By Jen Carlson | Sept. 9, 2019 10:57 a.m.
If you've heard of the Datura stramonium plant (it has many names, including the commonly used "jimson weed"), you've likely heard about its hallucinogenic effects, or, perhaps, how it may be used to manufacture the undead. In Wade Davis's book The Serpent and the Rainbow, he notes that in Haiti the plant is called "zombie cucumber" and is used "as a central ingredient of the concoction voodoo priests use to create zombies." It's also a popular hexing herb amongst those practicing witchcraft; was allegedly used by Josef Mengele, the Nazi physician known as the Angel of Death, during interrogations; and it has been at the center of many crimes, given its ability to "turn victims into 'zombies' devoid of free will," making them easier to manipulate or rob.
