CultureFeaturesGlobal IssuesHistoricalSocietyWorld
From Opium to Saffron, the Ancients Knew a Thing or Two About Drugs
Scholars of antiquity are finding ever more evidence that psychoactive substances played a central role in ancient life.
Thousands of years ago, in spaces darkly enclosed or dazzlingly open, many in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East consumed psychoactive substances that helped transport them into altered states of consciousness.
- Karen Polinger Foster, Diana Stein and Sarah Kielt Costello
- The Nation
Guided by skilled specialists, they danced, chanted, and drummed, often remarkably adorned and masked.
Or they held perfectly still, in the throes of trance or waking dreams.
They saw psychedelic art without and hallucinatory visions within. They journeyed near and far to sanctuaries and ritual settings, where…