Sacred Mushroom of Visions

by Ralph Metzner

  The late Frederick Swain was, at the time of writing, an American Vedantist monk and student of Gyatri Devi. He also collaborated on the Harvard Psilocybin Project. This report is excerpted from Psychedelic Review, no. 1, 1963. Reprinted with permission.

  A MAZATEC INDIAN CURANDERO’S HEALING PRACTICE USING PSYCHOACTIVE MUSHROOMS

  BRET BLOSSER

  An anthropologist reflects on his experience participating in three mushroom healing ceremonies with the Mazatecs of Tenango and on the future of entheogen-based healing among Mexico’s indigenous people.

  Tenango is a region of rugged, steep limestone hills and valleys in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The vegetation is mostly evergreen tropical forest, coffee, or milpa agriculture. The Mazatecs of Tenango are in contact with mainstream Mexico through coffee commerce and a good road with bus connections to Puebla and Mexico City.

  The curandero (healer), whom I refer to here as R, is about fifty years old, monolingual in Mazateca, soft-spoken, and solid. He is a respected member of the local community. R and his sons C (about twenty-eight) and P (about twenty-three) are primarily corn, beans, and coffee farmers. C is also the local medic, who refers patients who need more advanced attention to the hospital or to his father, depending on the nature of the disease. Both sons have lived outside of the Sierra and are considered cosmopolitan Mazatecs. They are married, have young children, and live adjacent to R and his wife, L. Both sons seem dedicated to learning mushroom healing. Their wives are also involved.

  These people befriended me in 1985, when I was hiking alone in the high Tenango backcountry looking for vertical caves. The Sierra Mazateca contains world-class vertical cave systems. R then agreed to introduce me to his methods of healing involving psychoactive plants. He uses several: piziete: San Pedro cactus; a tall, pink or white blossoming tobacco grown near the house; Hojas de la Pastora (Salvia divinorum) grown away from trails in remote coffee plantations; and three species of wild mushrooms. R conducted two ceremonies during which I consumed the raw leaves of S. divinorum. The leaves quickly moved me somewhere beyond my body, companionship, and the ordinary dimensions. R’s sons emphasized that the mushrooms were slower and better for learning.

  In 1988, I visited during the rainy season, when mushrooms are available. I stayed for ten days and participated in three ceremonies. Two were specifically for me and one was for a patient. The format of these ceremonies varied somewhat. The two performed for me centered on introducing me to the format and technique of mushroom healing. I also learned about using San Pedro and about singing/praying.

  FIRST MUSHROOM HEALING CEREMONY

  At about 8 p.m., C says, “Listen, he has started.” I hurry over to R’s house with my flashlight and copal incense. I open the door carefully. The room is brightly lit by a bare bulb. R sits by an altar table, chanting. P indicates a chair facing the altar by a long table against the far wall. The chant ends.

  I look around and smile at the patient and family. The patient, Lazaro, is on a chair further back. His wife and child are on a petate, a woven mat. L sits on the bed by R, who is next to Lazaro. P’s wife, A, is in the back on a petate with the two kids. They talk and we wait until about 9 p.m.

  R gives me a double handful of pajaritos. “There are some little derrumbes in there, too,” says P. R gives everyone an amount, quite a bit to the patient. Later A tells me she ate twenty and her two kids (about four and five years old) each had two, their first.

  R has a small handful of derrumbes, including some pretty big ones. They are gray-capped with whitish-gray stems stained a black-blue. I set the handful he gave me on the table and begin munching, chewing well. R and others make “yee-ouch!” sounds and swing their heads, remarking on the acrid taste.

  We sit and wait again. There is a tiny crucifix on the wall and a candle stub on the crossbeam behind it. There are no flowers, but San Pedro is on the altar. Copal smokes on coals in a potshard on the floor. The lights have been turned off and a faint light shows above a wall and under the door.

