psychoactive aromatics. A starting point would logically be Egypt, from which the Israelites made their Exodus, and their various temple incenses and magico-medical fumigants, which included benzoin, cannabis, Hyoscyamus, bitumen and arsenic sulphide (Shehata 2006). Psychopharmacologists link Egyptian plants found in the various Greek writings and Egyptian medical papyri with the soma/haoma of the ancient world and Peganum harmala, which is still used as a magical incense to this day. Linked with the nybt of the Papyrus Ebers (Flattery & Schwartz 1 989) Peg anum is also mentioned by Dioscorides as being used by ancient Syrians as besasa, or "Plant of Bes" and that it was burned in Egypt before the statue of Bes. The ancient kyphi has been speculated by some scholars to have contained cannabis as well as other psychoactive plants such as Acarus calamus and from sixteen to fifty other ingredients, many of which are unidentified.

The pagan worship of the Greco-Roman world is infused with psychoactive smoke rituals that are discussed in a much more overt manner due to the heavily shamanic component to much of their mystery traditions. Euripides (Hippolytus 954; Hamilton 1 982), writing of the Orphics, says that they "go into ecstasy honoring the smokes ... " and the smoke is the "means to achieving frenzy." The Orphic communes speak of Orpheus' mystical regimen as including a special diet and "smoke" (incense inhalation) (Ruck 2007). The Orphic hymns contain a highly systematic array of fumigations containing some highly pungent psychoactive substances that would synergize to be more potent in combination, as with the herbs in the drink absinthe, which potentiate other ingredients. These include the usual suspects of frankincense and myrrh, storax, saffron, "every kind of seed," and unidentified aromatics and "odoriferous substances" intimate with each invoked god.

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Luck (2006) logically deduces that it is the smoke (and the psychoactive ointment) that is inhaled which produces the epiphany or theophany. While a drink, the kykeon, was used at Eleusis "where incense is always burning" (Ruck 2006), a thick aromatic smoke could reach a large area uniting the hierophant and congregation in fumes that were both fragrant and psychoactive, i.e., magical. Thymiamata (that which is burnt as incense) of exotic ingredients were used by Pythagoras ("who could prophesize with frankincense") and in the Delphic sanctuary to inspire ecstasy, and Delphi is heavily linked with psychoactive substances (Lehoux 2007), cannabis, and Scythian and Indo-European Soma associations (Wahlberg 1 990; Littleton 1 986). Von Bibra suspected the thorn apple seeds (Datura stramonium) were used to provoke the prophetic trance, as did Robert Graves who suspected inspiration born of "breathing-in by the poet of intoxicating fumes" (Plant 1 999). Even the famous khat (Catha edulis) plant of Ethiopia and Arabia has been suggested as part ofthe psychoactive incenses of Delphi (Ratsch 2005; Elmi 1 983).

Robert Graves ( 1 992) discusses the "Great Goddess" and the hearth she tends in the cave or hut as being the first social center of Greece and the "prime mystery of motherhood" where sacrificial victims were offered to Hestia of the hearth. Indeed, the Latin focus means "hearth of fireplace." The goddess's image, which appears at Delphi as the omphalos, may originally represent a "white mound of tightly packed ash, enclosing live charcoal" preserving fire without smoke. He writes, "In Classical times the Pythoness had an attendant priest who induced her trance byburning barley grains, hemp, and laurel over an oil lamp in an enclosed space, and then interpreted what she said" [emphasis added] ... "but it is likely that the hemp, laurel and barley were once laid on the hot ashes of the charcoal mound, which is a simpler and more effective way of producing narcotic fumes" (Graves 1 992). The extensive ancient cult of Mithras, which may have been one of the main cults that retained and preserved these mysteries for later generations of mystics, had strange incense rites as well. Radcliffe's (2000) article "Did the Mithraists Inhale?" discusses fumigation rites in cultic liturgy as well as relationships with Chaldean oracles, as does Vermaseren (1963). Scenes of "incense burning lions" and deep inhalations of the pneuma are intriguing, though Radcliffe thinks these rites are for a lone magician in an elite initiatory lineage.