We've All Been Duped By Blue Lotus Flower

Good morning and welcome to another edition of The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter delivering independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox. 

Today, we feature a news piece on whether the modern-day Blue Lotus flower we all love actually descends from ancient Egypt. Our other story is a Q&A with a leading researcher studying the intersection of psychedelics and meditation — an area of interest that means a lot to us at DoubleBlind. Find them below! If you keep scrolling, you’ll find pieces on how psychedelics impact the speed at which we fall in love, everything you need to know about San Pedro cactus, and the psychedelic potential of breathwork.

LASTLY, if you’re not doing anything on March 30, 2025 join us for a workshop with Willy Myco and journalist Patrick Maravelias on synthesizing LSD. Learn more about it here!

Happy trails 🌈

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Modern-Day Blue Lotus Isn’t the Same Flower Egyptians Used

A UC Berkeley research student used mass spectrometry to analyze the blue lotus flower and found that the version widely sold today is different from what was used in ancient Egypt.

Few non-psychedelic plants hold more ethnobotanical intrigue than the blue lotus. Its petals shrouded King Tut’s body, its image adorned ancient papyrus scrolls, and its rumored role in ritualistic intoxication has captivated scholars for centuries. It’s also become a beloved plant in the wellness industry. But is the flower widely sold today the real blue lotus the ancient Egyptians used?

For the past year, Liam McEvoy, a UC Berkeley anthropology student with a minor in Egyptology, has been chasing down that answer. Supported by the Flourish Fellowship — a UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics program dedicated to expanding psychedelic research and dialogue in the arts, humanities, and social sciences — McEvoy diligently studied Nymphaea caerulea, parsing out what its chemical constituents should be based on historical evidence and what’s currently sold in most brick-and-mortar and online herbal shops. His work led him down a rabbit hole of ancient hieroglyphic inscriptions and landed him in the murky threads of Reddit and in the depths of online herbal marketplaces.

On Reddit, he found someone claiming they had the authentic blue lotus that once grew on the Nile. He told them about his research and asked them to send him a flower sample to which they agreed.

After buying an indigo-hued blue lotus flower sample from Etsy, McEvoy discovered that the widely sold "blue lotus" — marketed as everything from tea to tinctures to vape additives — is not the same plant that once lined the Nile thousands of years ago. Using mass spectrometry, McEvoy identified a key difference between the two flowers: authentic blue lotus has significantly higher levels of nuciferine, the alkaloid associated with its psychoactive effects. The Etsy-sourced versions? They’re mostly inert water lilies, UC Berkeley News reports. McEvoy says that the flowers sold online are a different species from those that once flourished in ancient Egypt.

On top of that, McEvoy says Egyptologists may have also spent decades misinterpreting how the psychoactive blue lotus was actually used along the Nile many moons ago. Rather than letting the flower steep in wine, our Egyptian ancestors might have soaked blue lotus in oil first, allowing for a more effective extraction before mixing the oil into wine. It sounds wild, but if it’s true, this finding would upend decades of assumptions about how the plant was used in ritual settings in Egypt.

McEvoy didn’t just wake up one morning and randomly decide to apply for a fellowship to research blue lotus. It all began in high school after discovering a BBC documentary on YouTube brimming with tie-dye transitions and questionable science. The documentary featured people drinking modern-day blue lotus and behaving as if they were high, while researchers confidently declared they were. McEvoy told UC Berkeley News that he’s never stopped thinking about the flower since. We love a full-circle moment.

“This flower has been misunderstood for thousands of years,” he says. “It’s about time we set the record straight.”

Here’s What Researchers Say About Psychedelics and Meditation

We spoke with a leading researcher to unpack how intention and frequency shape the connection between psychedelics and meditation.

Meditation and psychedelics go together like soil and water: You can work with each modality independently, but combining the two catalyzes transformation. In this past Monday’s Drop-In, we wrote about the potent combination and heard from many of you about how psychedelics and meditation have shaped your lives. (ICYMI, check out our last Drop-in!)

To dive a bit deeper, we reached out to Zishan Jiwani, a member of the research team studying the intersection of psychedelics and meditation. (Check out their published paper in PLOS One here.) He answered a few key questions on why intention matters, the surprising link between frequent psychedelic use and meditation, and whether psychological profiles influence outcomes. He also told us where he hopes research goes in the future because, while the synergies between psychedelics and meditation are promising, there’s still a lot we don’t know.

