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Finding Nobel medicines in sacred plants
This article begins with a strange but well-founded prediction: a common plant called Peganum harmala (or its “beta-carboline” chemicals) will one day win the Nobel prize for medicine. The sacred and psychoactive herb has been used for millennia with great potential for modern science.
In November, a sensational headline in the Jerusalem Post confirmed:
“Scientists discover hallucinogens in 2,200-year-old Egyptian Bes mug”
The ritual potion adds to extensive archaeological and cultural evidence for psychoactivity across time, tribe, and space. Peganum harmala is exceptional while University of California researchers have reported it’s likely the immortalizing soma or haoma of ancient Persia and India.
Wormwood is a parallel example of a shamanic and psychoactive plant, rediscovered from ancient Chinese medicine to treat malaria — and ultimately winning the Nobel prize. Peganum harmala should likely follow, with growing evidence to support it.
