kizatzhaddarak said:

To answer your question, Spacey.. yes I have taken this plant, and participated in ceremony, which included: Prayers, soft drumming, and turtle-rattle. The effects are mild and not so harsh, (If an LSD trip is an 8, or 10 on a scale, Lady's slipper is like a 3-5), but then again being a natural substance a batch of tea would be different in strength from batch to batch, and plants used. My experience was not Intense, but then again it wasn't meant to be used for that.

---

Quote:

Medicinal Uses

The root was formerly much used in North America both by indigenous and immigrant peoples for its sedative and antispasmodic properties and to counter insomnia and nervous tension.
C. parvifolium was the most important medicinal lady’s slipper in North America. Rhizomes were “collected in the fall, or early in the spring, carefully dried and reduced to a powder and administered as a teaspoon of powder, diluted in sugar water, or any other convenient form” (Rafinesque 1828). Although, some whole-root preparations were aqueous, the pungent, unpleasant smelling roots were usually prepared as tinctures as the active principles are not water-soluble. The Cherokees, Iroquois, Menominee, MicMac, Penobscot, and other tribes used Cypripedium to treat a variety of disorders (Moerman 1986). Preparations have been taken internally in the treatment of insomnia, anxiety, fever, headache, neuralgia, emotional tension, palpitations, tremors, irritable bowel syndrome, delirium, convulsions due to fever and to ease the pain of menstruation and childbirth (Grieve 1998, Sievers 1930). Herbalists generally consider Cypripedium preparations to be antispasmodic, anodyne, diaphoretic, hypnotic, nervine, sedative, stimulant and tonic. In North America species that have been collected for medicinal purposes include C. acaule, C. reginae, C. candidum, and C. parvifolium (Cribb 1997, Duke et al. 2002, Moerman 1998).

Lady’s slippers are used medicinally in the Old World. In Asia preparations of Cypripedium are considered analgesic, diaphoretic, diuretic, detumescent and nervine. The stems, rhizomes, and flowers of various species are used variously in China as sedatives and vascular aids, to stimulate appetite, relieve rheumatic pain and treat edema of the legs, dropsy, dysentery, gastritis, gonorrhea, headaches, leucorhhea, fractures and mental disorders (Bensky & Gamble 1993, Cribb 1997).

Chemistry

Chemical analysis has identified phenolics, alkaloids, large amounts of potassium oxalate (Cribb 1997), phenanthrenequinones such as cypripedine (Krohn et al. 2001), phenanthraquinones such as cypritibetquinones A and B (Liu et al. 2005) and cypripediquinone A (Ju et al. 2000). Cypripedium reginae, like some other species, has coarse glandular hairs on the stems and leaves that have long been known to cause contact dermatitis (MacDougal 1895, Correll 1978). This irritation is caused by quinones (Schmalle & Hausen 1979). Taken internally, overdose of Cypripedium preparations can cause hallucinations (Grieve 1998).

---