Cave painting of Bee-Head Mushroom Goddess, from the Round-Head Culture, ninth to sixth millennium B.C.E.; Tassili Plateau, southern Algeria. (Drawing by Kathleen Harrison)
HYBRID NEO-SHAMANIC MUSHROOM RITUALS
In the ayahuasca book (Metzner 1999) I pointed out that one can distinguish four quite different approaches or frameworks to the use of the entheogenic ayahuasca: (1) the traditional shamanic healing framework, which works within a worldview completely different from the Western; (2) studies with tryptamine psychedelics as adjuvants to psychotherapy with a Western medical model; (3) the syncretic Brazilian churches (UDV, Santo Daime, Barquinia) that consider ayahuasca their sacrament and use it in a framework of worship and community building; and (4) shamanic-psychological hybrid rituals, conducted mostly in Europe and North America, that respect some of the basic forms of the shamanic traditions, but add psychological elements of preparation and integration.
In looking in a comparative way at the accounts of psilocybe mushroom experiences we have gathered for the present collection, several differences with the ayahuasca situation are immediately obvious. There are very few accounts of experiences with traditional healers using mushrooms, because mushroom curanderos like Maria Sabina are vanishing (unlike the situation with ayahuasqueros). We are fortunate to include two accounts of sessions with curanderos by Fred Swain and Bret Blosser, both of whom visited the Mazatec Indians in Oaxaca and encountered mushroom practitioners there.
Next, there are, to my knowledge, no mushroom “churches” using psilocybe mushrooms as their sacrament in religious ceremony. One could argue that the ecstatic musical events created by the Grateful Dead and their Dead Head followers, which involve the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms (“shrooms”) as well as cannabis and LSD, taken in a respectful, even reverential manner, constitute a novel kind of spiritual celebration, akin perhaps to Dionysian revels of ancient Greece.
Also, the use of psilocybin as an adjuvant to psychotherapy, prisoner rehabilitation, and the experimental induction of religious experience is described in review chapters and experiential accounts of the early days of the Harvard project. So, the majority of the accounts in this book are of experiences that took place in the context of what I call neo-shamanic hybrid rituals, which I shall describe in a bit more detail.
One variation of these contemporary neo-shamanic ritual forms, seldom if ever encountered with ayahuasca, is the use of mushrooms by individuals or small groups in an outdoor environment in the daytime. This is a marked departure from the traditional shamanic model in which any entheogen, including mushrooms, are always taken at night in almost total darkness. It is believed that reducing visual stimulation from the outer world enhances one’s ability to see with the inner eyes of vision. Judging by the accounts of outdoor experiences in this book, such experiences, when carefully planned with conscious intention, often seem to produce a sense of profound connectedness to the spirit of the particular place, as well as the sacredness of the Earth as a whole and all her life forms.
These hybrid rituals preserve certain key elements from traditional shamanic healing and divination ceremonies. Participants sit, or sometimes lie, in a circle; there may be an altar in the center with objects representing the four elements (air, fire, water, earth), as well as ritual art objects or personal objects placed by the participants; there is an experienced guide or elder, with one or more assistants who don’t take the mushroom medicine but take care of the material needs of the group and monitor the group energy flow; there may be drumming, rattling, and group chanting, as well as evocative recorded music; the ritual space is dedicated by prayers in the four directions and the invocations of spirits of animals and ancestors. A respectful attitude toward one another, toward Spirit, and to all life forms and Nature is key to a productive and illuminating experience. Ritual is merely the conscious and intentional arrangement of set and setting, which are the major determinants of any altered state of consciousness. Experienced entheogenic explorers understand the importance of setting and therefore devote attentive care to arranging a peaceful place and time, filled with natural beauty and free from outside distractions or interruptions.
