Recently I got quite into mescaline and cacti. I have had experiences with mescaline HCL and San Pedro, my first experience with 4ft of San Pedro was ineffably spiritual, and actually immediately cured the chronic panic attacks brought on by cannabis addiction throughout my developing years. I went from not being able to eat around people or talk to new people without going into adrenaline pumping fight or flight, to being perfectly calm in both situations and immensely more peaceful and happier throughout life. I went from sad and burnt out to filled with an abundance of joy for my present life and future. I put San Pedro and mescaline at the top of my psychedelic tier list for both how it has healed me and how gentle and easy it is to enjoy versus things like shrooms and seeds - absolutely parallel with DMT for me.


Anyway, the topic question. What are the key differences in the experience between Peyote, San Pedro, Bolivian Torch and Peruvian Torch?



I can start with the difference between mescaline HCL and San Pedro, at least from my perspective.

Mesc. HCL has a purity and clean feel in comparison, which even at high doses feels quite sober. It can also vary in it's sensation from batch to batch: My first batch was clayish in sensation and colourfully visual with intense euphoria, and had the same shifting headspace sensations I got with the high dose of San Pedro. It also appeared as an incredibly fine off-white powder. My second batch came as slightly blue-ish white translucent crystals and felt cold, cohesive in sensation and almost LSD-like in the purity of its visual effects. So far all mesc. salt I've had has been a very gentle and calm experience, besides elevated heart-rate mostly around the come-up.

San Pedro is typically gentle, warm, natural and complex feeling in its effects. It is a more encompassing experience than salt. There is a massive difference versus mecaline alone, down to the synergy between many other active components. A lower dose is as intense feeling as a higher dose of salt, though with a reduced depth to the visuals. It also varies a lot more in the experience from session to session: a tablespoon to check the potency of a brew has given me seven hours of healthier and better feeling MDMA-like euphoria on one occasion, and nothing but a shift in headspace until going to sleep where I had incredible closed-eye visuals on a different occasion. For me it seems to be go big or go low, my experiences with ~2ft have been underwhelming and never reached the right level of effects I had hoped for that 4ft did. I'd say the visuals are similar to psilocybin and DMT in their natural appearance, but less repetitive. My dosing is also different, as I always chunder early so likely lose a lot.


So far I've heard / read that Peyote is incredibly more complicated, Bolivian Torch is far longer and different in character to San Pedro, and Peruvian Torch has basically if not the same alkaloid profile as San Pedro, only a higher proportion of mescaline. I'd be really interested to hear what Peyote, Bolivian Torch and Peruvian Torch are like in comparison, from anyone with experience across each of them. I've found it difficult if not impossible to find direct comparisons online.

I've never tried Peyote. But I have tried several species of Trichocereus, namely Bridgesii, Pachanoi, Peruvianus, Scopulicola, and Macrogonus.

The thing what makes it complicated to do comparisons is that each trip is its own unique adventure. Its hard to say how much of the unique character of any particular trip is coming from the actual cactus material, and how much is coming from various other factors related to set and setting. And then there's also the issue of how different these cacti trips can be across the spectrum of dosage. A really big cactus trip is quite different from a lower dose trip.

With all that said, the species that has stood out most to me compared to the others is Bridgesii. It has always been the strongest and most visual. And it has always been the one that is most likely to cause unpleasant bodyload. It is also the one that has been the most unpredictable in terms of the nature of the trip. Bridgesii trips are not always fun and uplifting. There can be dark undertones and challenging times during Bridgesii trips.

For a long time I was convinced that these differences must be attributed to additional chemicals in Bridgesii that are not present in the other species. But honestly at this point I am no longer sure. What has caused me to question the "additional chemicals" theory is that lower dose Bridgesii trips are very very similar to standard dose trips from the other species. Lower dose Bridgesii trips are often uplifting and gentle, without all that bodyload. And this has led me to seriously reconsider the possibility that Bridgesii's unique strength, visual stimulation, bodyload, and unpredictableness, may be due to higher levels of mescaline more than anything else. Honestly, I just don't know. And I think that no one is really able to know until a lot more research is done to better answer these questions. But one of the most important questions to answer would be to explain the harsh bodyload from high doses of Bridgesii compared to pure mescaline. Why the muscle tension, and trembling, etc.?

