Blue Lotus Flower
Blue Lotus Flower. Nymphaea Caerulea. Egyptian Water Lily.
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Otherwise, please keep reading to learn about the history and science of this wonderful flower. (note, we are continually updating our blog posts, so be sure come back and check for updates or new links).
It is a tropical water lily that features day-blooming, star-shaped flowers, each with upright, pointed, light blue petals spread flat on the water surface.
It is one of the most enchanting medicinal flowers I have ever encountered in my life. Its color, how it grows, how it opens to the sun daily, everything about it is beautiful and unique. Though it has a somewhat bitter flavor, blue lotus has a rose-like aroma.
Blue Lotus Flower is commonly smoked, made into tea, tinctures, and other extracted forms.
The History:
Blue lotus is sacred to Egyptian culture as a symbol of creation and rebirth. Ancient Egyptians believed the world was originally covered by water and darkness. Then a large blue lotus appeared in the water, the flower opened and light appeared thus ending darkness on Earth.
It was regarded as a symbol of the sun, since the flowers are closed at night and open again in the morning. At Heliopolis, the origin of the world was taught to have been when the sun god Ra emerged from a lotus flower growing in "primordial waters". At night, he was believed to retreat into the flower again. Due to its color, it was identified, in some beliefs, as having been the original container, in a similar manner to an egg, of, and in Atum. As such, its properties form the origin of the "lotus variant" of the Ogdoad Cosmogony. It was the symbol of the Egyptian deity Nefertem.
Nefertem, one sun god of Egyptian mythology, was originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world. He represented both the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian Blue Lotus, born from waters within a blue waterlily. But Nefertem wasn’t only a god of the sun, he was also the god of beauty and healing. It was he who brought the flower to the sun god Ra to rejuvenate his ageing body with its healing properties.
Blue lotus flower has been historically used in Egypt for a variety of other purposes including stimulant, aphrodisiac, sexual enhancer and remedy against general illness. Flowers have an alluring fragrance that reportedly induces feelings of heightened awareness and euphoria. Perfumes and oils were created. Teas made from the flowers reportedly induce feelings of calmness and tranquility. Blue lotus flowers have been widely used throughout history as a common motif in Egyptian art and architecture. King Tut’s body was found to be covered with blue lotus petals when his tomb was opened in 1922.
Nubians, Abyssinians, and Africans all associated Blue Lotus with spiritual enlightenment. Blue lotus is also highly respected by Indians and the Buddhists. It contains natural alkaloids such as aporphine and nuciferine.
Traditionally, Blue Lotus was consumed after being soaked in warm water or wine. The dried flowers were used to make cigarettes to smoke. You can derive the benefits of the blue lotus plant by making concoctions with different parts of the plant such as the flower, leaves or roots.
Blue lotus has been depicted in numerous stone carvings and paintings, including the walls of the famous temple of Karnak, and are frequently depicted in connection with "party scenes" that involve dancing or significant spiritual or magical rites such as the rite of passage into the afterlife. King Tut's mummy was covered with the flower.
There's the famous case of Azru. Azru was royalty, a noblewoman of Thebes, later called Luxor (a former capital of Egypt), and a chantress for Khonsu, the moon god. The main temple at Karnak is dedicated to him. Three times a day, Azru came bearing food as well as wine fortified with Nymphaea caerulea tincture; she fetched garments for the gods, the priests, and the Pharaoh; and she danced and sang for the royal court. She had wealth and her own home with servants, where she stayed until summoned to the temple. Her mummy was the first to undergo mass spectroscopy. There was no evidence of any narcotics or painkillers in her body, but, researchers did find phytosterols, bioflavonoids in her body, all found in Nymphaea caerulea
A portrait of Tutankhamen shows his head emerging from a blue lily flower. In one variation of the ancient Egyptian story of Horus (the god of light) and Seth (the god of chaos), the lily flower appears as a symbol of the divine, all-seeing eye. Seth rips out Horus’ left eye and buries it in the sand, and it is transformed into a lily flower.