  R begins with, “In el Nombre, en el Padre, en el Hijo, en el Spiritu Santo,” and some lines about the trinity and so on. Then he chant-sings. Everyone starts chanting, singing, talking at their own paces, some in musical relation to R. L, in particular is complementing his lines with echoing higher notes and phrases, particularly on a closing refrain.

  R brings the singing-talking to a halt. His flashlight goes on. Speaking through P, R has me orient my chair as the others are, to the altar “where the sun will rise.” R talks for awhile with L and others, then begins another set. We all join in. I am feeling cold and wishing I’d brought my jacket.

  Then comes a cramp or ache in my shoulders, arms, and legs. It is blocked, lost energy, and I realize that I must face this, not try to transcend or avoid it. I try cramping down harder in each area, which gives me a wonderful relaxation-release with some psychic optics results. Nice. It feels correct to take it on. I try moving the afflicted areas one by one, singing with my arms billowing as wings. I try massage, especially of quadriceps and belly. (My belly has become the object of attention of the whole extended family during the last couple of days, due to my constipation, which now, of course, has taken on its somatic-psychic dimensions. Rather humbling. I go to study shamanism and end up getting treated for clogged guts.) Aside from the frustration and discomfort of this physical preoccupation, it does feel like I am facing an aspect of myself that is a problem and potential opening. At one point in the session I feel content, coming to terms. Sometimes I get release into vision and energy.

  After a set or two, R asks if I want San Pedro. Yes. He gets up in the dark and walks toward me. I hold out my hands and receive some San Pedro. The changing of wads and the spitting on the dirt floor give me something to do to get me through some weird stretches.

  R belts out strong songs, which become more intricate and interwoven as the night progresses. Everyone else is chanting and singing. Sometimes R signals an end to a set, or sometimes Lazaro’s chatter increases in volume and we halt to give him the floor. He jabbers urgently and eventually R interjects a comment or two, then starts up another set. Twice, toward the end, he has me sing-pray in Spanish. I sort of falter, though I have plenty of inspiration when I am singing anonymously in English. I do not want to take time away from the patient, so I keep it short. The next morning I was told that energetic, continuous songprayer is the mark of doing well. When songs are short, cut off, it indicates the work of brujos (dark sorcerers) to shut off your visions.

  Between late sets, R seems to be counseling Lazaro. P explains that he was telling him that a curandero whom he had been treated by earlier was actually making him sick!

  Finally, around 3 or 4 a.m., the lights go on and we sit around talking, relaxed and happy. Late in the morning we all have chicken caldo prepared by the patient’s wife. P tells me that this is Lazaro’s second session and he will return for more sessions until he is well.

  SECOND MUSHROOM HEALING CEREMONY

  We begin at 8 p.m. in R’s room. P sets petates with blankets on the floor in back and plays with his little son. His daughter curls up on the bed. The kids laugh and smile a lot and we all admire them.

  At about 9 p.m., R sets a chair in front of the altar table where four piles of pajaritos sit. He dedicates them chanting, “En el Nombre, etc.” We sit and they talk for awhile longer. R hands me a double handful, perhaps a bit less this time. We all begin munching. R finds them gritty and begins dipping them in water. We have a great laugh about our teeth getting black as we chew the mushrooms.

  We sit more quietly. It rains. I collect my intentions, feeling my way into it. All day I have been visualizing a flower in my afflicted areas. My imagination has been lucid due to after effects from last night’s session. To avoid my multifarious changing impulses, I decide to set a few intentions as I go along and stick with them. I opt for a strategy of clear, sustained attention to the sound and happenings in 3-D space, rather than going for the dream visions
that come easily, but sort of carry me away. So, my intention is self-possession and sobriety. This turns out well; I am self-possessed the whole time, objective about the mushroom state. I try not to be bothered by any aspect. I minimize thought and attend to clarity and sustained attention.

  R turns the lights out. After awhile, P asks if I “tienes.” Yes.