However, in a very real sense, it doesn't even matter. Because the reality is that if you're making tea from cuttings, Bridgesii is stronger and is more visual and does have more bodyload and is more unpredictable. So until all the questions are answered by science, its still a good idea to keep these factors in mind when making Bridgesii tea.

I have read that Bridgesii contain either a unique MAOI or a higher content of one, which is what causes the duration to be so much longer than other cacti species. I've also read that cacti can contain tyramine, which is what can cause adverse reactions combined with MAOI's. Could it just be the higher doses of MAOI reacting with its own tyramine content? Apparently the combo would cause high blood pressure which can cause muscle aches, cramps and tremors. This would explain why those effects aren't present with high doses of isolated mescaline, or equivalent doses of other species.


Absolutely agree with this, good point well made. I've had experiences off the exact same dosage of the same batch of powdered cubensis that have affected me in completely different ways, feeling nearly entirely different in character and potency between them.

Maybe it would take a lot of experience with each species to point out any consistent difference in their character, if possible to distinguish them much at all.


Another solid point. Pretty much all information that can be gathered for this question will be anecdotal and speculative.

Can you comment at all on the difference between Pachanoi and Peruvianus? Is peruvian at all more potent from your experience, like how Bridgesii is? Thank you

Pachanoi has been more potent than the Peruvianus that I've tried. Peruvianus has had a sleepy, dreamy feel for me. PC Pachanoi was similar. The non-PC Pachanois have been stronger and more psychedelic.

Not a popular opinion but IMO Trichocereus pachanoi, peruvianus, bridgesii, peyote, extracted mescaline, resin and synthetic mescaline are all the same. My hypothesis is the differences are due to quantity of mescaline/potency, as well as expectation/self-suggestion / set and setting.

With psychedelic substances, even the exact same substance, batch and dose can result in wildly different experiences if you take them enough times in different set and settings. I think this variability is way more than what a 0.001% minor alkaloid will do to the experience.

Well, set and setting surely matter. But i don't think you can completely discount the effects that the presence of substances like pellotine, hordenine or anhalonidine in various cacti might have. Pellotine for instance, is a sedative, while hordenine is a stimulant.

Pellotine is present in peyote. But also in mescal beans, wich apparently have been used in a ritual setting, along with mescaline containing cacti. Not much is known about the significance of mescal beans. Maybe they where just ornamental.

But i must say from my own experience, that peyote can be quite sedating at times, compared to torches.

Lophophora diffusa contains mostly pellotine, and very little mescaline.
I think that taking a diffusa extract during a psychedelic experience could shed some light on this. Would it alter the effects of mescaline significantly enough to be able to be ruled out as merely a placebo effect?

The problem is ofcourse: who of us is willing to water down a precious mescaline experience only to answer this question?

I guess you are going to say that the burden of proof is on me, but i could just as well turn that around and say that you are making the claim here, that mescaline alone is responsible for the psychedelic effects of these cacti

I can understand where this comes from. Reminds me of the debate of whether 4-ACO-DMT is a different experience to psilocin containing mushrooms, seems to be an evenly divisive subject. From personal experience I can see the argument for both sides, as I've had psilacetin experiences that were identical in character to shrooms. Contradicting that though, the effect is / was far cleaner and more lucid to me than real shrooms - just like mesc. hcl compared to cacti. Real shrooms tend to surround the senses more intensely and have an organic character to the visuals and sensations, whereas psilacetin feels a lot more direct to its effect.

