Most things we know as “magical spells” have some sort of basis in real life. With the advancement in technology and psychology, science is beginning to unlock the secrets of what were once hidden knowledge. We now now that a sort of “zombie” is created within Haitian rituals, and one pharmaceutical company found the chemicals responsible.
6. The Voodoo “Curse” – Datura Poisoning
This was actually the first “magical spell” curse I’ve ever witnessed firsthand. I was living in Central America, and an unpopular young man was pissing off the elders. One day, he “was given a curse”, and for three days he acted insane and hid away in his house.
I found out later, he had been dosed with the crushed up seeds of the Datura flower. Carribean “magicians” inflict a curse by slipping crushed up Datura seeds into the target’s drink. For 48 hours afterwards, he goes completely crazy, and experiences “living a nightmare”. I had a chance to talk with the person who had been cursed afterwards, and he told me he didn’t sleep the entire time.
Coincidentally, those “voodoo” dolls you see everywhere don’t have anything to do with cursing anyone or inflicting pain. Instead, they are placed over grave sites to help communicate with the dead. Much less dramatic, I know.
5. The Evil Eye – Mild hallucinogen, intimidation, poison
Another trick up the magician’s sleeve is the evil eye. Again, a mild hallucinogenic is placed within the unfortunate victim’s drink. He is then given intimidating looks, as the effects of the hallucinogen set in. The combined actions end up creating a serious panic attack. Being dosed unwittingly, and not knowing what was really in the drink just add to the horror.
This doesn’t ever last as long as the voodoo “curse”, but I have heard of people being poisoned afterwards, if they were real assholes, and didn’t learn their lessons. I’d hate to be on the bad side of a town magician then.
4. The Medicine Man’s Healing Powers – Ayahuasca
For centuries, medicine men have claimed to be able to heal most anything. Through the power of Ayahuasca, they are able to create the most convincing argument for your healing. By scaring the crap out of you.
I have also known someone healed by Ayahuasca. He was suffering from a horrible staff infection, and decided to go see a traditional medicine man. He was told to sit at a place in the jungle with two water bottles, and wait. A blind man came a day later, and filled up both bottles. They both drank, and proceeded to hallucinate.
Apparently, the healer summoned animals to help fight away the staph infection. Because my friend was under the influence of Ayahuasca, he truly believe animal spirits were fixing his wounds. Through the power of auto-suggestion times 1,000, 3 days later his horrible staph infection that had been untreatable for weeks with antibiotics was completely gone.
In reality, of course, he only imagined that he was being healed, and the placebo effect took its course. But he failed to respond to traditional methods, and penicillin. The strong auto suggestion available to him only through Ayahuasca cured him.
3. Mind Control – Scopolamine
Believe it or not, scopolamine renders a person incapable of judging for themselves. They’ll take anything you say at face value, including a suggestion to “go empty out an ATM account”. In fact, street gangsters in Columbia to do just that.
The standard set up involves luring a victim away from the crowd, and them blowing scopolamine dust into their face. As the victim breathes in the dust, they begin to lose control of their own actions and become incredibly suggestible.
Scopolamine is so incredibly powerful, VBS.TV has even done a documentary about the sheer craziness of the drug. (See Above)
2. Eating a Soul (Dementors) – Thorazine
In Harry Potter, the Dementors are a group of flying creatures who go around sucking at people’s souls. Their most feared power is the “Dementor’s Kiss” in which the “victim is left as an empty shell, incapable of thought and with no possibility of recovery”.
Meet Thorazine. Only psychiatrists could think up a drug so messed up as Thorazine. It was originally created to treat schizophrenics, but all it ended up doing was killing the very parts that made them human. It was such an incredibly soul destroying drug that its nickname is “chemical lobotomy”. People lost their drive and will to do anything, and became empty shells. Cured!
1. Zombification – Datura stramonium, Tetrodotoxin (TTX)
Zombies are so hot right now. Everywhere on the internet, people are talking about how cool it’d be if zombies were real.
Well, they are real.
I first heard about zombification from a friend who lives in Haiti. She told me her dad has a hundred zombie slaves working for her. Of course, I didn’t believe her. Then I saw The Serpent and the Rainbow.
It’s a horror film based on a true story. A young man is sent by a pharmaceutical company to see if the zombie stories are the workings of some plant. He finds out indeed, there is a drug that creates “zombies”. And there is even a science to creating them:
- First, a person is poisoned by TTX, a chemical found within the crapaud de mer, a fish from off the coast of Haiti. It renders them immobile, and slows down bodily function until it appears as if they are dead.
- Second, that person is literally buried alive. Although he or she appears to be dead, they’re really alive and conscious, although paralyzed and incapable of saying a thing
- Third, the zombie creator digs up the victim at night. He or she is then given a large dose of Datura stramonium, another strong hallucinogen, and then beaten and tortured. This series of painful experiences ends up breaking down the will of the person, until they are 100% sedate and obedient.
Men’s Journal currently has a great article that goes further into details of the tradition of Haitian zombification. I can’t recommend it enough, if you’re intrigued by the idea of real zombies.
Reality can be so much scarier than the movies, can’t it?