  R begins the introductory chant, “En el Nombre . . . ” saints’ names, and more. R takes San Pedro on a banana leaf back to his seat. After awhile, he begins to sing the same song that starts each session. It has a churchy, hymnlike sound. Another song goes by and then L and P begin their own chant-prayer-songs.

  I rev up. I find that singing in English goes well. Mostly I use simple phrases with variations and play with tone, pitch, speed, isolating a word or two of the phrases, like, “Let the energy go, let it jump, let it twist, let it flow.” I try to tie my rhythm and pace into R’s, complementing his singing. “Let my feet flower, let my legs flower . . . ” Sometimes I sing choir style high notes from the chest, strong and loud. Sometimes I push forward energetically, urgently.

  Rain showers pulse through, pounding harder and harder on the tin roof. We all sing-pray loudly up into that intensity. Sometimes I just talk into the mushroom night: “Don’t leave me here, don’t let me be stupid, take me on, take me over . . . ” R leads on with a driving, pulsing, intricate style, but it seems he has less force and variation of style than last night.

  When he stops, we all do. Perhaps there is a cue in Mazatec or perhaps they listen for his ending. In the pausas he talks quietly with the others. He calls out to ask how A is. She does not talk or sing in the song sets but expresses more softly. P lets out intense bursts of fast, earnest, forceful words but never sings. L mostly echoes on the refrain but sometimes embellishes and sings a phrase or so of her own in her beautiful voice. We do several sets.

  I never break into vision or into the intense “drenched in a psychic rain” feeling of the previous night, but I feel strong and clear. I am asked a couple of times how I feel and reply, “Strong and clear,” or some such. I wonder if my sober approach has cut the vision. I note that I did not intend to be high. Now I sing, “I intend to be very, very high.”

  R gets up and lights a candle. He talks seriously between sets. He perceives the attack of bad people, which has the effect of putting a stop to vision and one feels one cannot sing more. These bad people are envious. They believe that I am bringing a lot of money to the family or that I am getting gold out of caves for them. C says they consciously send mal aire (bad air, also referred to as viento, wind).

  I feel like the session could end now. I have not got much inspiration. It is about 12:30. R sings more sets and I get inspired and do some good singing and work. P tells me it is time for me to say or sing what I ask, in Spanish. I sing for a strong life, a path, health for me and friends, and to learn to cure. A clumsy song. Eventually P asks if I am down (bajar). Yes. It is 1:30.

  R and P talk for a long time, apparently expressing frustration over P’s efforts or career. It seems sessions serve the purpose of requesting direct aid from God for life situations, for asking for general well-being, and for discussing life situations.

  REFLECTIONS

  The candle is important. It must be pure beeswax, not the kind sold by vendors in the market. R makes them from beeswax from a local woman. The candle is lit for a bit at the start, then put out with a flower, not by blowing, when the effects begin. It is lit during the ceremony if there is a problem. It gives strength. The next morning I was to limpiar (clean) myself by wiping the candle through the space just off my body. This felt good.

  There is a strong prohibition against sex after the session. Four days is the period most often mentioned, but C said five is better and a week is better still. I was told that if I do a ceremony back home, I must be sure that my companions follow the same prohibition, or it will come back on me. Before the first mushroom session, I was asked if I had broken this prohibition after the previous ceremony, a Hojas de la Pastora ceremony more than a year before. If I had, R would have given me a small amount of mushrooms because I could go crazy.

  There is also a prohibition against offering anyone anything to eat or drink during the four days, cuidar los dias, to guard the days.

  The mushrooms are generally picked for these ceremonies by widows or very trusted people. They must not have any sexual contact from the time they first spot the mushrooms, which might be just sprouting and not yet ready, until they deliver them.

  C and P explained R’s role: “He is like a guide leading us up a mountain. He gets to a certain point and waits for us there. We have to reach him, then he leads on to the next point.” I did experience his songs as bursts of energy that boosted me on.

  About the curandero’s visions: “It is like a television. At first it is dark or white. Then you see something. What is that? A person appears. Christo. The person explains it to you (the problem and the cure).”