All these different alkaloids aren't necessarily trace quanitities, especially relative to mescaline content. The easiest literature I can find tends to look more at mescaline concentration only, but where it does not the other alkaloids seem equally if not more present. Especially collectively, the portion of other active alkaloids seems far higher than the mescaline content. Given that they have effects independantly of their own, it seems quite acceptable that they would compound to provide a more intense experience with a different feel than mescaline alone. I'd say the core character of the experience isn't necessarily different as it relies on mescaline, the same as how psilacetin is an experience very close to shrooms to me as it relies on psilocin.

Also, a lot of these alkaloids hit receptors very differently. Bringing in a different kettle of fish here, but the experience between raw Amanita Muscaria is very different from one that has been treated to convert ibotenic acid to muscimol. Because ibotenic acid hits different receptors such as NMDA, causing dissociation and delirium.

In short, I agree the effects are the same in that the visuals and character can be so similar they're hard to tell apart. Mostly. I disagree that they're exactly the same, from a lot of anecdotal experiences of the drastic difference in dosage and other effects between pure and cacti.

Yes you are right peyote has been published with a bigger variance in other potentially active alkaloids, so there's a higher chance those alks could affect the experience (though it was indistinguishable for me personally in my limited peyote experiences) I'll take peyote off that list, but my hypothesis is still the same for those 3 Trichocereus species that have not AFAIK shown anything but traces of other alkaloids.

By the way, notice I never claimed what is or isnt happening, I clearly stated its a hypothesis

Maybe that was down to the way the peyote was grown? I've heard that growing San Pedro in certain ways will increase its potency, it might be the same for peyotes other alkaloids.


The anecdotal evidence is quite abundant to me that bolivian torch is longer at least. I mean, that could definitely be down to a higher dose of mescaline. It'd be good to hear that even at doses of similar intensity to other cacti, it stays consistently longer lasting.


Sorry if it came across as otherwise, I think I got a bit too into the debate there.

Pachanoi is warm and loving while bridgesii is cold.

Also for me pachanoi has always been safe with rue while bridgesii with rue gave me hypertensive crisis.

Huachuma (trichocereus) is a fatherly spirit while peyote (lophophora) is a grandfatherly spirit. This is evidenced by the alkaloid found in peyote, "grandfatherine." It can only be observed with a spiritual HPLC method.

FWIW I cleaned up some full spectrum Mescaline Acetate (from Bridgesii) with Methyl Ethyl Ketone and capped up the left over alkaloids. IIRC I did about 300 - 350 mgs of the stuff. It was definitely psychoactive. I would describe the experience as being like mescaline but without the fireworks. The mescaline acetate instantly crashed out into a white-ish solid in the MEK but how much mescaline was still left in the gooey leftovers I don't know.

Surprisingly, the ratio of mescaline acetate to other alkaloids was almost exactly 50/50 by weight. Don't know if anything other than mescaline acetate crashed out.

I´m not sure about the pharmacology of 4-AcO-DMT, I´d have to see if anything has been published on it. The thing with prodrugs is that while on one hand they will turn into another active drug, the metabolism might not be immediate and the prodrug might itself bind to different receptors in the meantime.. For example ibotenic acid´s conversion to muscimol is only in the order of 10% IIRC, so it´s definitely not the same as taking muscimol. Not sure about psilacetin.



The thing with these claims is that you can never know how much self suggestion plays a part.. Also, how many times do you think one needs to take the same substance to really get a feelign for it, considering even the same substance has so different effects in different days? I´ve had experiences on mushrooms that were indistinguishable from smoked DMT, except for the duration (and the fact I knew I had taken mushrooms) . The visuals were exactly like it, really the same.. So if such a different substance can result in the same effects, what do you think the chances are that , say, 0.01% of another substance will actually be reliably distinguishable? And of course, we can speculate all we want, but until a double blind test is done, we just dont know.



