Mushrooms
Intermediate History

During the period of Spanish rule that followed the conquering of the Aztecs, mushroom usage was persecuted, to the point it started disappearing from view, and also documented record for some 400 years.  It therefore remains unclear how – or indeed whether – mushrooming practices continued in an unbroken fashion to modern times.  Nevertheless, the discovery in the early and mid- twentieth century that indigenous Mexicans were still using mushrooms in syncretic religious observances, was to have a dramatic impact on Western culture. 

The early twentieth century, was a time when some Western researchers were attentively trying to unravel asto just what paths the major religions of the world had been shaped along, and undertook research to see what role, if any, sacred mushrooms and plants had played in it. It was a kind of equivalent race for the moon of its time, with many well known and respected gentleman of the time, all desperately trying to outdo one another to uncover the unequivocal proof as to the ancient origins of religion, and whether drug sacraments played an important part in their development.  Out of the flurry of investigation and discovery that ensued from this, it entually fell to a party of linguists and anthropologists, led by Jean Bassett Johnson (1916-1944) on an expedition to Mexico, who eventually became the first Westerners to witness an indigenous mushroom curing ceremony. When word got out that these practices still existed it caused a lot of excitement in certain quarters as it was a vindication of many of the researchers own philisophical beliefs. To them it was the equivalent missing link, and provided proof in support of the theories that remnants from thes ancient mushroom religions were still in evidence today. It was a great boost, and gave many researches a shot in the arm to carry on with renewed vigour.  

Perhaps the most notable name to arise from this period was a respectable gentleman called Robert Gordon Wasson (1898-1986), who had been a vice-president from 1943 till his retirement with JP Morgan & Co.  Remarkably, over these years, this man had developed a passionate and consuming interest in all things to do with the role of mushrooms and fungi in human cultures.  Once he had heard that the mythological teaonanacatl of the Aztecs was not only a mushroom but that it was still in use, it was inevitable that he would make the journey to Mexico to investigate the matter for himself.

Wasson soon thereafter began to accumulate a vast amount of evidence, from philology, etymology, ethnography, folklore and fairy tale, to explain the provenance of their different reactions to all things fungal, much of it making up the bedrock of later published works such as the two volume opus, Mushrooms, Russia and History (1957) amongst others. 

In 1952, alerted by letters as to the existence of the Mesoamercian mushrooms stones, and to the fact that teonanacatl had been a mushroom Wasson, was put in touch with Eunice Pike, a missionary resident in Huautla.  Pike, exasperated by her inability to sway the locals from their heathern practices, was able to confirm that mushrooms were indeed used in curing rituals.  She added incredulously that the Mazatecs believed the mushroom to have a ‘personality’, which spoke through the curanderos, the healers, divining the cause or cure of illness and revealing the location of lost or stolen property.  This was exactly what Gordon Wasson wanted to hear and, wasting no time, began to organise an expedition.  In the late summer of 1953 (mushrooms season), he made what was to be the first of ten successive trips to Mexico on the trail of psychoactive mushrooms. 

The fist trip resulted in Wasson successfully witnessing a velada, Wasson’s term for an all night mushroom vigil.  Wasson was at last able to witness, and make detailed records of, an authentic ceremony. 

The American’s second trip to Mexico, in 1954, - to the mountainous region of north-east Oaxaca – generated further ethnographic data on indigenous use of mushrooms but it is on the American’s third trip, returning to Huautla with society photographer Allan Richardson, he had his now infamous meeting  with the curandera Maria Sabina (1894-1985): not only was she a locally respected and charismatic healer but, most importantly of all, she agreed to let both Wasson and Richardson eat the ‘sacred’ mushrooms.  Thus, they became the first Westerners ever to intentionally do so.

Shortly after eating six pairs of the grubby, acrid mushrooms, Wasson felt as if his soul had been scooped out of his body.  Visions of geometric patterns gave way to ‘architectural structures, with colonnades and architraves, patios of regal splendor, the stone-work all in brilliant colours, gold and onyx and ebony, all most harmoniously and ingeniously contrived, in richest magnificence extending  beyond the reach of sight…’  He feat himself a ‘disembodied eye’ floating above strange, new landscapes, and then, somehow, a witness to the Platonic realm of forms.  For a moment he fealt as if he understood the true meaning of the word ‘ecstasy’.

