The leaves of our virgin mother
A brief note on salvia, for friends of the virgin mother.
In the last month or so, I've noticed a few different friends of mine--some young, some old--expressing interest in experiencing the medico-magico-religious power of the leaves of the sheperdess, hojas de la pastora (in spanish), ska pastora (in mazatec), popularly called salvia divinorum since its discovery by ethnobotanists in the 1960s. I find that I've come to learn a lot about salvia over the last five years, and I've come to realize that it's my responsibility to keep alive the ritual use of these leaves, as I'm one of those few people insane enough to seriously study the marginalized regions of comparative religion (i.e., the phenomenology of religions), such as entheogenic shamanism, spirit possession, alchemy, and other supposedly occultated forms of religion. In studying the uses of entheogens, I follow R. G. Wasson, Albert Hoffman, Terence Mckenna, and Ralph Metzner.
The mazatecs are in mexico. They are a pre-colombian people whose current religion is a syncretic blend of their indigenous shamanism with the catholicism that colonized them. Their use of entheogens has made them famous, to the point of ruining their society in many ways: people now try and sell these 'drugs' to people, or kids seek out shamans for merely recreational (instead of creational) purposes.
It should be considered that the mazatecs thought that salvia was one of the weaker plants in their pharmacy. This is for two reasons:
1) the mazatecs had mushrooms, which are far more effective than salvia in accomplishing the same medico-magical events, thus making salvia a substitute for the mushroom;
2) the mazatecs did not have an efficient way of ingesting the active ingredient, they would either eat the leaves or make an infusion from the leaves by mashing them and dissolving them in water to drink. Because salvinorin-A (the active ingredient of salvia) is not soluble in water, very little effect is achieved from making a drink wherein the leaves are straine out. Because salvinorin-A does not metabolize well in the human stomach, very little effect is achieved from drinking or eating the leaves.
The use of pharmaceutical grade salvinorin-A is quite unique to our post-industrial society, and it has turned salvia into a much more potent entheogen. Similarly, the smoking of the leaves with a hot blue flame has made it much more possible to metabolize an adequate amount of salvinorin-A in a short time. Terence Mckenna recommends a 'gravity bong' be used to smoke salvia, because it's particularly easy to get a lot of smoke with very little effort. Using butane torch-lighters instead of regular lighters is highly recommended. Extracts using acetone, naptha, isopropyl alcohol, and other house-hold solvents tend to be quite dangerous because dosage varies wildly. But any careful alchemist can work with them. Aside from smoking salvia and taking pharmaceutical grade salvinorin-A, the best method for ingesting salvia is by chewing on it and holding the liquid in the mouth. Whether you swallow the liquid or not makes almost no difference whatsoever. About 15 minutes of chewing on a good quid, spit it all out and pay attention to who comes to meet you in the next 30 minutes or so.
Sub-lingual salvinorin-A is most potent, and it is short acting (3-30 minutes); smoking is next in line, and it is also short acting; quid chewing is even weaker in potency, but it is the longest acting of these three methods.
Sadly, if you metabolize salvinorin-A, the legal use of a plant for botanical aesthetics has probably entered into a way of altering your consciousness that your state government would consider illegal, regardless of its religious or medical significance of you personally or for any pre-colombian mexican shamans. Plants containing DMT, MAO-inhibitors, mescaline, and salvia divinorum are all sold legally, but the use of anything in any of these plants to change one's consciousness outside of the capitalistic paradigm of alienated health/holiness/wholeness is not desired by state of federal government.
Lately, a lot of states have been considering legislation that would add salvia to the list of schedule I compounds (like Heroin, LSD, cannabis), which means that salvia 1) has no medical value, and 2) has high potential for abuse. The good people at the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE) have done much to inform these government officials about the ritual use of salvia to restore health and holiness to people, and about low potential for salvia to be an object of abuse.
Of course, I do not recommend any use of salvia or any psychedelic. The way I see it, you should probably avoid the spiritual path if you can. But if you find yourself on the path, then you'd better go through all the way. Like any entheogen, salvia admits of different stages of entheogenesis. People generally experience strange sensory impressions (hallucinations) when first dealing with psychedelics, but after some work is done, the sensory aspect of it gives way to encounters with deities. I've had an easier time contacting deities with salvia than with any other entheogen. But contacting deities isn't as important as contacting hidden realms of Being, and for this, I follow the mazatecs in considering salvia to be a substitute for the far greater power of the mushroom. Luckily, people can have tryptamine experiences without taking illegal drugs like mushrooms. The tryptamine and mao-i necessary to make ayahuasca are very legal to grow and work with, but one's metabolism must work only metaphorically, for the real metabolites in ayahuasca are still strictly forbidden by all common sense and rationality (hence the problems faced by the UDV and other brazilian ayahuasca churches trying to have rituals in america).