DoubleBlind: Your study found that intention-setting and frequent psychedelic use were strong predictors of perceiving the benefits of meditation. Can you elaborate on why these factors might play such a crucial role, and whether there were any unexpected findings in this regard?

Zishan Jiwani: Intention-setting makes sense, given the documented importance of set and setting in psychedelic use. If people were intentional about using psychedelics for spiritual aims, for example, it makes sense that they may have been able to glean more from their psychedelic use to support their meditation practice. Psychedelic use was a bit more of a surprise, but suggests that similar to meditation, psychedelic use may be more of a practice and may require consistent use for optimal integration with meditation practice. Of course, it is also possible that individuals who perceived themselves to be benefitting more used psychedelics more, rather than the reverse direction of causality.

Your results suggest that personality traits, particularly agreeableness, influenced whether participants perceived psychedelics as beneficial for meditation. Does this suggest that certain psychological profiles are better suited for combining these practices? How might this inform meditation or psychedelic-assisted therapy programs?

There is some research that suggests some personality traits may create more openness to psychedelic experience and that psychedelic experience can influence certain personality characteristics. I am not sure if there is enough out there (from our review) to inform therapies just yet, but we should keep studying this relationship.

Your study highlights potential synergies between psychedelics and meditation but also calls for more longitudinal research to establish causality. What would an ideal follow-up study look like, and what key questions remain unanswered in this field?

From my perspective, the ideal follow-up would be a longitudinal mixed-methods study to follow individuals who use both meditation and psychedelics simultaneously. I would be most interested in understanding the dynamic impact of using these practices in combination. For instance, one future question might be -- do these practices produce synergistic effects that exceed the benefits of each approach used independently?

Join Us

FREE WORKSHOP | Synthesizing LSD with Willy Myco
March 30 | 1 PM PT

For decades, the synthesis of LSD has been shrouded in secrecy—gatekept by elite chemists, entangled in legal red tape, and steeped in underground lore. 

So, what happens when someone pulls back the curtain? Willy Myco risked everything to document the process, navigating legal gray areas, dodging FBI scrutiny, and pushing the boundaries of psychedelic science.

Now, he’s coming to DoubleBlind to tell the full story.

Join us for a free, no-holds-barred discussion with journalist Patrick Maravelias and mycologist, chemist, and psychedelic educator Willy Myco—the man behind the world’s first step-by-step video tutorial for synthesizing LSD.

🔥 This is one conversation you won’t want to miss.

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Learn with Us

💃 British drag queen icon The Vivienne tragically died of a ketamine-induced heart attack this week. This seems like a good time to review how to dose this powerful psychedelic compound. Read our guide to ketamine dosages (please stay safe!)

🌵You can buy this mescaline-containing cactus at most garden shops. But what’s its story? Where does it come from? And how do you dose it? Here’s what you need to know about San Pedro.

🍄 Know what all your friends need you to text them right now? These magical mushroom puns. 

🫁 Psychedelics are just ONE path to accessing altered states of consciousness. Your breath can be equally — if not more — powerful (and won’t mess up your sleep!) Read more about the psychedelic potential of breathwork here

DoubleBlind Digs

Here are today’s recommendations to help you live more psychedelically… 

1. We just got a sneak peek at this book… and we LOVE it. Quieting the Storm Within is an illustrated guide to internal family systems. IFS is one of the most used frameworks in psychedelic therapy. If you’ve been even a little bit curious about IFS, you have to check this out. Read a preview here.

2. In Mesoamerican cultures, Cacao was the drink of royalty. And at higher doses, it's an energizing, heart-opening, unbelievably delicious experience. Make your own private cacao ceremony with Keith’s Cacao.

3. Here’s your monthly reminder to Test. Your. Drugs! White powders are often adulterated with unexpected (and potentially dangerous) substances. You can check them right in the privacy of your own home with a kit from the nonprofit DanceSafe. It’s essential for harm reduction, so grab your kit today!*
   

4. Find your flow with these kanna chews from Fun Guy. With 20mg of kanna, damiana, cordyceps, and guarana, they help you stay inspired, energized, and lit without caffeine or alcohol. Check them out here.

*We may make a small commission from purchases using this link. Proceeds through advertising help to fund our independent journalism.

Watch Now

The Most Popular Psychedelic Mushroom in the World?

Golden teachers are perhaps the most popular magic mushrooms in the world. But why? They’re not the strongest. They don’t have the “best” visuals. So why does everyone like them so much?

Check out our deep dive video on the most popular psychedelic mushroom of all time:

Golden Teacher Mushrooms: What Are They