The Seductive Secrets of the Blue Lotus Flower
The blue lotus flower is a symbol of life and creation — offering powerful aphrodisiac, dream-inducing, and tranquilizing effects on those who consume it.
There’s always been a certain allure about the mesmerizing blue color and intoxicating fragrance of the blue lotus flower as it emerges from the dark and lifeless muck at the bottom of ponds and rivers. It's a symbol of creation and connection with the afterlife.
No other culture highlighted the significance of the blue lotus flower (Nymphaea caerulea) as the ancient Egyptians. Here, it was intimately connected with the story of creation. It's connected with the sun god, Ra, who is responsible for carrying the sun across the sky during the day to cast its life-giving light onto the land — and taking it away again at night to allow everything to rest. In solidarity, the blue lotus flower opens its buds each morning and shuts them tight again each night.
On top of this more esoteric symbolism, the blue lotus flower offers us a unique set of psychoactive and pharmacological properties.
It contains 3 key alkaloids — aporphine, apomorphine, and nuciferine — each of which exerts opioid-like activity that places users in a euphoric trance-like state and can be used to induce visionary dreams at night.
The blue lotus flower also imposes its propensity for creation onto humans — acting as a powerful aphrodisiac. This feature has only recently been rediscovered through scientific research — adding new context to some of the more curious and explicit depictions of human sexual activity and blue lotus flowers found on hieroglyphs in both Ancient Egypt and Mexico.
Note: The blue lotus flower (Nymphaea caerulea) should NOT be confused with the sacred lotus flower (Nelumbo nucifera). While both plants contain the compound nuciferine, these plants are not considered interchangeable and do not have the same effects.
The Mystique of the Blue Lotus Flower
The blue lotus grows abundantly in the Nile River and other streams, ponds, and lakes throughout Egypt.
You can find this sacred herb frequently depicted in art, sculptures, and hieroglyphs on the walls of tombs all around Egypt. It’s most often associated with sex, gods, and the afterlife.
One of the most significant mentions of the blue lotus flower in Ancient Egyptian literature is the scroll of Ani (the Book of the Dead). In it, blue lotus is represented in several chapters — always linked with religious ceremony. It appears to have been reserved for the Egyptian elite, such as priests or the Pharoh and his concubines.
For example, King Tutankhamun's tomb held a gold-plated shrine decorated with a depiction of a pharaoh holding a massive blue lotus flower in one hand. In the other, he holds two mandrake roots — another powerfully psychoactive plant steeped in mythology of its own.
Another example of ritualistic use of the blue lotus was discovered in the tomb of Nebaum (XVIII Dynasty). In this example, murals painted on the walls depict a ritualistic dance involving two males and three women. The women are adorned with the petals of the blue lotus flower and are holding vases containing a magical golden liquid.
Similar depictions were discovered on carvings and pottery over 7000 km away in Central and South America.
One example is the Mayan ruins of Palenque and Chiapas, Mexico, where a representation of two priests standing on either side of a jaguar god is inscribed into the temple walls. One of the priests has a blue lotus bud sprouting from his head; the other has one emerging from his headpiece.
A vase was also discovered in the Mayan Bonampak site — in which a blue lotus flower is depicted on the central figure’s headpiece.
An Icon of Ancient Egyptian Desire & Divinity
The blue lotus flower has always been revered as a powerful creative force in the form of sexual expression and connection. It was ingested by the elites during intense ritualistic orgies. The flower's connection with the gods, creation, and ecstatic states, combined with pharmacological effects similar to Viagra, made it highly sought-after among members of the higher castes.
Evidence of this can be found in the many depictions of the blue lotus flower in sexual acts, often featuring several participants at once. These glyphs are mostly found in ancient Egyptian scrolls and heiroglyphs.
Even the Latin binomial for the plant — Nymphaea caerulea — refers to its connection with sex and attraction. In Greek mythology, a nymph is a deity that takes on the form of a beautiful young woman. The term nymphomaniac was once used to refer to women with excessive sexual desire (now called “hypersexuality disorder”).
The blue lotus is still used as a powerful aphrodisiac for both men and women. It works by altering the way both dopamine and serotonin function in the paraventricular nucleus, which is involved with the release of oxytocin (involved in bonding and love) and vasopressin (involved in greater partner attachment).
By regulating this region of the brain (and others), blue lotus induces a state of calm tranquility, increased sexual arousal, and heightened pleasure.
Many herbal aphrodisiacs also have stress-relieving abilities (see vanilla, damiana, and ashwagandha). When we're stressed out and anxious, libido is suppressed, so by simply calming the mind and promoting greater well-being and general health, our sex drive can be greatly improved. One of the main treatment aims for herbalists addressing fertility and libido issues is simply to alleviate stress and improve one's general health.
In men, blue lotus has an added benefit. One of the plant's active alkaloids, apomorphine, is a centrally-acting D1/D2 dopamine agonist. Through its action in the paraventricular nucleus, apomorphine initiates a cascade of events that ultimately result in improved smooth muscle relaxation in the corpora cavernosa of the penis — improving the capacity for erections in a similar way to Viagra. However, unlike Viagra, which acts locally on phosphodiesterase-type 5 (PDE-5) proteins in the penis to improve vasodilation and blood flow, blue lotus also targets the desire centers of the brain itself.
This is an improvement over pharmaceutical drugs like Viagra, which act locally but skip the important mental components — a factor that explains why so many men who take Viagra report the drug to be ineffective at making sex more enjoyable. It merely improves the ability to maintain an erection but lacks the important emotional connection that is regulated exclusively within the brain.
