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"And God/Goddess appeared
unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. The bush burned
with fire, but the bush was not consumed."
-- Exodus 3:2.
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The Bedouins of the Sinai know well the "burning bush" of the
Bible. It is the Datura plant they call shikaron, meaning "drunk."
One bite of its "thorny apple" sends you on a trip where everything glows,
as if on fire. Indeed, the first rule for safely crossing the Sinai is: Even if
you've been starving yourself for 40 days and 40 nights, DO NOT EAT THE DATURA! Datura was a well-known sacred plant throughout the Old and New Worlds. The "witches" of Europe lubricated their broomsticks with the Datura, Belladonna, before "riding" them. In ancient Mexico it was called "tloache" and used for divination. In 1676, in Jamestown, Virginia, a Datura salad was eaten by unsuspecting British soldiers. The result was a "very pleasant comedy": "They turned natural fools on it for several days: One would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it; and another stark naked was sitting up in a corner, like a monkey, grinning and grimacing at them; a fourth would fondly kiss, and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces, with a countenance more antic than any on a Dutch doll. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days, returned to themselves, not remembering anything that had passed.” Thereafter, Datura was known as "James-Town weed," shortened to "Jimson weed." The author of the above account wrote: "It resembles the Thorny Apple of Peru and I take it to be the same." The Bible tells us that when Moses came down from the mountain his face "glowed." But the actual Hebrew word is "horned," not "glowed." That's why Michelangelo sculpted Moses with two horns on his head. What is the association of Moses and horns? Perhaps it is the "horns" of the thorny apple of Datura--the bush that "burns" without consuming itself! For information on Datura, click the links below. |
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