Wasson published many articles and works in between his journey’s to Mexico.  These did much to propel his own standing amongst his peers , but also helped to provide insights into the mysterious world of the magic mushroom to a curious and interested West.

Wasson also enlisted the help of two notable scientists, Roger Heim (1900-1979) and Albert Hofmann.    Heim set about the task of identifying and describing the mushroom species employed: several species, primarily of the genus Psilocybe (but also Stropharia and Conocybe), were used according to seasonal availability.  Sufficient samples of the mushrooms were cultivated back in the laboratory for Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist responsible for the discovery of LSD, to isolate the psychoactive alkaloids: in 1958, while working for the Basle-based Sandoz pharmaceutical company, he successfully synthesized psilocybin and psilocin, which he named after the mushrooms’ Latin epithet.  Sandoz later patented it’s newly created chemical compounds and put it on the market under the brand name Indocybin.  (Wasson appears to have been rewarded for his part in it’s discovery with a directorship of one of Sandoz’s American subsidiaries).

Though Wasson had little time for hippy culture, hated being treated as a psychedelic guru, and expressed nothing but contempt for Timothy Leary (the Harvard psychologist who, in the sixties, became notorious for his profligate use and advocacy of LSD), his 1957 Life article ‘Seeking the Magic Mushroom’ played a significant role in kick-starting the whole psychedelic revolution.  Many of the key figures of that movement, including Leary, experimented with psychedelics as a direct result. 

Soon afterwards floods of American hippies streamed to Oaxaca, seeking out Maria Sabina, and the magic mushrooms.  It took on a status of some Grande Tour, becoming fashionable with various rock stars, Pete Townsend, John Lennon and Bob Dylan amongst others who went making the pilgrimage.  Here was now a case of two cultures meeting with very different sets of attitudes and ideals: Westerners viewed magic mushrooms as a drug to be simply bought and enjoyed, without needing the traditional spiritual side of it.  The inevitable culture clash that ensued was bound to lead to problems.  We must also remember that the oppressed rural Indian underclass existed on the margins of a modern metropolitan industrial nation, which, during  the 1960s and 1970s, developed its own urban counterculture, La Onda, modeled upon the American hippy movement.  Many of the hippies who went to Huautla were rather Mexican jipitecas, and as culturally removed from the Mazatec society as their American counterparts.  The Mexican authorities, troubled by the effects of mushroom tourism, intervened in 1967 by gaoling or deporting the mushroom seekers, and criminalizing the use of mushrooms a few years later.  In this complex scenario, then, the impact of internal socio-political factors upon the indigenes was as important as the arrival of American and European outsiders.

However, the cat was now out of the bag, and magic mushrooms and their unique yet not yet understood properties had caught the interest of not just the hippy community, but the scientific one as well.  In an almost utopian spirit, it was hoped that these psychedelics would usher in a new era of understanding of the mind – as an important a tool for psychology as the telescope and microscope had been for astronomy and biology.  They would strip bare and magnify the contents of the unconscious; they would allow psychiatrists to find the chemical basis of mental illness; and, at the very least, they would allow scientists to empathise with the world of the schizophrenic by enabling them to temporarily inhabit it themselves.  The discovery of psilocybin mushrooms provided yet another window into this mysterious domain of the mind, and the way was now clear for scientists of any discipline to step through this particular looking glass themselves.  (See our research section). 

© Shroom Liberation Front 2007

In researching this subject we took great reference from the findings of 'Shroom - a cultural history by Andy Letcher. We whole-heartedly recommend that you read this book for yourself, as it provides the most comprehensive and exhaustive evaluation of the history of the magic mushroom that has probably ever been done, and is a fabulous resource for anyone interested in the cultural origins of magic mushrooms and their affect on culture throughout history.