As mentioned, I jumped the gun on peyote but I still mantain that so far AFAIK only traces of other alkaloids have been found in Trichocereus pachanoi bridgesii and peruvianus, as I collected the info here. Of course this can change, new analysis can show other things, and we never know the variability that might be there in samples that havent been tested. But so far, there seems no indication of that, so I would recommend prudency speculating otherwise.





Maybe...



I havent researched this species´ phytochemistry, I will look into it.. more homework


Nope, you´re all good, this is a healthy conversation



The problem is if your spiritual HPLC hasn´t been calibrated properly, the method and therefore conclusions might be invalid

Well, peer review helps. You would probably say it distorts. Could there be a consensus that coffee is a sedative or alcohol makes you sharper?

Spiritual HPLC can be calibrated BTW. There is a whole science around it called dieting, as practiced in South America. But it requires a paradigm of getting into relationships with plants as sentient spirits rather than trying to get effects from molecules delivered to your brain machine. In other words, your perception needs to cross the mechanistic->wholistic barrier. Ingesting natural entheogens in their whole form is known to help this passage, if there is at least a tiny bit of openness to traditional wisdom, humility and surrender. Unfortunately the society we are embedded in conspires to render these passages as temporary glimpses.

Personally I think that´s a false dichotomy. I believe you can have a deep relationship with plants AND be very interested in the scientific method as a means of learning about the world and as a way of understanding the effect these plants have in your consciousness. If molecules themselves were unimportant, then I could extract DMT from psychotria viridis and give you a DMT-less concoction and you should still ´see spirits´, no? I don´t think that´s gonna happen though, the molecules are the key to the effects we feel. Also, you can take the example of Maria Sabina, who took synthetic psilocybin and said ´the mushroom spirits are there´. So are you saying she is wrong?

Also, I wouldn´t call the whole ´dieta´ thing a science. It´s a group of beliefs, which I think is fine to have, each one to their own, but AFAIK there has been no independent blind testing, its not something falsifiable, there is no experience you can have which will discard the belief a certaim group holds (i dont think any shaman says "oh you ate salty food and had a good experience ? So our theory was wrong, now we change our theory" ) It´s all experimentation within certain settings and worldviews, with the subjective implications that has. Also very importantly, there is no consensus amongst amazonian shamans about what a dieta should be. The shuar/jivaro for example consume alcoholic beverages together with ayahuasca, others consider that a big no no. I think people idealize shamans and think they have an infallible knowledge and that they all agree with each other. I say this with no disrespect, I am from south america and I have consumed ayahuasca and snuffs with the Kaxinawa. I have seen with my own eyes how different pajés ("shaman" ) disagree with each other about different things. That doesnt mean I don´t think you can learn from different shamans, quite the contrary, I think we can all learn a lot from them, but I believe critical thinking is still important, know what to take in and what not to.

And of course, shrooms are the junior spirit as evidenced by childamine which as we all know activates the red cones in our eyes.


I agree with this, just the taste of cacti coming back up from your gut is enough to remind and convince you it's the organic route. However, I maintain that the distinction between visuals and headspace of a purified form and organic is clear and I think it goes far beyond placebo honestly. Of course no one should speak in absolutes as if we really know, that would be quite ignorant.

As for DMT compared to shrooms, I consistently compare threshold smoked DMT hits to them. When I tried it again recently I was taking low hits every other day for what felt like 3 minutes of mushrooms. Same sort of audio distortion/enhancement, same kinds of OEVs. It just feels a bit more intense to me though, more like a streamlined rollercoaster than a wavy dream-plane. Besides that they're very similar to me in my limited experience of it. I mean, they are very closely related so it shouldn't be a surprise, but I think the actual pharmacology between them is quite different?

I'd love to do a blind test, but I think consuming it would have to spoil which was which.


Cool to see this thread, thanks for the link. Something that stands out to me though is how little data there is, one sample looked for these other alkaloids? Imagine doing a market research where you ask one member of the public.



