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Spice, Psychoactivity, and Society: Nutmeg, Coca, and Iboga’s Global Influence
From Magellan’s psychoactive expeditions to the secretive roots of Coca-Cola and African iboga’s therapeutic potential
This is an excerpt from Sky Gods and the Recipe for Immortality: The secret influence of psychoactivity over science, society, and the supernatural.
Psychoactivity is nearly universal across time, tribe, and civilization into the modern day. Consider nutmeg, a narcotic and hallucinogenic spice so valuable it incentivized explorers such as Magellan and Columbus to connect the world. PBS once reported:
“Five hundred years ago, Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set sail to gain control of the global spice trade. What resulted was the first circumnavigation of the earth, laying the groundwork for colonization and globalization still felt today…
The first to discover cloves and nutmeg were the Chinese. They became world trade commodities, resulting in exchange between China and Ternate, more well-known as the Spice Road or the Silk Road.”
