Thinking about grain made me think about ergot, the fungus that grows predominantly on rye in unusually damp conditions. It can affect all the cereal grains, but rye is the most susceptible for some reason.

There’s a reason why this little black fungus, Claviceps purpuria, is so significant to us humans. It is the source of lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD.

Years ago, I used to watch this show on PBS called “Secrets of the Dead”. One episode was about a behavioral psychologist who was researching written accounts of the women accused of witchcraft at the Salem Witch Trials.

The psychologist, being an active participant in the the 1960s, determined that these women sounded a lot like they were tripping on acid.

So she dove into research. The year before the 20 accused women were tried and hanged there was an unusually high rainfall. The likelihood of ergot growing in those conditions was very strong.

She determined that these women all lived in the same area of Salem, Massachusetts. If the infected grain was then processed into flour and baked into bread (which was a dietary staple), the probability of these women having consumed LSD- laced bread was also strong.

One thing we have to consider was that witch hunting was a fairly common practice between 1450 and 1750 in Europe and close to 50,000 people (many of them women, but not all) were executed. This was happening during the Reformation, when Protestants were liable to murder anyone who gathered herbs and danced at bonfires.

Ergot infection in humans, called “Ergotism”, dates back as far as 600 B.C. as referenced on an Assyrian stone tablet. The evolution of this class of fungus goes back at least 100 million years.

“St. Anthony’s Fire” in Russia in the late 1700s and the “Great Fear” in France during the French Revolution were caused by ergot poisoning. St. Anthony’s Fire caused such severe reactions as hands and feet falling off, even limbs. Totally gruesome.

The period of the late 1960s really was a revolution. From what for thousands of years sounded like a horrific dose of poison to what became a recreational drug is a pretty dramatic shift. In the West, at least. Indigenous cultures have been ingesting psychotropic, poisonous plants intentionally for thousands of years.

Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD in a lab on November 16th, 1938. Transiting Uranus was conjunct the south node in Taurus at that time at 15 degrees, just a few degrees away from where Uranus in Taurus is now.

Hoffman put the experiment aside for five years then re-synthesized it on April 19, 1943, right as transiting Chiron was exactly conjunct the north node. Hoffman took a very small dose at the lab and ended up having a very delirious bike ride home. At first he was paranoid and accused his neighbor of being a witch. Once the terrors subsided, he experienced a fantastic, kaleidoscopic joyride.

LSD was prescribed for psychiatric patients and for those suffering from personality disorders. Chiron conjunct the north node forecasts the future of healing. The timing of the discovery is not coincidental.

Transforming poison into medicine. Isn’t that the reason we’re here? The transmogrification of pain, fear and suffering into something magical and visionary seems pretty much like everyone’s business.

Why do you think the ergot fungus presented itself the way it did? It wasn’t an accident. It was intentional. It likely wanted to experience living inside other organisms for the sake of its own evolution. What is the purpose of living on this planet if we have zero desire to transform? More and more, without a sliver of preciousness, I can say that this is the reason I get up every morning.