Spiritual Fungi Used Historically in Religious Practices

Since at least 5,000 B.C., people have used “spiritual mushrooms” in their religious rituals. The San Peoples of Tassili in southeast Algeria left behind cave paintings illustrating dancing, masked medicine men with mushrooms in their hands. It’s believed the mushrooms were of the consciousness-altering variety.

The area of Tassili is today an arid and desolate mountainous region of the Sahara desert but in the day of the cave painters, it had a habitable savannah-like climate with cattle, crocodiles and other large animals. Cultural ties of the San Peoples are evidenced across the Sahara region from Chad to Egypt, and perhaps in extension all the way to Greece.

Jumping forward 3,400 years in time to Greece, 1,600 B.C., we find the Eleusinian Mysteries. Continuous for an astounding two millennia, the Eleusinian Mystery initiation was the most important spiritual ceremony of ancient Europe. Scholars believe the Mysteries involved use of consciousness-altering mushrooms. With well-known participants like Plato and Aristotle, its influence on western civilization cannot be denied.

Later Vikings are known to have consumed limited amounts of the today much feared poisonous species Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). Ironically, they appear to have used it to overcome fear through religious rituals in which they danced and ate mushrooms before fearlessly going into battle.

Granted, most of us would not consider this form of warrior spirituality in any way “admirable.” But it was part of the Viking religious practices, whatever our opinion of them may be. Meanwhile, to the east, Siberian shamans also used Fly agaric as a spiritual tool to communicate with their deities.

In a controversial book titled Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality by R. Gordon Wasser, Fly agaric is even attributed as the source of the Vedic juice called “soma” – a liquid described to have been used in ancient Hindu religious practices, and said to be bestow divine qualities to the soul of the consumer, even immortality.

(Note: Make no mistake, Fly agaric – Amanita muscaria – is poisonous and can also be confused with other deadly species. Consumption for any reason is completely discouraged.)

Across the Atlantic Ocean, spiritual rituals using consciousness-altering mushrooms were first recorded in the Mixtec Codex, which is of uncertain age from between the 13th and 15th centuries. In ancient engravings, the Mixtec gods are often depicted with mushrooms in their hands.

In spite of the fact that the Mixtec people of central Mexico self-professed to use spiritual mushrooms in their religious ceremonies, western scholars still questioned it in a characteristically condescending fashion.

William Safford, an American botanist, believed the supposed mushrooms were actually nothing but peyote buttons. Other western scholars, meanwhile, insisted that the “spiritual mushrooms” of the Mixtec people really were mind-altering mushrooms.

Raging on until the early 1930′s, this debate finally got settled when amateur anthropologist Robert Weitlaner got invited to view a Mixtec religious ritual including the mind-expanding mushrooms.

Then in 1953, mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and his wife Valentina Povlovna as the first westerners became honored participants in a mushroom ceremony – Velada – performed by shaman Don Aurelio. Wasson published his account of the Velada in Life Magazine, 1957. His article initiated the broader public awareness of spiritual mushrooms.

Although the (in-)famous genus of mind-altering mushrooms, Psilocybe, contains 60 species, most do not contain the psychoactive compounds psilocin (fresh mushrooms) and psilocybin (fresh and dried). The Mixtecs are believed to originally have used Psilocybin mexicana and Psilocybin caerulescens. The today more common Psilocybin cubensis is believed to have arrived from Europe.

Today, use of consciousness-altering mushrooms is illegal in most countries of the world due to the fact that they are often misused as recreational drugs. Only in The Netherlands were fresh (not dried) Psilocybe mushrooms until recently legal.

But after a 17-year old French tourist killed herself by jumping off a bridge after consuming Psilocybe mushrooms, the Dutch parliament voted to ban all sale of so called “magic mushrooms.” The ban took effect on December 1, 2008. The use of consciousness-altering mushrooms in spiritual practices is now officially history.