04/05/2022
Psilocybe mexicana
Common names: Teonanacatl, The divine mushroom, Flesh of the gods
Teotl (god) nanacatl (fungus)
P.mexicana has a long history of ritual use, dating back at least 2000 years. The mushroom was used in religious ceremonies in Mexico before the Spanish colonial period. Use of the mushroom was strongly forbidden and suppressed by the Spanish Inquisition.
R.Gordon Wasson, an amateur mycologist and banker wrote an article describing his experience with the mushrooms in Mexico, under the guidance of Maria Sabina, a Mazatec curandera. Wasson sent Samples to mycologist Roger Heim who described the mushroom scientifically and cultivated them in a laboratory the following year.
The cultivated samples were then sent to chemist Albert Hoffman. Hoffman, unsure if the lab cultivated samples would retain their alkaloids he consumed 32 specimens. The following is his account of the experience.
“about 1 1⁄2 hours after ingestion of the mushrooms, the rush of interior pictures, mostly changing in shape and colour, reached such an alarming degree that I feared I would be torn into this whirlpool of form and colour and would dissolve. After about six hours, the dream came to an end. Subjectively, I had no idea how long this condition had lasted. I felt my return to everyday reality to be a happy return from a strange, fantastic but quite really experienced world into an old and familiar home.”
After the experience Hoffman isolated psilocybin and psilocin from the samples for the first time in history, 20 years after first synthesizing L*D.
Psilocybe mexicana produces sclerotia or “Truffles” that act as survival structures for the mycelium during times of adverse conditions, and act as a nutrient bank for the organism. The sclerotia allow the fungi to survive dehydration and wait for favourable environments to re-animate.