Sunday, 06. July 2008
Sacred Weeds - Salvia Divinorum

Sacred Weeds was a four part television series of 50 minute documentaries investigating the cultural impact of psychoactive plants on a broad array of early civilisations.
This is part two: Salvia Divinorum

Salvia divinorum, also known as Diviner’s Sage, aka María Pastora, Sage of the Seers, or simply by the genus name, Salvia, is a powerful psychoactive herb.

It has a long continuing tradition of use as an entheogen by indigenous Mazatec shamans, who use it to facilitate visionary states of consciousness during spiritual healing sessions. It was first recorded in print by Jean Basset Johnson in 1939 as he was studying Mazatec shamanism. He later documented its usage and reported its effects through personal testimonials. It was not until the 1990s that the psychoactive mechanism was identified by a team led by Daniel Siebert.

Each episode began and ended with Dr Andrew Sherratt inscribing his diary with his reflections on the series' scientific and cultural investigations. In each episode the series investigated one psychoactive plant and its cultural significance. Three specialists of various scientific disciplines were invited to monitor two volunteers who had taken each plant. After the four episodes, Sherratt assigned considerably more significance to the psychoactive properties of plants in ancient civilization and the prehistoric period than expert knowledge hitherto.

The scientists in this part:
  • Dr Françoise Barbira-Freedman, medical anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Cambridge
  • Dr Tim Kendall, psychiatrist and director of the Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies
  • Dr Jon Robbins, pharmacologist at King's College London

    and the volunteers: Daniel Siebert and Sean Thomas


Sacred Weeds - Salvia Divinorum by Channel 4, 1998
Runtime: 68 minutes




You may also like:
Daniel Siebert's website:
The Salvia divinorum Research and Information Center

Salvia divinorum Scotland: Salvia Menu

Related Entry:
Sacred Weeds - Henbane
Category: Lunacy & Psychedelic | Movies & TV |


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