Mythology & the Blue Lotus Flower
The blue lotus flower is a central component in ancient Egyptian stories of creation, afterlife, and rebirth. Here are a few of the most notable examples.
In the Beginning, There Was Blue Lotus (The Story of Nefertem)
The ancient Egyptian god, Nefertem (the god of medicine & beauty), wears a blue lotus flower on his head, but his association with the plant goes way deeper than that. He was born from it and from that birthed humanity itself.
The story goes all the way back to the moment of creation. A blue lotus blossomed out of the waters of chaos (called “Nun”). This is symbolized by the dark, muddy, and lifeless muck at the bottom of rivers and ponds.
The lotus anchors its roots in the thick, oxygenless soil but collects air and sunlight from leaves it sends to the surface of the water. It's a story of adversity — a being that somehow overcame the odds and learned to produce something beautiful from a world of darkness, death, and chaos.
As the proverbial blue lotus flower blossomed, Nefertem, the god, was born into the world.
Shortly after his creation, Nefertem began to cry from loneliness. His tears formed the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon, who then created humanity.
(In other stories, he’s said to have masturbated the other gods into existence).
Every day, Nefertem goes through a cycle of death and rebirth. In the mornings, when the sun rises, he is born — in the evenings, when the sun sets, he dies and travels to the underworld.
Ra (The God of the Sun)
Ra, one of the central gods in ancient Egyptian mythology, is also associated with the blue lotus flower. Some stories depict Ra as the first being to be created as the primordial lotus flower emerges instead of Nefertem.
The ruler of the sky, Earth, and the underworld, Ra, shoulders the important task of dragging the sun through the sky each day using a small rowboat. With such an important role, Ra receives a lot of credit for the creation and maintenance of all life on Earth.
Blue lotus is metaphorically connected with the sun god Ra due to its tendency to open and close in tandem with the sun as it moves around the globe.
The Mayan Prince Chacdziedzib
The Mayans also told stories of the creative power of the blue lotus. A prince by the name of Chacdziedzib fell in love with the daughter of the great cenoté, Nicté-Há.
Context: In Mexico, cenotés are natural deep water-filled sinkholes, particularly common in the Yucatán Peninsula, that were considered sacred by the Maya.
The great cenoté was convinced the prince should marry within the same rank and marry the king's daughter instead, so he brought together all the elders and expressed his opposition to the union. The elders agreed and decided the only solution was to kill the great cenotés daughter.
A jester who was eavesdropping on the meeting told the prince of the elder’s plans. Prince Chacdziedzib commanded his most fierce warrior to search for the woman and bring her safely to the royal palace, where he would make her his wife.
The warrior embarked on his mission but was quickly killed by an assassin in the night.
When the prince heard about what happened, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He found his fallen soldier and, grabbing his bow, continued the mission to save Nicté-Há himself. He discovered his love in the sacred cenoté and watched her under the moonlight until the following morning.
As the sun rose the next day, Nicté-Há opened her eyes and admired her beautiful reflection in the still waters of the cenoté. The prince came near and embraced her in his arms — confessing his love for her.
Moments later, an arrow pierced the heart of Nicté-Há, killing her instantly. She fell lifeless into the waters of the cenoté — the home of the gods.
The prince was overcome with grief and prayed to the gods below for pity and compassion. He was so heartbroken that his heart physically broke into pieces — staining the rim of the cenoté with bright red blood.
The gods heard his cries and sent the Lord of the Waters and the Lord of the Birds to intervene. The Lord of the Waters entered the depths of the cenoté and changed Nicté-Há’s body into a beautiful lotus flower. The Lord of the Birds approached the prince’s broken heart and changed it into a beautiful nightingale (bird).
Ever since that day, at sunrise, the red bird travels to the edge of the cenotés sacred waters to sing his song of love to the lotus flowers as they open their buds.
The Effects of Blue Lotus Flower
Blue lotus flower is considered soporific (sleep-inducing), aphrodisiac, euphoric, and oneirogenic (dream-inducing). Its narcotic activity also makes it useful as a painkiller.
When smoked or consumed as a tea, blue lotus makes users feel euphoric and relaxed — much like the effects of herbs like as kava (Piper methysticum) or kratom (Mitragyna speciosa).
The more tea one drinks, the stronger the sedative action of the flower. After a while, users begin feeling the insurmountable urge to close their eyes and drift off to sleep.
This herb is undeniably psychoactive but in an entirely different way than conventional psychedelics such as magic mushrooms, LSD, or DMT.
It’s even different from atypical psychedelics like salvia (Salvia divinorum), ketamine, or PCP.
The blue lotus flower is more similar in terms of its psychoactive effects to the fly agaric mushroom or LSA (lysergic acid amide) derived from the seeds of morning glory and Hawaiian Baby Woodrose.
Instead of producing visions or distortions in sensory perception, this herb causes users to fall into a trance-like state. You’re in a dream, yet you remain self-aware. These conditions set users up perfectly to enter lucid dream states.
Potential Side Effects of Blue Lotus Flower
The most problematic side effect of the blue lotus flower is nausea.
This effect can be quite strong at first, but the body will develop a tolerance after a couple of sessions.
For this reason, many people who drink blue lotus flower tea will combine it with an antiemetic herb like ginger or cannabis.
In high doses, blue lotus flower tea has been reported to cause rapid heart rate and dizziness.
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