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2. The history
The use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is probably as old as humanity. We find traces of them in many cultures and times. In the Tassili caves and in the Sahara pictures have been found of humanoids with their heads in the form of mushrooms. Shamen in Siberia would use Fly Agarics to find their path to the spirit world and in Central and South America the use of mushrooms was quite common.
This means until the `discovery' of America by the Conquistadores in the 15th century, who inflicted all kinds of prohibitions on the indigenous population. But fortunately part of this was being recorded by the priests of those days and one even had some esteem for the `codexes' of the Pre-Columbian civilizations, which were partly saved. A lot of information about those strange `Indians' was written down in those times and was preserved in libraries in Europe.
Through the first colonists it is known that the Aztecs knew several hallucinogenic drugs like tlapatl and peyote, the use of which went back to 300 BC in the North of Mexico. There was a certain acceptance of the use of hallucinogenic substances in these times, while the use of alcohol was subject to strict regulations. Drinking was restricted to older people (over 52), and youngsters who were drinking in public were severely punished.
Teo-nanacatl: Flesh of the Gods
The first clear (written) record comes from the Spanish priest Bernardo de Sahagun who around 1500 gives an account of Aztec `mushroom rituals': "After a night of fasting where only a bit of cacao was taken, they ate, still before sunrise, mushrooms with honey. When the first signs showed (which can be compared to drunkenness with hallucinations) everyone started dancing and singing, while others were weeping. At the end of the ritual everyone gathered to share their visions."
The Aztecs even had a kind of Drug's God, who was called Xochipilli, Prince of Flowers. He was the sacred protector of the `flowery-dream' as the Aztecs called their hallucinatory trance. The mushrooms they used were probably the Psilocybe mexicana or the Psilocybe caerulescens. The Psilocybe (previously Stropharia) cubensis, momentarily one of the more popular mushrooms, was introduced by the Europeans and their cattle in South-America. The Indian regard this variety as inferior to the indigenous Psilocybe's because they grow in dung.
But not only in America, also in Siberia and in other countries magic mushrooms were used. Not always recognizable, it remained part of the `secret' rites; they appeared on special occasions and not everybody was told what was in the `sacred' soup.
The Vikings - as told in Norway - used magic mushrooms (Amanita) before they went ashore and while intoxicated were stronger and wilder then usual. It is not always so easy to recognize the mushroom-influence. Pictures and cave-drawings of small people with mushroom-heads can also be interpreted as space travelers! But the archetypal picture exist in more cultures, we noted that the Turkish Sufis, particularly the dervishes, in their - zikhr - whirling meditation, with their dances and clothing (white hats) very much look like a dancing `Brotherhood of Shrooms'.
The First
In the Western World it was only in this century that some interest was stirred in psychoactive mushrooms. Ethnologist Richard Evans Schultes and biologist Blasius Paul Reko traveled as far as Mexico in their search for mushrooms. There they discovered that the so-called Veladas, Indian mushroom-ceremonies, were still held in certain areas.
In the fifties it was particularly the American R. Gordon Wasson who `freed the mushrooms from the dark'. This banker and his wife Valentina were fascinated by the differences in cultural appreciation of the mushroom in general, but only in 1954 did they come into contact with their use as psychedelic substance.
R. Gordon Wasson and his wife, accompanied by Alan Richardson, went to a small village called Huatla de Jimenez, in Oaxaca in the South of Mexico, the territory of the Mazatecs, where they participated in a so-called Velada with the famous curandera (healer/sorceress) Maria Sabina. There they experienced, as the first Westerners, a psychedelic mushroom-trip, in an impressive ritual with Christian as well as Indian influences. Their story hit the world at large, Gordon Wasson published an article in Life magazine that stirred up a huge response.
The timing was probably right because the popularity of mushrooms rocketed sky-high in the Western world in the sixties, in particular amongst hippies and other alternative groups, using mushrooms partly as a `natural' alternative for LSD.
Scientific investigations were launched; the active substances were analyzed (and synthesized), whereby Albert Hoffman - the discoverer of LSD - played an important role and soon became a part of the psychedelic movement of the sixties.
Hippies and sensation-seekers went en masse to Mexico, where poor Maria Sabina nearly collapsed under the attention. Her inspiration by the `holy children' got endangered: she became quite famous to the mushroom-tourists but as a result more isolated from her own people. Afterwards she was possibly not so happy to have shared the secret of the Velada.
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