|
Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent. Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study's lead author. But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't." Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said. Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression. It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said. Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online July 11, 2006 by the journal Psychopharmacology. Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said. Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too. Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark. "I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done" to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.
Psilocybe Mushrooms
Few plants of the gods have ever been held to greater reverence than the sacred mushrooms of Mexico. So hallowed were these fungi that the Aztecs called them Teonanacatl ("divine flesh")and used them only in the most holy of their ceremonies. Even though, as fungi, mushrooms do not blossom, the Aztecs referred to them as "flowers," and the Indians who still usethem in religious rituals have endearing terms for them, suchas "little flowers". When the Spaniards conquered Mexico, they were aghast to find the natives worshipping their deities with the help of inebriating plants: Peyotl, Ololiuqui, Teonanacatl. The mushrooms were especially offensive to the European ecclesiastical authorities, and they set out to eradicate their use in religious practices. "They possessed another method of intoxication, which sharpened their cruelty; for if they used certain small toadstools; they would see a thousand visions and especially snakes. They called these mushrooms in their language teunamacatlth, which means 'God flesh' or of the Devil whom they worshipped, and in this wise with that bitter victual by their cruel God were they houseled."
For four centuries nothing was known of the Mexican mushroom cults. The Church fathers had done such a successful job of driving the cult into hiding that no psychic investigator, no anthropologist or botanist had ever uncovered the religious use of these mushrooms. In the late 1930s the first mushrooms of the many sacred Mexican mushrooms were collected and associated with a modern mushroom ceremony. These various mushrooms are now known to be employed in divinatory and religious rites among the Mazatec, Chinantec,Chatino, Mije, Zapotec, and Mixtec of Oaxaca; the Nahua and possibly the Otomi of Puebla; and the Tarascana of Michoacan. The present center of intensive sacred mushroom use is among the Mazatec. The modern mushroom ceremony is an all-night seance which may include a curing ritual. Chants accompany the main part of the ceremony. The intoxication is characterized by fantastically colored visions in kaleidoscopic movement and sometimes by auditory hallucinations, and the partaker loses himself in unearthly flights of fancy. The mushrooms are collected in the forests at the time ofthe new moon by a virgin girl, then taken to a church to remain briefly on the altar. They are never sold in the marketplace.The Mazatec call the mushrooms Nti-si-tho, in which "Nti"is a particle of reverence and endearment; the rest of the name means "that which springs forth." A Mazatec explained this thought poetically: "The little mushroom comes of itself,no one knows whence, like the wind that comes we know not whence nor why."
The shaman chants for hours, with frequent clapping or percussive slaps on the thighs in rhythm with the chant. The first non-Indian psychic investigator to witness the Mazatec ceremony received six pairs of mushrooms in the ceremony and ate them. He experienced the sensation of his soul being removed from his body and floating into space. He saw "geometric patterns, angular, in richest colors, gold and onyx and ebony, extending beyond the reach ofsight, in vistas measureless to man. The architectural vision sseemed to be oriented, seemed to belong to the architecture described by the visionaries of the Bible." In the faint moonlight, "the bouquet on the table assumed the dimensions and shape of an imperial conveyance, a triumphant car, drawn by creatures known only to mythology.
The Sinu culture of Columbia (from 1200 to 1600) has left us with many enigmatic gold pectorals with mushroom-like representations.These imply the existence of a cult using these intoxicating fungi, species of which occur in the area. Many of these pectorals have wing-like structures, possibly signifying magic flight, a frequent characteristic of hallucinogenic intoxication.
|
Figure 1 Gold chestplates from Sinu culture