History

The History of salvia is still gaining momentum as modern culture catches on to this incredible herb. The Salvia Extract is still considered to be new area of salvia history as it has only been in use for the last 10 years. The regular salvia divinorum leaf has been in use for ages by the Mazatecs, but only till recently has modern man been trying to perfect the extraction of salvinorin A out of the leaf. But let's not get too carried away with salvia extraction process.

The first New world researcher to become interested in the history of Salvia, was Jean B. Johnson, who, while on a field trip with a group of anthropology students, watched Mazatec Indians make a tea from the leaves for the purpose of telling the future. Salvia was truly unheard of by modern culture in the United States until about 1953. An anthropology researcher Gordon Wasson came across salvia while he was doing research on hallucinogenic mushrooms. Wasson failed on a few attempts to bring the plant back to the states for further tests but when he finally succeeded, he managed to bring back a live plant that has become the most popular strains of salvia plants available for sale on the market today, called the Hoffman-Wasson. From the individual work of Gordon Wasson, now it was become available on the Internet on just a few sites, so you don't have to do the work in searching for this plant in Mexico.

Salvia Divinorum was first discovered in Oaxaca, Mexico, high the Sierra Madres Mountain Range. It was used by the natives, known as the Mazatec Indians who used the plant not only for spiritual use but also for medicinal purposes. The unique chemical in the Salvia Divinorum leaves called Salvinorin A is the active ingredient the Mazatec Indians sought after. Salvia would allow the Mazatecs to explore the outer world of consciousness. What is known as the "salvia trip" would give the Mazatecs a salvia experience of exploring their childhood and other fond experiences. It was also a very popular hallucinogen used in religious rituals and ceremonies where they would speak to the God's of heaven through the use of salvia.

Now days smoking the salvia extracts has proved to be a much more popular than just smoking the salvia leaf. The reason being is that you can ingest much more of the active content "Salvinorin A" with an extract than you could with just the regular salvia leaf. As you can conclude, in order to get enough of the active ingredient out of the plain salvia leaf, you would have to smoke a large amount of it in order to have any effect on you. The best form of extracting the Salvinorin A out of the salvia leaves is by using an alcohol-based chemical such as grain alcohol. This produces a much cleaner salvia with no harmful chemicals that could potentially poison you. Be sure to check on the vendor your buying your salvia supply from because there are a lot of companies that use acetone which is a very harmful chemical. We always trust companies that sell 100% organic because you know there were absolutely no chemicals used during the process.

As you will find on the internet, salvia leaf is generally sold by quality and weight. Extracts are sold by weight with a content number like: 5x, 10x, 20x, 30x, and 40x. As these numbers increase, so does the strength. A gram 40x would mean that it has taken 40 grams of salvia leaf to create 1 gram of 40x. Hence the "40 times" as strong.

Now don't get confused by the numbers too much. There's really two factors that depend on its potency: What type of extraction process is being used and what quality of salvia leaf is being used. Are chemicals being used? Or is grain alcohol being used? Once again, before you buy your salvia extracts online, make sure you're buying from a 100% natural organic company. Also make sure that you buy salvia that has been standardized. Standardized salvia is measured in a controlled environment for consistency. This consistency is also going to give you a much more potent a pure salvia. Never trust any salvia vendors unless it is standardized.

Always remember the traditional Shamanic use of salvia divinorum never used extracts or any of the procedures listed above. They would chew and consume the salvia leaf in the absence of much more powerful ethnobotanicals, generally mushrooms. Even though throughout salvia history it was used for spiritual and medicinal purposes, people do try and think of it as a recreational hallucinogen, which is something that is looked down upon by the Shamans. A plant this strong should be respected and never abused in any such way.

In the past year salvia history has changed, and not for the good. TV shows and news stories have focused on the negative modern aspects of salvia, but haven't looked into true history of what salvia is all about. It seems as if there's no history when really there's a ton of ancient history on salvia. Steer clear of the Dr. Phils and NY times of salvia, because you will only see a negative salvia side that isn't close to being true.