Most of the participants in circles of this kind that I have witnessed were experienced in one or more psychospiritual practices, including shamanic drumming journeys, Buddhist vipassana meditation, tantric yoga, holotropic breathwork. Most participants have experienced and/or practiced various forms of psychotherapy and body-oriented therapy. The insights and learnings from these practices are woven by the participants into their work with the entheogenic mushrooms. Participants confirm that entheogenic mushroom or plant medicines combined with meditative or therapeutic insight processes amplify awareness and sensitize perception, particularly somatic, emotional, instinctual, and spiritual awareness.
The kinds of encounters with “alien intelligences” and “hyperspace communication” that Terence McKenna speaks about are probably more likely to be encountered in high dose sessions that the individual does alone. Such sessions do, however, carry a certain risk of temporary insanity and may often result in little more than prolonged states of dissociated awareness without any memory or understanding.
Some variation of the talking staff or singing staff is often used in group ceremonies. With this practice, also referred to as “council” or “wisdom circles,” only the person who has the circulating staff speaks or sings and there is no discussion, questioning, or interpretation of what is spoken or sung, merely a respectful silence with a listening heart. In preparation for the circle, there is usually a sharing of intentions and purposes among the participants; after the circle ceremony often some time is given to sharing the experience for the purpose of integrating it more fully into one’s life.
A common theme found repeatedly in experiences with entheogenic psilocybe mushrooms, as well as other entheogens, is a heightened awareness and concern for the protection of the Earth and its threatened habitats and wildlife, as well as of indigenous cultures. In that sense, it can be said that the growing interest in shamanism in general, and mushroom shamanism in particular, represents part of a worldwide movement toward a more direct experiential and spiritual connection to the natural world.
References
Estrada, Alvaro. 1981. Maria Sabina—Her Life and Chants. Santa Barbara: Ross-Erikson.
Gartz, Jochen. 1996. Magic Mushrooms Around the World—A Scientific Journey Across Cultures and Time. Los Angeles: Lis Publications.
Gershon, Michael. 1998. The Second Brain. New York: HarperCollins.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Grob, Charles S. 1999. The Psychology of Ayahuasca. In Ayahuasca—Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature, ed. Ralph Metzner. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Halpern, John. 1996. The Use of Hallucinogens in the Treatment of Addiction. Vol. 4, no. 2 of Addiction Research, 177–89.
Harner, Michael, ed. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. Oxford University Press.
Heinrich, Clark. 1982. Strange Fruit—Alchemy, Religion and Magical Foods. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hofmann, Albert. 1990. Ride through the Sierra Mazateca in Search of the Magical Plant ‘Ska Maria Pastora.’ In The Sacred Mushroom Seeker—Essays for Gordon Wasson, ed. T. Riedlinger. Portland, Ore.: Dioscorides Press, 115–27.
James, William. 1912/1996. Essays in Radical Empiricism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Leary, Timothy. 1968. High Priest. New York: New American Library; 1995 edition published by Ronin Publishing, Berkeley.
———. 1983. Flashbacks—An Autobiography. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, Inc.
Mack, John, M.D. 1991. Passport to the Cosmos—Human Transformation and Alien Encounters. New York: Crown Publishers.
McKenna, Terence and Dennis McKenna. 1975/1993. The Invisible Landscape—Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching. San Francisco: Harper-SanFrancisco.
&
nbsp; McKenna, Terence. 1991. The Archaic Revival. San Francisco: Harper-SanFrancisco.
———. 1992. Food of the Gods—The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge. New York: Bantam Books.
Margulis, Lynn and Karlene Schwartz. 1982. Five Kingdoms—An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co. Margulis, Lynn. 1998. Symbiotic Planet—A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books.
Metzner, Ralph. 1968. On the evolutionary significance of psychedelic drugs. Main Currents of Modern Thought 25 (1):20–25.
Metzner, Ralph. 1994. Addiction and transcendence as altered states of consciousness. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 26 (1):1–17.
———ed. 1999a. Ayahuasca—Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.
———. 1999b. From Harvard to Zihuatanejo. In Timothy Leary—Outside Looking In, ed. Robert Forte. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press.
———. 1999c. Green Psychology—Transforming Our Relationship to the Earth. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press.
