Sacred Weeds - Salvia divinorum episode (~50 mins) - Channel 4 documentary first broadcast in 1998
http://www.channel4.com/community/showc ... Weeds.html
SACRED WEEDS
Salvia Divinorum
This ground-breaking series continues, revealing surprising secrets from
our past - that hallucinations brought on by the use of certain poisonous
plants could actually be responsible for ancient mythologies and
contemporary images. The plant Salvia Divinorum is used by the small
and remote Mazatec tribe in Central America and is thought to contain
the most powerful hallucinogen known to man - yet little is known about
it in the West. In an experiment never tried before, two volunteers take
a strictly controlled dose of it and describe the changes they feel, while
host DR ANDREW SHERRATT, together with other scientists and cultural
specialists, identify potential risks and discuss and analyse the
mind-altering effects the plant has and what this might mean to the
Mazatec tribe. Until twenty years ago, nothing at all was known about
Salvia Divinorum. It belongs to the same family as common garden mint -
yet its effects are very different. It is very rare and native only to a
small part of Mexico inhabited by the Mazatec Indians. They consider it
sacred and the plant plays an important part in their religion by inducing
visions of the Virgin Mary who is considered to be the patroness of this
plant. But the effects of Salvia have never been recorded scientifically.
In Sacred Weeds two carefully chosen volunteers - DANIEL who has
previously experienced the use of Salvia Divinorum, and SEAN who has
not - sample the plant under strict medical supervision (as it may have
unpleasant or dangerous side-effects). They do this twice - once by
smoking a controlled dose under laboratory conditions and later by
chewing the Salvia leaves. This time the setting for taking the Salvia is
more like that of the private ceremonies of the Mazatecs - outside in the
woods at night with a fire burning. How will their reactions differ? Will
the hallucinatory effects change with their surroundings and alternative
methods of ingesting the plant? Anthropologist Dr Andrew Sherratt is
joined by FRANCOISE FREEDMAN, also an anthropologist, who has studied
the use of Salvia in native American culture, TIM KENDALL a consultant
psychiatrist and Director for the Centre of Psychotherapeutic Studies
and pharmacologist JON ROBBINS. Before the experiment takes place both
volunteers are given a physical examination. Blood pressure and body
temperature are noted, both of which could be drastically altered by the
plant. To discover the effects on the brain Daniel is wired up to an EEG
machine, which registers brain activity, before and during the
experience of taking the plant. Both volunteers have quite immediate and
fascinating reactions to the Salvia and together with the specialists
they discuss what their reactions might mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia
http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia.shtml
http://fusionanomaly.net/sage.html
http://www.sagewisdom.org/
AVI File Details
========================================
Name.........: Sacred Weeds - Salvia Divinorum (Documentary).avi
Filesize.....: 228 MB (or 234,425 KB or 240,051,864 bytes)
Runtime......: 01:08:21 (102,536 fr)
Video Codec..: XviD
Video Bitrate: 406 kb/s
Audio Codec..: 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-2 Layer 3
Audio Bitrate: 56 kb/s (28/ch, stereo) CBR
Frame Size...: 512x384 (1.33:1) [=4:3]
Language.....: English
ed2k: Sacred.Weeds.-.Salvia.Divinorum.(Documentary).avi [228.93 Mb] [Stats]
c/o Conspiracy Central
torrent: Sacred.Weeds.-.Salvia.Divinorum.(Documentary).avi
also made were three other episodes focusing on Amanita muscaria (the Fly Agaric mushroom), Henbane, and the Egyptian Blue Lily. If anyone has links please post them.
This actual documentary is only 50 minutes long. It's a bad edit job by someone rejoining it after cutting out the ad breaks. I didn't fix it cause this copy is already being shared on the network and it would mess up the hash, so just trim it down using direct stream copy with virtualdub or nandub if you want smaller file size for archiving.
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive ... ualdub.cfm
lovely stuff
