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a visit from the gnome king
An account of my first experience with Salvia Divirorum
I'd just started my second year at uni and was beginning to get a bit disillusioned with the whole smoking scene. All through my first year I'd been gagging to move off the Warwick University campus, where weed was strictly forbidden and all toking had to be done in secret, so that I could finally begin enjoying the occasional reefer without having to either mission over to the woods or hang out of my bedroom window and risk getting spotted by security. But, ironiacally, now I'd moved into a private house for my second year, with twenty other like-minded lunatics, I no longer seemed to be too interested in getting stoned.
It was October 2000 and I'd spent the summer in a haze of smoke at home before jetting off to Thailand with three old school mates (including Spoony and Boney of the Nippa Kru) where a couple of narrow scrapes with local drug lords (Boney managed to steal an entire island's supply of weed) and a changing attitude to the lifestyle I was leading had set me on a different path. Although I started the term off in fine style, getting through the sensi I'd brought up from London in no time, a small drought in supplies was encouraging me to start thinking about giving up all together. At the same time, I'd been thinking about growing, now that I had the space and the privacy to do it, and as I'd picked up misleading information from somewhere that growing your own skunk was a waste of time unless you were rich enough to afford the best equipment (my pictures prove otherwise), I decided to investigate the possibilities of setting up a mushroom garden.
The net stopped me from going down that road, as I learned that in order to cultivate shrooms you need even more equipment than you do for weed as well as an intimate knowledge of mushroom spores etc. But in my search I stumbled across a web page which listed legal alternatives to outlawed hallucinogens.
I've never been a believer in "legal highs", and to be honest, I'm still not; "Herbal" skunk and ecstasy would have long ago replaced the illegal versions if they were any good at doing what they were supposed to, in my opinion. But one thing on the page caught my eye and got me interested, so I decided to do some more research.
It was an ancient shamanic herb called Salvia Divinorum which had been growing in South America for donkey's years and had slipped through the prohibition net somehow, so remained completeley one-hundred percent legal. Reports from people who had tried it described incredibly visual and revelationary hallucinations after smoking a relatively small amount. As I found out more, I began to be more and more intrigued; apparently Salvia, or "Diviner's Sage" had been used in ancient times to help native peoples divine for water in times of drought. In recent years it had picked up a small new-age following because of the belief that, like LSD, it could open up your "third eye" and give you a true perspective on the world. The plant's leaves could be smoked or ingested, either raw or cooked, and a sufficient dose was supposed to result in an intense halluciantory experience which lasted for about twenty minutes or so, depending on the size of the dose.
Thoughout the course of my research I stumbled upon the Sage Wisdom page run by Daniel Siebert, where Salvia could be purchased online as dried leaves, or as the enhanced extract which was priced at about £30 per gram. As I was used to skunk pricing, where £10 is too much to pay for a gram, I was apprehensive about paying so much for so little, but I decided that, since I wasn't likely to be buying any skunk for a while, I might as well give it a go.
Before I knew it, one Wednesday morning, I arose to find an envelope pushed under my door. Inside was a smaller envelope containing a gram of fine black powder, the 5x enhanced extract of pure Salvia Divinorum. I'd already swotted up on how it was supposed to be taken, and, since I didn't have a bong at the time, I whipped out my little keyring pipe and prepared to expand my horizons.
I still wasn't sure what to expect, and was half-expecting very little to happen, as I tapped a small heap of the powder onto the pipe's gauze and exhaled all the air from my lungs. Holding the lighter flame above the powder, I inhaled deeply. The taste was strong and harsh, especially since I hadn't even had a joint for a couple of weeks. I was careful to hold the smoke in as I counted to thirty to let the smoke fully diffuse into my lungs, then I exhaled slowly.
As I had thought, nothing much happened. I felt a bit of a head rush, but no images appeared. Slightly pissed off, but aware that I could've just taken too small a dose, as I didn't really know what I was doing, I loaded up the pipe again. This time there was a definite effect, not unlike the effect of smoking a small amount of hash through a pipe. For a couple of minutes I felt quite stoned, but before I knew it, I was completely sober and cursing myself for having shelled out so much for nothing. Loading up the pipe a thrid time, I decided to increse the dosage and heaped the powder up on the gauze. This time, the high lasted a bit longer. I was beginning to believe that maybe I hadn't been ripped off after all. When it wore off this time, I already had number four ready.
As I inhaled number four, I was aware that I was definitelty feeling pretty doped up by this time. My eyes had become glazed and I thought to myself, "Hey, I'm pretty caned." After the thirty seconds were up, I exhaled very slowly, and as I did, I saw a long string of saliva dribble from my mouth and onto my desk, where I was sat. I used my hand to wipe it up, feeling ashamed and worried. I thought to myself, "I can't believe I've dribbled when it's the first time that I'm in the presence of the Gnome King. He's not going to be impressed."
Shaking my head, I suddenly realized what I had been thinking. What Gnome King? What was I going on about? I looked up and in front of me, on my desk, between my headphones and my mug, I saw a tiny green path leading up to some grassy fields and hills. As I looked more closely, I realized I could make out little figures on the path, no more than an inch or so tall, and the sounds of horses and children playing coming from the hills beyond. Music was playing very faintly; I recognised Pachelbel's Canon. One of the people turned and beckoned to me, and I felt myself shrinking. It was a strange feeling, like somebody pressing hard on my head and sides. As I started getting smaller I suddenly panicked, frightened that if I allowed myself to shrink and go with these people I might never come back. Wrenching myself back into normality, I stood up and realized that I'd been hallucinating all along, and that I had nothing to worry about.
Sitting back down I tried to get myself back into the same state that I'd been in before. After a short while I could see the path again, but the music had changed and was no longer soothing, but ominous. Filled with dread, I stood up again, and stumbled over to my bed, where I pulled the covers up around me until I felt normal again. Although it felt like over an hour, the whole thing had only lasted about thirty minutes.
Not long after that, I decided to try it again and see what happened. Although I'd had four pipefuls, I still had around two-thirds of the bag left, and so a few days later I was loading up the pipe again. This time, though, after the first pipeful, the feelings of fear came straight away, and I decided not to take any more. I smoked the rest of the bag in joints the next time I went home with a mate. Although we experienced nowhere near the same kind of effects, we definitely felt quite trippy after a couple of reefers.
Needless to say, I went back to skunk not long after, but I've calmed down a lot. Every so often I still have a mental one, but I've managed to stop myself when I think I might be going too far. I've never bought any more Salvia, although I have been admiring the fully-grown plant which you can buy at ganja.co.uk , and I would love to see how the Gnome King's doing these days. Who knows- maybe someday I'll bump into him again, and we can catch up on old times!
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Let me know your Salvia stories or trip reprts: nippakru@hotmail.com.