Ancient Egyptian women wore blue lily buds and flowers as fashionable head and hair adornments. Both the living and the dead were chronically festooned with garlands made from the plant. The garlands in the grave of Pharaoh Ramses II were made almost entirely of blue lily leaves. The flower was first cited in the Egyptian Book of the Dead as follows: “[It is] that lily flower which shines in the earth.”. Another incantation from the same text mentions the desire of Ani to “transform himself into the sacred blue water lily so that his body might have new birth and ascend daily into heaven”.
The mildly sedating effects of blue lotus make it a likely candidate (among several) for the lotus plant eaten by the mythical Lotophagi ("lotus-eaters") in Homer’s Odyssey.
Its cousin, Nymphaea Ampla had a long history with Mayan cultures. During the Classic Mayan period, was associated with fertility and presumably used by a priestly caste to induce shamanic ecstasies and hallucinations. The Dresden Codex features the Waterlily Jaguar, god of the Mayan netherworld, frequently associated with libations, drinking vessels and hallucinogenic enemas.
It is also used in perfumes, aroma-therapy, skin and hair care,
The science:
Blue Lotus contains a variety of anthocyanins, and two notable compounds: Nuciferine, and Aporphine that are thought to be responsible for many of its effects.
Nuciferine:
Nuciferine is thought to act as a dopamine receptor blocker. It is also found in the Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera)
Nuciferine is an antagonist at 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C, and 5-HT2B, an inverse agonist at 5-HT7, a partial agonist at D2, D5 and 5-HT6, an agonist at 5-HT1A, and D4 receptors, and inhibits the dopamine transporter . Behavioral effects produced in rats include catalepsy, potentiation of hexobarbitone hypnosis, morphine analgesia, and anticonvulsant action . It has been suggested that nuciferine may have potential therapeutic applications as an anti-psychotic drug and for vascular diseases associated with aberrant vasoconstriction
Nuciferine has also been shown to lower cholesterol and to strongly regulate blood sugar and insulin along with aporphine.
Apomorphine:
It is thought to function as a dopamine agonist that activates dopamine receptors, essentially having the opposite effect as nuciferine. This is the compound in Blue Lotus that stimulates a happy, uplifted, and euphoric feeling. Nuciferine is an alkaloid associated with dopamine receptor blockade. Today, blue lotus flower is used as a sleep aid and anxiety reliever.
Apomorphine has been described as a psychoactive alkaloid and is a non-selective dopamine agonist primarily used to treat Parkinson’s disease as it stimulates dopamine receptors and improves motor function.
Apomorphine is a type of aporphine.
One study found that apomorphine alkaloids from the leaves of Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn are substances of great interest because of their important pharmacological activities, particularly anti-diabetic, anti-obesity, anti-hyperlipidemic, anti-oxidant, and anti-HIV’s activities. This paper found that apmoorphine and nuciferine increased the body's ability to consume glucose, thus lowering blood glucose levels.
“In human medicine, it has been used in a variety of treatments ranging from the treatment of addiction (i.e., to heroin, alcohol or cigarettes), for treatment of erectile dysfunction in males and hypoactive sexual desire disorder in females to the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Currently, APO is used in patients with advanced PD, for the treatment of persistent and disabling motor fluctuations which do not respond to levodopa or other dopamine agonists, either on its own or in combination with deep brain stimulation. Recently, a new and potentially important therapeutic role for APO in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease has been suggested; APO seems to stimulate Aβ catabolism in an animal model and cell culture, thus reducing the rate of Aβ oligomerisation and consequent neural cell death.”
Quercetin:
Quercetin is absolutely famous for its antiviral, anti-cancer, and senolytic properties.
Myricetin:
This compound is structurally very similar to fisetin, quercetin, and luteolin. It is also considered a senolytic, and a gaba receptor potentiator.
Kaempferol:
LINKS:
Nymphaea cults in ancient Egypt and the New World: a lesson in empirical pharmacology
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079300/
Apomorphine-induced brain modulation during sexual stimulation: a new look at central phenomena related to erectile dysfunction
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12904807/
A review of the dietary flavonoid, kaempferol on human health and cancer chemoprevention
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601579/
Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn.) leaf: A narrative review of its Phytoconstituents, health benefits and food industry applications
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924224421002934
The pharmacological properties and therapeutic use of apomorphine
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22565480/
