Salvia History

A collection of referances on Salvia history and relationship with mankind, from its Mexican shamanic heritage to the history of salvia's modern "discovery" in 1962, and subsequent academic research into salvinorin-A the active chemical in diviner's sage. Extraction of which opened the door to new research.

The history of salvia and its relationship with mankind is a relatively simple and easy history to study, since salvia divinorum occurs in the wild in one only place on earth. This place, root of all strains of salvia divinorum's history, is called Oaxaca and lies in tribal Mexico. Anthropologists such as Albert Hoffman and Gordon Wasson have been visiting shamans in these places since the 60s. A few times in the history of the sacred diviner's sage, these explorer/scientists managed to retrieve viable samples of the plants and were able to grow and clone them. Three of these strains make up the only unique gentic material widely available for sale on the internet today.

Due to its introspective and shamanic psychotropic effects, there is very little recreational use in diviner's sage's history and the little that has occured tends to be closely intertwined with the traditional uses which center around shamanic healing and spirituality. There is a void in its history before it was reintroduced to the new-world by Albert Hoffman and Gordon Wasson and its history in the old world is limited to when it was used by shamans in Oaxaca due to the fact that it only occurs naturally in the wild in that highland part of Mexico.

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