P D Ball’s Story Newsletter No. 14
May 11, 2024 7:25 am
P D Ball’s Newsletter No. 14
Hello! I hope this email finds you doing awesome.
Contents:
First Words
Behind the Scenes
Spring Fantasy Book Sale
First:
I’ve been a little sad leaving Cayce’s world behind, but the characters still bug me for more page-time, so perhaps I’ll return to it one day.
The new story is coming along, up to roughly 1/3rd of a novel right now. Because I’m writing it in serial format, chapter by chapter, it’s challenging. Serial writing is very different than novel writing, where you can go back and forth in the manuscript to fix continuity errors, move what needs moving around, and so on. But with serials, each chapter builds on or extends from the previous one and if I make a continuity mistake, I’ve got to go back and fix stuff that people have already read.
Definitely an enjoyable learning experience, though.
The new story is basically Star Trek meets Dungeons & Dragons. An away team gets stuck in a world turned into a D&D-like game by nanotech. Yes, silly premise, but plenty of fun!
If you’re interested, each chapter is appearing on my patreon as soon as I finish editing them:
Also, Cayce books 1-3 are on sale for 0.99 for the next week for those KU readers who'd like to also own a copy:
Cayce Book 5 behind the Scenes: Drugs
If you haven’t read Book 5, there are light spoilers ahead. You may want to skip this, or read it later, but the spoilers will be vague.
In Book 5, drugs enter the picture.
All cultures use mind-altering substances. Usually, these are used ritualistically for medicine, religious/spiritual purposes, some combination of those, social-politically, socially, and somewhat rarer across cultures, recreationally.
A few examples: the Yanomami of South America use a mixture of herbs as snuff to commune with spirits for medicinal purposes (i.e., imploring spirits to help them treat patients), for aggression (to send enemies curses), and to protect their village (fighting against evil spirits, some surely sent by those enemies). Shaman in Native American cultures used magic mushrooms to aid them in diagnosing disease (the effects reportedly increase observational skills by altering one’s focus), and others used peyote or magic mushrooms for spiritual growth.
Angel’s Trumpet – or Devil’s Trumpet if the flower is facing downward – is a slightly different sort of drug. Andean and Peruvian medical systems use it both for spiritual rituals and to treat bodily ailments. Its leaves treat fungal infection, abscesses, dermatitis, swelling, ulcers and other superficial wounds. Leaf paste from the plant relieves pain, and poultices are used to treat cramping, arthritis and swelling.
For spiritual rituals, angel’s trumpet can be used alone or as part of ayahuasca, which in the West is gaining in popularity as a treatment for certain mental health issues, like depression. Traditionally, ayahuasca is taken by shaman to reach an intermediate state between the physical world and the spiritual.
Yet, when consumed at high enough doses, angel’s trumpet is hallucinogenic, but not the enjoyable kind. It reportedly causes intense nightmarish hallucinations and can be fatal in high doses. Probably not super fun to die in terror.
Because of that, some shaman certainly use it for the obvious reasons: taking revenge on enemies. Slip a little into their food or drink, and bam, that person is not having a good night. Some not so nice shaman were caught giving it to tourists in Peru, to facilitate robbing them.
Yet it gets stranger! In some cultures, this drug is given to misbehaving children, to have ancestors from beyond the grave admonish them into behaving better. Imagine if that was part of your parenting repertoire: “If you don’t do your homework, little Jonny, the devils are coming.”
In Western culture, people typically experience the drug accidentally – by mistaken consumption of the seeds or perhaps through bad internet advice. The few medical reports I found documented that the psychotropic effects can last for days after consumption. The report noted that patients would likely need to be restrained, either physically or chemically, as the drug induces agitation, excitement, and aggression.
It's worth keeping in mind that shamanic practitioners would know how to use this plant, in combination with other plants or alone, appropriate dosages, in great detail. Their medical uses would also be tailored to specific treatment plans. It would rarely be used in large enough doses to cause death.
And it’s easy to grow! The plants simply need well drained soil, partial shade to better light, in frost-free environments. A neighbor has a full, healthy plant in her yard, flowering away even as I write this – but those flowers are definitely staying on those branches and not making it into my tea.
The history of using Angel’s Trumpets inspired the chapter where the drug makes an appearance, with the appropriate effects.
If you want to learn more about shamanic use of these drugs, I found a few videos.
This one’s from Vice, it’s under 5 minutes long. Keep in mind that ayahuasca preparations vary from culture to culture and likely even seasonally. Drug dosages in plants vary seasonally and with rainfall – which is why no one should experiment with these from their garden. It’s also likely the reason ayahuasca is made from a variety of plants, to even out the dosages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsjbUpUm-lc&ab_channel=VICEAsia
This is a 25-minute-long documentary from DW (Deutsche Well, Germany’s version of the BBC):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbkB-oqn75g&ab_channel=DWDocumentary
This one isn’t about ayahuasca, but the Yanomami snuff that’s also hallucinogenic. The man discussing his experience with the drug was born from a Yanomami woman in America. His mother moved back to the forest because she couldn’t stand urban living. When he grew up, he went and found her. His insights are pretty interesting, and he discusses how the drug enhances his perception of the forest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BHxLrDZfu0&t=92s&ab_channel=ShabonoMedia
And this one is an hour-long documentary about Yanomami spiritual practices. It’s definitely of higher quality than the ones I used to show my students:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n1_hPp65vY&ab_channel=SLICE
Alright, that’s it, see you in a month!
Fantasy Book Sales
These are all in Kindle Unlimited – so if you have the subscription, you can read any of them easily.