This is the sort of ratio I imagined from my experiences, and I think I've read a similar thing before as well in mescaline tek discussions. That sounds like a fun experiment you did too, makes me wish I wasn't such a chemistry noob.

Thanks for sharing your experience endlessness.

I did not make a dichotomy. I was referring to transcending limitations in perception.

I stand firmly that there is a core science behind sensitizing to energies and connecting to the spiritual world. It can be tested and documented just like any other science. This is beyond South America, there are cultures all around the world that have common principles on the topic. In my culture there is the principle of taming the "nefs" i.e. the bodily appetites through asceticism for purification and spiritual connection and growth. This is the same with the yogic traditions that are more well known.

For me, not being able to distinguish mushrooms from dmt or the dmt containing plants from each other is just crazy. It cannot be possible if you go into the experiences after dieting and fasting. Go into all of the experiences with this same "set and setting" and test for yourself whether all these plants have unique signatures or not. It is this systematic work which I am calling a science.

You say it's important to not idealize shamans, but you also use Maria Sabina as support for your view. Sabina's quote seems to be a go to for materialist reductionists (not saying that you are one). I dont know what went on in that example, but such a take by a traditional practioner is an exception rather than a rule. Ask any "shaman" if the spirit of pharmahuasca and ayahuasca are the same and it is highly likely you would not get a single "yes."

As for drinking alcohol, I can imagine it somehow being part of certain group rituals as a specific cultural expression. But drinking alcohol while on a diet apprenticeship will hinder the apprenticeship process. There is absolutely no question about it. You cannot become a "shaman" by apprenticing to the plants as a drunkard. It is impossible that the shuar or jivaro "shaman" candidates drink alcohol during their apprenticeships.

Also BTW it's not just psychedelic plants that have spirits. You seem to insist that spirits = psychedelic molecules. All plants have spirits. DMT lacking psychotria varieties also have a spirit and for qualified people, this spirit is similar to dmt containing psychotria. They may have big differences in their practical results, but the energy and consciousness that resides within the plants are relatives.

Yeah, i also find that torches are all very much alike. I don't think i could tell them apart by effects. They also tend to vary quite a lot in potency in my experience.
And differences in strength could probably account for many of the perceived differences between them. A threshold mescaline experience is nothing like a total immersion into the mescaline universe.

What about in terms of body load? No one has noticed a difference? I have had strong negative physical reactions to bridgesii tea, which has also given me my strongest and most productive mescaline experiences (besides of course the physical discomfort). It seems pretty common for others to report body load and overstimulation to bridgesii tea and raw cactus, but rather uncommon to hear these complaints from pach, peru, or extracted mesc.

Figured this is a good time for this...

I've tried Bridgesii + Pedro + Peruv syrups, as well as alcohol extracts, and full A/B extracts.

Bridgesii syrup stands out as by far my favorite, for the full spectrum spiritual strength of the experience. I usually brew up about 10-12 feet into a syrup, then sample 1 foot worth to know the potency of that batch, then freeze the rest.

BUT

It is NEVER complete for me with the Secret Alchemist Club Anti-Nausea Shot....

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...px?g=posts&m=1005768

I ALWAYS chase the syrup with this. Essentially, a shot of fresh made raw ginger-juice, with 10 drops of Lemon Balm essential oil, and a few drops of Peppermint essential oil.

Using a juicer for the ginger is ideal, but can even just blend finely chopped ginger chunks with 1/4 cup of water, then strain it through a shirt or something.

ALSO

My all time ABSOLUTE favorite thing... is Bridgesii syrup (followed by Nausea Shot)... then cubensis mushroom tea 3 hours in... They peak together beautifully, and the cactus kicking in really eliminates any of the weird come-up phase of the mushrooms.

I also, at that point, toss a splash of ginger juice into the mushroom tea as well

This is such a fascinating report Wolfnippletip! I wonder what those other alkaloids were? Experiments like this are exactly what we need in order to better understand these cacti. I wonder what mass spectrometry would reveal about those other alkaloids?