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Immortal Elixirs: From Mandrake to Modern Myth
Ancient mandrake, Discordian golden apples, and conspiracy theory
This is an excerpt from Sky Gods and the Recipe for Immortality: The secret influence of psychoactivity over science, society, and the supernatural.
In the early 1900s, a British anthropologist hypothesized mandrake as the elixir of life referenced by ancient cultures:
“…in fact most Egyptologists, seemed to be agreed that the magical substance from which the Egyptian elixir of life was made was the mandrake…
The Babylonian poem of Gilgamesh represents one of the innumerable versions of the great theme which has engaged the attention of writers in every age and country attempting to express the deepest longings of the human spirit. It is the search for the elixir of life. The object of Gilgamesh’s search is a magic plant to prolong life and restore youth…
In the Babylonian story a serpent-demon steals the magic plant, just as in India soma, the food of immortality, is stolen… In Greek legend apples are stolen… Apples are surrogates of the mandrake…”
