A Trip of Discovery

Drugs can surely change your perception of reality. But the reality of mind-altering drugs may be vastly different from our learned cultural perception of them, writes Virgil Cameron.

For millennia, mind-altering drugs have been used by traditional cultures as a means of appreciating the world in a different light. Recently, I gained an appreciation for mind-altering drugs in a different light to that of the world I grew up in.

In far northern New South Wales I had the chance to experience first hand the power of hallucinogenic drugs. For me this experience didn’t involve smoking and it didn’t require syringes. There were no brewed concoctions, no chemical extractions, and no laced cookies – well, at least none for me.

My father is a botanist of national renown. For as long as I can remember, Dad has lived his life amongst plants. Throughout my childhood I have accompanied Dad on countless expeditions through breathtaking rainforests, into untouched wildernesses and down remote rivers in the hunt for exotic plants. My father appreciates plants like few people do. If someone could know everything there was to know about plants it would have to be Dad, I used to think.

And so it was that my father was invited as a guest speaker to attend Ethnobotanica 2002, an annual ethnobotanical conference held in the picturesque Mt Warning region of northern New South Wales.

I was to accompany my father on the long journey by car to the traditional heartland of Australia’s hippy culture -- the lush and fertile subtropical country between Nimbin and Byron Bay.

For my part, this trip was merely a last minute decision at the end of my long summer holidays, a cheap and easy ticket to sample Australia’s famous East Coast before heading back to university. I was ready for a tropical holiday: bushwalking, swimming, photography, sleeping and relaxing were all on my agenda. For me, Ethnobotanica was meant to be merely an aside. But this journey was to provide me with more than I had bargained for.

Culture Shock

Upon arrival at Ethnobotanica, I was struck by a series of culture shocks that shattered my understandings of the world around me, learned through the 21 years of my life. This conference was like no other conference I have ever attended. It was a meeting-point for a growing worldwide movement of ethnobotanists – an eclectic group of individuals whose main passion was the study of exotic mind-altering drugs. This was a culture which held plants in awe and respect, a culture in which hallucinations and ‘trips’ on plant-extracted drugs provides an everyday means of appreciating the world through an altered state of consciousness.

But for me, this was a drug-enthusiast culture which I had been sheltered from for the past 21 years. My upbringing has sheltered me from close encounters with mind-altering drugs, and my community has taught me to frown upon illicit-drug cultures as ‘copping out’ from the realities of the real world. I had never encountered such a group of people as these enthusiastic hallucinating hobbyists. I was overwhelmed with confusion and suspicion of this strange gathering of ethnobotanists.

The conference involved much buying and selling of exotic and illicit plant specimens.

Were these people just withdrawing themselves into their hallucinogenic ‘spirit worlds’ as a means of escaping the troubles of the ‘real’ world? Were they living lives of deception? Where they just playing childish games of adventure and experimentation through ‘tripping out’ on homemade exotic concoctions?

To my culture-shocked mind, my initial experience of Ethnobotanica seemed to confirm these shamefully blunt and unforgiving suspicions. The daily seminars appeared to revolve around issues of exotic drug consumption. Discussions focused on personal ‘trips’ and out-of-world experiences. Nightly workshops seemed to involve experimentation with all manner of mind-altering substances long into the wee hours of the morning. To me, these people seemed to gather solely to share in a mass collective trip-out session.

I was battling with a deeply ingrained cultural perception of the role of mind-altering drugs in society. My cultural upbringing did not accept such seemingly irresponsible practices as hallucinogenic experimentation.

But slowly my shock turned to curiosity and fascination. I wanted to understand what brought about this unlikely gathering of people from such diverse walks of life. I began to challenge my preconceptions: Surely there could be merits to this ethnobotanical sub-culture, I told myself. I became determined to observe the conference sessions as a bystander, attempting to understand the cultural values and motivations which formed this fascinating sub-culture.

And so I began to appreciate that this was more than just a group of drug-crazed hippies. Rather, this was a diverse collection of motivated scientists, historians, anthropologists and enthusiasts who were struggling to keep both a scientific and a spiritual connection with the natural world around them.

Shamanism

The ancient practice of shamanism, the traditional beliefs and practices of Asian and American tribal cultures, forms a central concern for this group of ethnobotanists. In the tribal cultures of Asia and America, plants are greatly respected for the healing powers which they possess. For perhaps millennia, plant extracts have been administered by shamans, or witch doctors, in healing rituals. Such substances induce hallucinations, initiating the communication between humans and the spirit world. In these tribal cultures nature is treated with utmost respect.

Our Western culture views illicit drugs and mind-altering substances as threats to social stability. Our society has actively sought to remove any cultural or medicinal significance from plants, except those few plants which are used in ‘modern’ western medicine. Our society stigmatises, and even criminalises, many of the plants and plant extracts which have been integral in human cultures over many thousands of years.

Yet at Ethnobotanica, here was a collection of people brought together from a great array of backgrounds whose common connection was an appreciation and respect for the natural world around them. These ethnobotanists were actively promoting, researching, learning and practicing the ancient traditions of shamanism. Most importantly, these ethnobotanists held a belief that the ancient knowledge of plants is an asset too valuable to let slip into the annals of history.

My father's primary interest in this eclectic gathering of people was not an expression of a love for drugs. In fact my father has always stood well clear of consuming any forms of hallucinogenic mind-altering drugs, despite growing up in the era of 'experimentation' of the 1960s and 1970s.

My father's interest was in helping to preserve the cultures of plant-appreciation fostered by such ethnobotanists, through sharing his unparalleled knowledge of Victorian plants.

The Ethnobotanica conference involved more than just spiritual journeys into raised states of consciousness. These ethnobotanists were working to create a worldwide appreciation and an understanding within our society of the indispensable ancient knowledge of plants.