Murray, Michael. 1998. 5-HTP—The Natural Way to Overcome Depression, Obesity and Insomnia. N.Y.: Bantam Books.
Oss, O. T. and Oeric, O. N. 1976. Psilocybin—Magic Mushroom Growers Guide. Berkeley, Calif.: Lux Natura.
Ott, Jonathan. 1976. Hallucinogenic Plants of North America. Berkeley, Calif.: Wingbow Press.
———. 1993. Pharmacotheon—Entheogenic drugs, their plant sources and history. Kennewick, Wash.: Natural Products Co.
———. 2001. Shamanic Snuffs or Entheogenic Errhines. Solothurn, Schweiz: Entheobotanica.
Ott, Jonathan and Jeremy Bigwood eds. 1978. Teonanacatl—Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of North America. Seattle, Wash.: Madrona Publishers.
Passie, Torsten, Juergen Seifert, Udo Schneider, Hinderk Emrich. 2002. The pharmacology of psilocybin. Addiction Biology 7:357–64.
Rätsch, Christian. 1996. Das Pilzritual der Mixe & Lol lu’um—Die Blüten der Erde: Entheogene Pilze bei den Tiefland Maya. In Maria Sabina—Botin der heiligen Pilze Liggenstorfer, R. and C. Rätsch, ed. Solothurn: Nachtschatten Verlag.
Schultes, Richard Evans and Albert Hofmann. 1979. Plants of the Gods—Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
———. 1980. The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
Shulgin, Alexander and Ann Shulgin. 1991. PIHKAL—A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press.
———. 1997. TIHKAL—The Continuation. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press.
Stamets, Paul. 1996. Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World—An Identification Guide. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press.
Strassman, Rick. 2001. DMT—The Spirit Molecule. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press.
Trout, K. 2002. Some Simple Tryptamines—A brief overview & resource compendium. Mydriatic Productions—Better Days Publication. [email protected].
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1963. The hallucinogenic fungi of Mexico: An inquiry into the origins of the religious idea among primitive peoples. Psychedelic Review 1(1):27–42.
———. 1968. Soma—Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
———. Gordon. 1980. The Wondrous Mushroom—Mycolatry in Mesoamerica. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wasson, R. Gordon, Carl A. P. Ruck and Albert Hofmann. 1978. The Road to Eleusis—Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
1
ETHNOMYCOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE PSILOCYBIAN MUSHROOMS
JOHN W. ALLEN AND JAMES ARTHUR
Throughout the ages, human beings have sought to alter their consciousness through the use of certain plants and fungi. The fascination of humans with dung-growing visionary mushrooms may go back to earliest times.
In their search for edible foods, early hunter-gatherers followed the trails of large migratory herds. When the weather conditions were right, they would find mushrooms growing from the manure left by ungulates. Being hungry and curious, early humans naturally consumed the small meaty mushrooms, some of which were psychoactive. These fungi presumably were valued not as food sources, but for the expansion of consciousness and perception they induced. Over the ages, a growing body of knowledge accumulated about which plants and fungi brought about what effects and how to prepare them. Archaeological records suggest that early humans knew about these mushrooms’ special effects and consumed them intentionally for this very reason. Several writers have suggested that major religious ideas were inspired by the intake of the entheogenic mushrooms (Wasson 1968; Allegro 1970; Arthur 2000).
THE LIFE CYCLE OF MUSHROOMS
Approximately one hundred thousand species of fungi are known. Wild psychoactive mushrooms, known scientifically as basidiomycetes (club fungi), are the fruiting bodies of saprophytes, meaning they obtain their food by direct absorption of nutrients from the soil or other medium, such as the decomposing manure of ruminants or the decaying leaves, twigs, and wood of plants. The nutrients are dissolved by enzymes and then absorbed through the fungi’s thin cell walls.
