I have a little soft spot for tropanes. I regularly use Datura leaves for my carrier when using DMT. I like Datura very much for this purpose, much more than tobaco, cannabis, parsely etc.
I did a bit of work on Mandrake four or five years ago. I found very little in depth information on it. All the books and the internet pages, rehash the same few tidbits. It got quite annoying to read yet more of the same two or three paragraphs over and over. Annoying because the myths and legends surrounding Mandrake make it sound quite fascinating.
The article on Dwale was interesting but was also wrong in stating Mandrake had been used since Roman times. There is a picture of surgeons trepanning a person knocked out by Mandrake on an egyptian tomb. In fact it was known in pre-dynastic Egypt. Thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands of years worth of human knowledge about Mandrake, probly has been lost. All that remains is a bit of old folk-lore about rituals and harvesting and a hand full of recepies for potions to help with toothache, fertility and insomnia.
This is one time we can't blame the Christians though. Even Christians accepted the need for pain relief. Mandrake was mentioned in the book of Gennesis, which again predates the Romans. The demise of Mandrake lies at the feet of Marco Polo. He in the late 14th Centuary, is the man famed for opening up routes to the East and the trade that followed. That trade included oppium, which was far more effective and much safer than Mandrake.
I ate the roots on four seperate occaissions, tentatively at first, increasing the dosage each time. The last time, I made my self and two friends, quite ill for over a week. I havn't eaten them since. It was an interesting place to visit, glad I went. Really glad I got back. They really do feel like a whitches brew, quite a dark, evil and sinister place.
I have some Mandrake plants growing. Ugly little things. Fascinating though, knowing (or not knowing) what lurks beneath the surface. They are five years old now, which is the optimum age for harvesting. I enjoy them as they are though, I have no desire to uproot them. I expect I won't ever eat Mandrake again. If I hadn't ever eaten them allready however, I'm sure I would leap at the chance to try them, but thats just me.
I had never considered Mandrake, or any of the other tropane containing plants, as some kind of Western or European ayahuasca. Nothing I ever read about them ever sugested that kind of use either. Ammanita Muscaria, I think, sits much more happily in that role.
I wouldn't recommend Mandrake to most people. In fact I would warn most people to stay well away. But they are a peculiar plant with their own particular brand of magic. There is nothing else quite like them.