Sacred Mushroom of Visions

by Ralph Metzner

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  John W. Allen is an amateur ethnomycologist who has studied, photographed, and lectured on entheogenic fungi for more than twenty-five years. He is the author of many articles on field identification and nontraditional uses of psychoactive fungi around the world as well as books and CDs of mushroom data and mushroom-inspired art. See http://www.mushroomjohn.com and http://www.releasethereality.com/mjart.html. James Arthur is an ethnomycologist, archaeoastronomer, mythologist, theologian, and shaman. He is the author of two books, Mushrooms and Mankind and the forthcoming Mushrooms, Ayahuasca and DMT. See: http://www.jamesarthur.yage.net.

  2

  GLOBAL ECOLOGIES, WORLD DISTRIBUTION, AND RELATIVE POTENCY OF PSILOCYBIN MUSHROOMS

  PAUL STAMETS

  Psilocybin mushrooms grow throughout most of the world and can be found in both fields and forests. Psilocybin mushrooms are saprophytes—they grow on dead plant material. Before the impact of human civilization, psilocybin species were largely restricted to narrowly defined ecosystems. Many thrive after ecological catastrophes. Landslides, floods, hurricanes, and volcanoes all create supportive habitats for many Psilocybe mushrooms. This peculiar affection for disturbed habitats enables them to travel, following streams of debris.

  As humans destroy woodlands and engage in artificial construction, Psilocybes and other litter saprophytes proliferate, feeding on the surrounding plus of wood chips and refuse, especially in interface environments where humans, forests and grasslands struggle to coexist. Since human development seems inextricably associated with ecological disturbance, Psilocybe mushrooms and civilization continue to coevolve. Today, many Psilocybes are concentrated wherever people congregate—around parks, housing developments, schools, churches, golf courses, industrial complexes, nurseries, gardens, freeway rest areas, and government buildings—including county and state courthouses and jails! This successful adaptation is a comparatively recent phenomenon; in the not-too-distant past, these species were competing in a different environmental arena. Many of the Psilocybes are now evolving in a decidedly advantageous direction, parallel to human development. The way these mushrooms have evolved in close association with humans suggests an innate intelligence on the part of the mushrooms.

  At the end of the last major ice age, about twelve thousand years ago, melting glaciers etched exposed lands with rivers. As climates shifted, new ecosystems appeared and continued to be transformed. Through millennia, either from natural or from man-made causes, jungles evolved into savannas and in many cases became deserts. Coincident with the retreat of the glaciers, the human species became less nomadic and more dependent upon planted crops. Many believe this marked the beginning of the path leading to civilization as we know it today.

  Northern Algeria is one example. Today, the region is in stark contrast to its water-rich past. Once filled with rivers and lined with riparian woodlands, the Tassili plateau has now been engulfed by the expanding Sahara Desert.

  In the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of Paleolithic drawings were discovered in this region, painted on the walls of caves and on rock faces. Ethno-archaeologist Henri Lhote and photographer Kazuyoshi Nomachi were the first to systematically catalogue the thousands of cave art drawings. While searching for water, they accidentally encountered “a figure wearing a mask in a deep recess that may have been a sanctuary.” The original artist lived seven thousand years ago, at a time when glaciers were rapidly receding. The glacial waters fueled the life cycles of many mushroom species.

  Time has erased much of the original detail, which showed many mushrooms outlining the shamanic figure. Fortunately, early photographs clearly communicate the intent of the artist: that mushrooms were revered in a magico-spiritual context and were a powerful influence on the artist’s vision of the world. The beelike face may relate to the preserving of the mushrooms in honey. For the Paleolithic human, the effects from ingesting psilocybin mushrooms would have precipitated one of the most phenomenal events they would ever experience: a cascade of consciousness, the awakening of the spiritual and intellectual self, the introduction to complex fractal mathematics and to other dimensions. Such experiences continue to inspire artists, computer geniuses, and some of the greatest thinkers in history.

  One Psilocybe species is documented from northern Algeria: P. mairei, resembling the potent Psilocybe cyanescens. This group thrives in riparian habitats—open areas with sandy soils seasonally littered with wood debris. P. mairei is relatively rare, having been collected only a few times this century. Do these few collections represent the
end of a bygone era when mushrooms were more prevalent? Perhaps P. mairei is the same species that inspired the artist who drew the mushroom figures in the Tassili cave.

  Other reports of presumably psilocybin varieties from northern Africa occasionally surface. Reports of a tamu (mushroom of knowledge) from the Ivory Coast are teasing but not sufficiently documented. The Italian researcher Giorgio Samorini noted that there are mushroom-based churches in southern Nigeria. Over the years, I have heard similar reports of Christian churches from Mexico, Brazil, and Russia that feature crosses whose centerpieces contain mysterious, encapsulate dried mushrooms of unknown identities and origins.

  With the domestication of cattle, the dung-dwelling Psilocybes were brought within a defined geographical sphere of daily human experience. Pasture species such as Psilocybe semilanceata, the liberty cap, proliferated. Some researchers have suggested that Psilocybe cubensis (golden top of the Old World) was imported into the Western Hemisphere with the Spanish missionaries and slave traders via the cattle they brought with them from islands off West Africa. P. cubensis soon became the most prominent dung mushroom throughout the tropics. Today, several hundred years later, P. cubensis can be collected from the dung of cattle in subtropical pastures around the globe.

  Non-native mushrooms have also spread with the importation of exotic plants. Many species in the Pacific Northwest were undoubtedly brought from Europe, probably in the soil around the bases of exotic trees and ornamentals such as rhododendrons, roses, and azaleas. Psilocybe cyanescens, the wavy capped Psilocybe, is a good example. Every fall, when there are few visitors, I go searching for Psilocybes at rhododendron or rose gardens. Rarely am I disappointed.

  Today, P. cubensis is the most commonly cultivated psilocybin mushroom in the world. Underground centers of cultivation, where large crops are grown, function as invisible spore geysers, gushing germ plasm into their immediate surroundings. Uplifted into the airstreams, spore clouds have spread across the continents. With the emission of so much spore mass, the range of distribution is likely to continue to expand. It seems that new strains could evolve in our lifetime, with tolerances for cooler and/or drier environments. And, with modern means of travel, spores can be carried thousands of miles in the course of a day—they can simply hitchhike upon unknowing airline passengers. I know of some people who have publicly opposed the spread of information about Psilocybe, but have unwittingly spread spores through casual contact with it.