Most fungi reproduce by spores (fig. 1), tiny particles of protoplasm enclosed in sturdy cell walls. A common mushroom produces ten billion or more spores on its fruiting body, while giant puffballs may have as many as several trillion. Spores are found on the gill plates on the underside of the cap of a gilled mushroom. When the mushroom cap has fully opened and separated from its veil, the mature spores are dispersed by the wind or fall beneath the mushroom. Various small animals and insects, notably dung beetles and millipedes, feed on mushrooms and are instrumental in spore distribution. When the spores land on a habitable medium, they germinate and form hyphae, which grow and spread under the surface into many small fine silklike hairs that collectively form the mushroom mycelium (spawn). The mycelium grows, radiating outward into large, occasionally vast mats that permeate the material in which it is growing. When conditions are correct, the mycelium fruits and a mushroom appears above the ground (Encarta 2000).
WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION OF TRYPTAMINE-CONTAINING MUSHROOMS
The mushrooms under discussion here are those capable of producing altered states of consciousness brought on by the alkaloids psilocin and psilocybin. Mushrooms with these properties are referred to as hallucinogenic, narcotic, magic, sacred, psychedelic, psychoactive, entheogenic, and neurotropic. They have great diversity and worldwide distribution.
More than 180 species of fungi are recognized as containing the tryptamine alkaloids psilocin and/or psilocybin. They are Agaricales and include the general Psilocybe (117 species), Gymnopilus (13 species), Panaeolus (7 species), Copelandia (12 species), Hypholoma (6 species), Pluteus (6 species), Inocybe (6 species), Conocybe (4 species), and Agrocybe, Galerina, and Mycena (one each). Concerning the Psilocybe, the majority of species are found in subtropical humid forests. Mexico has the highest number of neurotropic fungi, with 76 species (39% of all known), of which 44 belong to the Psilocybe genus.
Figure 1. The lifecycle of a mushroom. (Drawn by Kathleen Harrison and reprinted with permission from Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide)
Neurotropic mushrooms have been identified as far north as Alaska and Siberia in the northern hemisphere and as far south as Chile, Australia, and New Zealand in the southern hemisphere. They grow wild from California in the western United States of North America to China and Japan, and from sea level up to 4,000 m elevation (e.g., Psilocybe aztecorum in high mountains of Mexico). As Gartz (1996) has pointed out, “The mushrooms occur in abundance wherever mycologists abound” (Guzmán, Allen, and Gartz 2000).
Although neurotropic fungi occur worldwide, knowledge of their distribution is still poorly developed. When they were first rediscovered and documented (Heim 1956; Singer 1949), for a time it was believed that they occurred only in Mexico. Later, numerous species were found in North and South America, Europe, Siberia, southwestern Asia, and Japan (Singer and Smith 1958). Guzmán, in his 1983 monograph on the genus Psilocyb
e, showed distribution in all the continents. Recently, Allen and Merlin (1992) and Guzmán (1995) described new species of Psilocybe in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Spain, Thailand, and New Zealand. Gartz et al. (1995) and Stamets and Gartz (1995) reported new species in South Africa and the United States, respectively, confirming the broad distribution of these peculiar fungi. Guzmán, Allen, and Gartz (2000) have published a map of all the known species and their distribution throughout the world (fig. 2).
Figure 2. The worldwide distribution of psilocybian mushrooms. (Drawing courtesy of Gastón Guzmán, Instituto de Ecologia, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico)
Today we lack records of neurotropic fungi from several parts of the world, including southern Russia, Mongolia, Arabia, and Turkey, and many regions of Africa and the Middle East, but this is not to say they don’t exist. Magic mushrooms enjoy growing popularity amongst young people in Russia, Africa, and Israel, where Western influence brings knowledge of their existence. There are no presently known records of wild Psilocybe from Korea, Hawaii, Alaska, and Costa Rica. Even in the United States, mycological research is somewhat limited in several states, such as Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, where there are no records of neurotropic species of Psilocybe. Most recently, two new species have been documented in Georgia, Psilocybe weilii and Psilocybe atlantis, and a new species is reported from Czechoslovakia (Psilocybe arcana).
Sacred Mushroom of Visions Page 6
