The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-29
MESCAL AND ITS MAGIC
4 DRUG WHICH PR0DUoES 4 NEW KIND OF ARTIFICIAL PARADISE.

Obtained From a Certain Kind of Cactus in New Mexico, and Used by the Kiowa Indians-Its Fascinating and Gorgeous
 Visions.
 It ahs ben known for some years that the Kiowa Indians of New Mexico are accustomed to eat, in their religious certain cactus called An halonium Lewinii. or mescal button. must not be confounded with the intoxicating drink of the same name made from an agave-is found in the Mexican valley of the Rio Grande, the anchestral home of the Kiowa h. dians, as well as in Texas, and is brown and brittle substance, nauseous and bitter to the taste, composed main- iy of the blunt dried leaves of the plant. Yet, as we shall see. 1t has every claim to rank with hashish and the other famous drugs which have pro- cured for men the joys of an artificial paradise. Upon the Kiowa Indians, who first discovered its rare and po- tent virtues, 1t has had so strong a fascination that the missionaries among these Indians, finding here riv- al to Christianity not yielding to moral suasion, have appealed to the secular arm, and the buying and selling of the drug have been prohibited by the gov ernment under severe penalties. Yet the use of the mescal prevails among the Kiowa to this day.
 It has inded spread, and the mescal rite may be said to be to-day the chief religion of all the tribes of the southern plains of the United States The rite usually takes place on Saturday night: the men then sit in circle within the tent round a large campfire, which Is kept burning brightly all the time. Af- ter prayer the leader hands each man four buttons, which are slowly chewed and swallowed, and altogether about ten or twelve buttons are consumed by each man between sundown and day. break. Throughout the night the men sit quietly round the fire in state of reverie-amid continual singing and the beating of drums by attendants-ab- sorbed in the color visions and other manifestations of mescal intoxication, and about noon on the following day, when the effects have passed off, they get up and go about their business, without any depression or other un- pleasant after-affects.
 Tn 1891 James Mooney, of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, having frequently observed the mescal rites of the Kiowa Indians and assisted at them, called the attention of the An thropological Society at Washington to the subject, and three years later he brought to Washington a supply of mescal, which was handed over for ex- animation to DTS. Prentiss and Morgan. These investigators experimented on several young men, and demonstrated, for the time, the precise character of mescal fntoxication and the remarkable visions to which 1t gives rise. A little later pr. Weir Mitchell experimented on himself, and published very interest ing record of the brilliant visions by which he was visited under the infiu- ence of the plant.
 FIRST EFFECTS OF THE DRUG.
 In the spring of the last year I was able to obtain small sample of mescal in London, and as my first experiment with mescal was also, apparently, the first attempt to investigate it's vision producing properties outside America, I will describe 1t in some detail, in preference to drawing on the previous ly published descriptions of the Aneri- can observers.
 On Good Friday found myself alone in the quiet rooms in the temple which I occupy when in London, and judged the occasion fitting one for per sonal experiment. I made decoctior
 Ca different method from that adopted in America) of three buttons, the full physiological dose, and drank this al intervals between 2:30 and 4:30 D. m The first symptom observed during the afternoon was certain consciousness
 of energy and intellectual power. This passed off, and about an hour after the | final dose I felt faint and unsteady; ths pulse was low, and I found it pleasant CT to lie down. I was still able to read
 and I noticed that pale violet shadow | fioated over the page around the poin | at which my eyes were fixed. I had al | ready noticed that objects not in the di' | rect line of vision, such as my hand: | holding the book, showed tendency tc l LOOK ODITuSlNG, HeiB al
 most monstrous, while, on closing my | eyes, after-ima ges were vivid and pro longed. The appearance of visions witt
 closed eyes was very gradual. At frs
 there was merely vague play of lgh
 and shade which suggested pictues bu
 never made them. Then the picture.
 became more definite, but too confused and crowded to be described, beyond
 saying that they were of the same char
 acter as the images of the kaleidoscope
 symmetrical groupings of spiked ob
 jects. Then, in the course of the even | ing, they became distinct, but still in
 esribable-mostly vast field of gold
 en jewels, studded with red and greer
 stones, ever changing. This momen | was, perhaps, the most delightful of tn | experience, for at the same time the ali
 around me seemed to be flushed witt vague perfume-producing with tn | visions a delicious effect-and all dis
 comfort had vanished. except a sligh
 faintness and tremor of the hands | which later on made it almost impos
 sible to guide pen as I made note
 of the experiment; it was, however
 with an effort, always possible to writ
 with pencil The visions nevr resem
 bled familiar objects; they were ex
 tremely definite, but yet always novel
 they were constantly approaching, an yet constantly eluding. the semblanc | of known things