psychologytoday | About sixty years ago the scientist C.H.W. Horne wrote that "it is
remarkable that one characteristic which seems to separate man from the
allegedly lower animals is a recurring desire to escape from reality."
He was referring to the widespread use of hallucinogens
by young people during the middle of the last century. What is even
more remarkable, in my opinion, is how long humans have been documenting
their interest in the use of hallucinogens. Cultural and religious
rituals developed around the use of these hallucinogens probably as
soon as they were discovered in the various plants and fungi that were
present in their environment.
Imagine that the year is 2000 BCE (before the current era) and as you
are foraging for something safe to eat you discover a small yellowish
mushroom that would one day be called Psilocybe mexicana. We
now realize that this mushroom contains a hallucinogen called
psilocybin. Indeed, psilocybin would ultimately be discovered in at
least 75 different species of mushrooms, so there was a good chance that
someone, one day would have stumbled onto a mushroom containing it.
Regardless, today is your lucky day - you discovered it first.
After
eating this mushroom you rather quickly developed a stomach ache that
lasted for about thirty minutes and then something truly mystical
started to happen. You began seeing things that you had never seen
before, images that could only be due to the intervention of a god (or
goddess, depending upon your local traditions). You began sharing your
collection of mushrooms with others and everyone marveled at their
amazing and quite mystical visual experiences. Ultimately, the use of
psilocybin-containing mushrooms in the Central and South America became
an integral part of many religious rituals. The mushroom was worshiped
and was given the name Teonanacatl, which is thought to mean
"god's flesh" or "sacred mushroom." Using this sacred mushroom became
an important milestone in every person's religious path to the spirit
world. Mushroom art and sculptures as well as numerous images on
stones clearly designate the important role played by this mushroom in
the local religions. When the Spaniard Francisco Hernandez invaded in
the 1570s he documented the use of these mushrooms and eventually added
them to their own list of medicinal herbs.
The stone carvings
provide some insight into the effects that the mushrooms produced in the
minds of these primitive peoples. Some of these carvings are shown
above. You can imagine the challenge facing someone 4000 years ago who
wished to represent to others what they experienced while visiting their
mushroom-inspired spirit world. What if your only tools for
representing this experience were stones and bones?
Even today
people find it difficult to describe their personal experiences with
hallucinogens. Consider this interesting question: Did hallucinogens
produced qualitatively different experiences in people living 4000 years
ago as compared to people alive today? In 1928 the scientist Heinrich
Kluver attempted to answer this question. He interviewed people who had
used hallucinogenic mushrooms as well as many other naturally-occurring
hallucinogens. He discovered that these drugs
all produce a surprisingly similar consensus of experiences that
consistently included seeing geometric images that were accompanied by
highly altered emotions. Although the specific colors reported varied,
participants consistently reported brightness intensification. Moreover,
the apparent size and design of the geometrical shapes, as well as
their degree of symmetry, were strikingly similar from participant to
participant.
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