Hare goo

Nutmeg's intoxicating properties have long been known in Europe but it never seems to have been a culturally significant psychoactive substance and most early reports concern its accidental rather than intentional ingestion for use as a drug. Its more prominent role in modern times has not been due in the main to an increased desire for it as it has a very lowly status in the hierarchy of drugs, owing to its uncomfortable side effects such as nausea and stomach cramps. Rather it has been a substitute for other substances that for one reason or another were unavailable or unaffordable. Thus prisoners, soldiers, seamen and struggling musicians were among its users. A jazz musician who played regularly with the legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker (known as 'Bird') recalled that: 'Bird introduced this nutmeg to the guys. It was a cheap and legal high. You can take it in milk or Coca-Cola. The grocer across the street came over to the club owner and said, "I know you do all this baking because I sell from eight to ten nutmegs a day." And the owner came back and looked at the bandstand and there was a whole pile of nutmeg boxes.'' In 1946, before his conversion to Islam, Malcolm X used nutmeg whilst in jail when his supplies of marijuana ran out. In his autobiography he wrote: 'I first got high in Charlestown [prison] on nutmeg. My cellmate was among at least a hundred nutmeg men who, for money or cigarettes, bought from kitchen worker inmates penny matchboxes full of stolen nutmeg. I grabbed a box as though it were a pound of heavy drugs. Stirred into a glass of cold water, a penny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.' When the authorities became aware of such uses of nutmeg it was removed from many prison kitchens.

Although nutmeg has been demoted to a 'pseudo-hallucinogen' by many authorities, a self-experiment by Paul Devereux, a writer on the alignments of prehistoric sites, seems to indicate that its psychoactive effects can nevertheless be quite dramatic. In July 1989 Devereux took two level teaspoons of ground nutmeg and then went to bed, sprinkling nutmeg essential oil on his pillow and sheets. He began to feel the minor discomforts often associated with nutmeg use - mild nausea, irritation of the skin and so on. When he had been asleep for a few hours he had a dream in which he was travelling down a tunnel and flying at ever increasing speeds. He became fully conscious when in full flight and travelled over a landscape. During the flight he passed close to a tree and snatched at its leaves, feeling 'the pull of the branches and the foliage digging into my hand'. In other words the tactile sense was fully operative. He decided to terminate the journey by retracing his path and arriving back at his starting point, and opened his eyes. His hallucinations were thus both visual and tactile but he experienced no auditory or olfactory sensations during the experience.

Posted By: Arizona Bay, May 5, 11:48:00