Best Online Articles

Since at least 5,000 B.C., people have used "spiritual mushrooms" in their religious rituals. The San Peoples of Tassili in southeast Algeria left behind cave paintings illustrating dancing, masked medicine men with mushrooms in their hands. It's believed the mushrooms were of the consciousness-altering variety.

Since at least 5,000 B.C., people have used "spiritual mushrooms" in their religious rituals. The San Peoples of Tassili in southeast Algeria left behind cave paintings illustrating dancing, masked medicine men with mushrooms in their hands. It's believed the mushrooms were of the consciousness-altering variety.

Tassili is today part of the Saharan desert, mountainous and uninhabited. But in the days of the San Peoples, the environment was savannah-like and inhabited by cattle, lions and even crocodiles. There's archeological evidence of contact between the San Peoples of Tassili and other tribes across the Sahara, from Chad to Egypt, perhaps even Greece.

Jumping forward 3,400 years in time to Greece, 1,600 B.C., we find the Eleusinian Mysteries. Continuous for an astounding two millennia, the Eleusinian Mystery initiation was the most important spiritual ceremony of ancient Europe. Scholars believe the Mysteries involved use of consciousness-altering mushrooms. With well-known participants like Plato and Aristotle, its influence on western civilization cannot be denied.

Later Vikings are known to have consumed limited amounts of the today much feared poisonous species Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). Ironically, they appear to have used it to overcome fear through religious rituals in which they danced and ate mushrooms before fearlessly going into battle.

Granted, most of us would not consider this form of warrior spirituality in any way "admirable." But it was part of the Viking religious practices, whatever our opinion of them may be. Meanwhile, to the east, Siberian shamans also used Fly agaric as a spiritual tool to communicate with their deities.

R. Gordon Wasson even claimed in a controversial book titled Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality that Fly agaric was the very substance referred to in ancient Vedic literature as the mysterious soma, a plant or mushroom extract used in ancient Hindu rituals and believed to bestow immortality of the soul and other divine qualities to the consumer.

(Note: Make no mistake, Fly agaric - Amanita muscaria - is poisonous and can also be confused with other deadly species. Consumption for any reason is completely discouraged.)

Across the Atlantic Ocean, spiritual rituals using consciousness-altering mushrooms were first recorded in the Mixtec Codex, which is of uncertain age from between the 13th and 15th centuries. In ancient engravings, the Mixtec gods are often depicted with mushrooms in their hands.

In spite of the fact that the Mixtec people of central Mexico self-professed to use spiritual mushrooms in their religious ceremonies, western scholars still questioned it in a characteristically condescending fashion.

American botanist William Safford argued that peyote buttons were mistaken for mushrooms, while other scientists insisted that the Mixtec culture really did use mind-expanding mushrooms in their religious rituals.

This debate carried on until amateur anthropologist Robert Weitlaner was invited to observe a Mixtec religious ceremony in the early 1930's and witnessed the use of mushrooms firsthand.

Then in 1953, mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina Povlovna as the first westerners became honored participants in a mushroom ceremony - Velada - performed by shaman Don Aurelio. Wasson published his account of the Velada in Life Magazine, 1957. His article initiated the broader public awareness of spiritual mushrooms.

25 species of the Psilocybe genus are known to contain the consciousness-altering chemical compounds psilocybin (stable) and psilocin (unstable). The species used by the Mixtec culture are believed to have been Psilocybin caerulescens and Psilocybin mexicana. The more common and sometimes cultivated species Psilocybin cubensis did not exist in America before the arrival of Europeans.

Spiritual mushrooms have been illegal in most of the world since the 1970's because of their potential misuse as recreational drugs. Only in The Netherlands were fresh Psilocybe allowed to be sold until less than a year ago.

However, that came to an abrupt halt when a 17-year-old girl jumped off a bridge in Amsterdam after consuming Psilocybe mushrooms. In response, the Dutch parliament banned all sale of "magic mushrooms" effective December 1, 2008. So from Tassili to Amsterdam, the use of consciousness-altering mushrooms is now officially history.

< Prev		Next >