Viking Berserkers

Tough one... no clear evidence. Altho theories abound from the use of psychoactives in the form of mushrooms or opiates mixed with alcohol...to ritualistic dances, chants and singing inducing hysteria. Chances are whatever it was.. to see one charging with ax and or sword and shield was no fun.

Edited by Centrix Vigilis - 18-Aug-2011 at 16:32

Without doubt training and discipline remain a primary key to successful operations (there are others as well). 

Originally posted by Nick1986 Berserkers may have been used to spearhead a charge: an elite squad who would clear a path for the rest of the army. At Stamford Bridge one axeman held off the entire Saxon army singlehanded

Originally posted by Nick1986 According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this Viking was a giant who slew 40 warriors. However, he wasn't the only berserker at Stamford Bridge: Hardraada himself was filled with rage and belabored the English shield wall with his axe until he was struck down by an arrow

Cannabis and shrooms make you more relaxed, but what about the harder drugs? Perhaps the Vikings brought back something from Vinland like cocaine?

- shrooms make you more relaxed
You should up the dose sometime, try a "heroic dose" for crap-in-the-pants excitement.

- but what about the harder drugs
Don't confuse media propaganda with reality. "Hard" drugs are mostly OPIATES.

The only drug the Beserkers had access to was Amanita muscaria.
If you wander around the parks of London, under the pine trees, you can collect all you want and go home and try it yourself.  I can assure you, having tried it many times, Amanita is an intoxicant. (There's an interesting side story about Amanita and consumption of urine (human or reindeer) for anyone wanting to investigate more).

I have tried most of the natural hallucinogens, intoxicants, psychedelics, entheogens, deliriants, opiates, relaxants, you name it. Any plant, herb or fungi mentioned in the ethnographic literature, I tracked down and tried.

This is a red herring  they did not use drugs!
=================================

HOWEVER ...

In my experience, the tropane alkaloids - scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine - are EXTREMELY POWERFUL and one of the few TRUE HALLUCINOGENS. I could a write a great deal about the unique properties, the quality of the experience, but for now, you can read this.

Hee hee hee reading that link brings back memories, My God!
"I'll give an example of a typical Datura trip (stage 2)" Oh yeah? What happened in Stage 1? 
"I'm propped up in bed" Oh yeah? A hospital bed  ,  machines all around me going beep beep beep!

The evening began with me consuming a potion I had concocted, based on a recipe from "Natural Magick" called "To maketh one mad". My admission, overnight stay and discharge from hospital was just a small sideshow. The beautiful infinity book experience lasted about 2 seconds from a 2 day trip! 

Or watch the Sacred weeds- Henbane vdo I mentioned above, not for what happens (nothing!), but for what I say about witches.


SO, if there was good evidence they had access to scoploamine, hyoscyamine or atropine, then I would be very interested.


Edited by shokdee - 21-Aug-2011 at 23:34

Originally posted by Cryptic you had to go well.... "beserk" (even if you were not in a trance state).  Also, the antics of the more hard core members would incite other members to participate fully.

That is interesting. Got me thinking of Vietnam and some of the crazy shit that happened there. Brainwashing, drugs, carpet bombing, jungle warfare, GI f**k YOU, a nightmare.

One fresh way to look at Vietnam - are you ready? - is that it was primarily aimed at the folk back home.
Step1 JFK (blow his head off in public, scare the shit out of everyone)
Step2 Vietnam (folks at home get further screwed up watching it in colour on TV)
Lydon LaRouche has covered this ground in great detail.

Another discussion is bad apples? or bad apple barrels?