Various cultures throughout the ages have used psychedelic fungi for shamanistic and other reasons. Mesoamerican mushroom stones of the pre-classic Mayans representing deified mushrooms date back to approximately 5 hundred BC, while rock paintings in the Sahara of mushroom effigies date back to 7000 BC. Some students believe that Soma, the drink mentioned in Vedic literature, was derived from psychedelic mushrooms ( R. Gordon Wasson implies that this was amanita muscaria ), while Albert Hofmann and Carl Ruck say the Eleusinian puzzles used the psychedelic fungus ergot ( not precisely a mushroom ) in the Kykeon. Amanita muscaria is known to have been utilized in Siberian shamanism.
Psilocybin mushrooms were a respected tradition in local Central American cultures at the time of the european invasion and have been in continuous use up to the present. Named teonancatl ( flesh of the gods ) in Nahuatl, they might have been employed for healing, divination and for intercession with spirits. Since the start of the Latin American colonial age, their use has been concealed due to persecution by the Christian church, which branded all local non secular practices and particularly those employing entheogenic sacraments as pagan.
That Nordic Vikings may have used fly-agaric to supply their berserker rages was first recommended by the Swedish professor Samual dman in 1784. Dman based his concept on reports about the use of fly-agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no up to date sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. Today, it is often considered an urban legend or at best speculation that can't be proved.
According to the BBC, the first documented use of psychedelic mushrooms was in the Medical and Physical book : in 1799, a man who had been picking mushrooms for breakfast in Londons Green Park included them in his harvest, incidentally sending his entire family on a trip. The doctor who treated them later described the way the youngest child got attacked with fits of immoderate laughter, nor could the threats of his father or mum desist him.
In 1957, amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson released an article for Life magazine describing his involvement with psychedelic mushrooms while a guest in the rituals of the Mazatec shaman Maria Sabina in a mountain town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. His account caused a wave of experimentation with these mushrooms which resulted in their eventual classification in the U. S. as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act.
The introduction of westerners into the formerly secret rites was later rued by Maria Sabina, who declared that From the moment the foreigners arrived, the holy youngsters [a Mazatec euphemism for the mushrooms, which are otherwise not named directly] lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no cure for it.