  “The Gods are like judges. God is the ultimate, but there is a defender. The curandero speaks to the authorities on behalf of the patient. He has very good contact with them. He is like a government lawyer. He knows all the articles and laws very well because he has to touch on so many points.”

  Healing ceremonies that involved the use of mushrooms, morning glory seeds, Salvia divinorum, or peyote were a basic part of Mesoamerican health systems before the Spanish invasion. Plant-based healing methods were generally tolerated by colonists and colonial authorities, but entheogens (certain psychoactive plants or other substances) were identified as means for invocation and communication with the devil, and as evidence of pacts with the devil.

  The church mounted a sustained and thorough campaign to eradicate entheogen-based healing, divination, and religion. They succeeded in eliminating entheogens from local religious practices everywhere except for among a few peyote-using northern groups. The use of entheogens in healing and divination in Mesoamerica has survived only in the highlands of the states of Oaxaca and adjacent Puebla among Mazatecs, Zapotecs, Cuicatecs, Chinantecs, Mixes, and Otomis. This cultural continuity reflects centuries of deliberate and considered resistance to repression by the colonial church and legal system, which was firmly established even in those rugged sierras. Today, at least in the Mazatec area with which I am familiar, patients and their families have recourse to both western and ancestral Mazatec ways of healing.

  Unfortunately, there are forces in modern Mexico that threaten the continued viability of entheogen-based healing among Mexico’s indigenous people. These healing methods are not directly attacked as illegal, although most of the entheogens themselves are illegal in Mexico. However, as a result the career-path of the traditional healer is no longer attractive to young people. Formerly, plant healing was one of the few bodies of specialized knowledge that a young indigenous person might study, master, and use to pursue a profession that was both prestigious and economically rewarding. Healers were formerly held in such high esteem in the Sierra Mazateca that, within living memory, all top political leaders were also mushroom shamans. Traditional healers are still accorded great respect, play key roles in their communities, and benefit economically from their practices. Though some young people do undergo training and enter the profession, fewer are doing so because other career paths offer equal or greater prestige and greater economic reward.

  In the anthropological literature, it is often reported that healing expertise is transmitted from grandparents to grandchildren. This makes particular sense in the case of mushroom-based healing. The healer’s extended family gathers for the ceremonies of the mushroom season. The transformations of the mushroom reach the child prenatally when its mother attends a ceremony. The mushrooms also sweep through a child too young to partake, but old enough to attend. Around the age of five a child may be given a mushroom to eat. Then it is allowed to dream in its mother’s arms as songs go on through the night. To kids who grow up attending these ceremonies, mushroom space
s are a familiar part of their neighborhood. The children in healers’ families thus begin their training before they are born and continue training as they participate in family life. Ideally, some of a healer’s children and grandchildren undergo training with their grandparent in healing ceremonies and other special ceremonies.

  Mazatecs from families other than the cuandero’s are very positive about mushrooms but will only experience them a few times during their lives, mainly when they have recourse to a mushroom ceremony because of a health crisis.

  Bret Blosser is a graduate student in anthropology at Tulane University studying with Huichol Indians in Jalisco, Mexico. He teaches a field program in Native American studies and environmental issues in the American Southwest for the Sierra Institute of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  I WAS AWED BY THE MYSTERIOUS PRECISION AND GENEROSITY OF THE MUSHROOM SPIRITS

  RAOUL ADAMSON

  A psychologist in his fifties experiences psychological insights, manic overexuberance, magic energy chants, materialization phenomena, and painful precognition with humble gratitude.

  On the way to the cabin in the woods by the river, we stopped at the house of the grower. He gave us handfuls of moist, fleshy fungi, colored in delicate strands of ivory, silver-gray, and violet. They had the texture and sensuous feel of flesh. Taking them into my mouth tasted like doing oral sex on engorged genitalia. “Flesh of the gods,” indeed, and goddesses too! But they are also los niños, the “little princes” that Maria Sabina sings of in her veladas, her all-night healing ceremonies.