The Yeti\’s Cyber Smithy

The man most often associated with making salvia divinorum available to popular culture is Daniel Siebert. Sometime called the godfather of salvia divinorum, Daniel Siebert is an ethnobotanist, one who studies the relationship between plants and people. He claims to be the first person to document the psychoactive portions of salvia divinorum’s chemical make up.

The drug has a long history with shamanic rites of the Mazatech Indians of Mexico, that tribe also being fond of using hallucinogenic mushrooms in their rites. The difference being for the most part, hallucinogenic mushrooms are illegal while salvia divinorum can be found at many pagan and Wiccan based shops across the United States of America. In fact, it is starting to seem as if salvia divinorum is the Official Recreational Drug of Wicca.

First it was Gavin and Yvonne Frost telling the world that the official form of birth control in Wicca was the IUD. Now evidently, there is a perception that our official recreational drug of choice is Salvia Divinorum. Ok, maybe that is a bit extreme to say. But his article isn’t really about salvia divinorum so much as it is about what Wicca is and is not vs. how Wicca is perceived and how it is not.

When it comes to recreational drugs, I think I am a fairly easygoing person. When you consider the fact that other than beer and an occasional shot, I don’t use any recreational drugs, you might think that my attitude reflects rather relaxed morals on the subject. My basic thinking being that it is your body, as long as you have reached the age of majority (typically 18) then you get to decide what to do with it. Conduct should only be a crime when there are non-consenting victims involved. So please do not think that I am in some way stating that the conduct I am about to describe should be illegal. I just don’t think it is right.

I recall that before the demise of Green Egg magazine, their advertisements looked like something you might expect to see in High Times. I received the distinct impression that he magazine gave the public the impression that the modern pagan movement was wildly focused on recreational drugs. Why else would advertisers of quasi-legal recreational drugs advertise with the magazine produced by the first legally incorporated pagan church in the United States?

So I guess I was never really surprised by the number of pagan shops which greatly resembled head shops, the type of place you go to purchase flavored rolling papers of glass pipes. Likewise, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the mainstream’s picking up on these connections.

“Levine said he sold salvia as an incense to customers interested in Wicca, a type of witchcraft with nature-oriented practices derived from pre-Christian religions.”

Mark Levine is the owner of Utopia, a shop that once carried the recreational drug. This quote appeared in an article with News Day.

http://www.newsday.com:80/news/local/suffolk/ny-lisalv0306,0,5783347.story

This is one of the many reasons I don’t tend to use the word much anymore. Between those who use it to advocate sex with minors (this blog lists them by name in places), to authors who have used it to include pedophilic rights of passage, to a focus on recreational drug use, the word just doesn’t seem to mean what it did when I once embraced it.

Frankly, I look at recreational drugs a lot like beer and a shot. I don’t need a religion as an excuse to have a few drinks.