Sacred Mushroom of Visions: Teonanácatl: A Sourcebook on the Psilocybin Mushroom

by Ralph Metzner Ph.D. (Editor)

Overview

Over 30 contributors share their expertise on the chemical, biological, cultural, psychological, and experiential dimensions of psilocybin mushrooms

• Describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users

• Provides firsthand accounts of the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison and Good Friday studies

Teonanácatl was the name given to the visionary mushrooms used in ancient Mesoamerican shamanic ceremonies, mushrooms that contain psilocybin, the psychoactive agent identified by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD. The rediscovery of these visionary mushrooms by the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson ignited a worldwide mushroom culture that inspired the consciousness revolution of the 1960s.

This book describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users—from artists to psychologists—and the healing visionary inspiration they received. It provides firsthand accounts of studies performed in the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison study and the Good Friday study. It describes how the use of the psilocybe mushroom spread from the mountains of Mexico into North America, Asia, and Europe by seekers of consciousness-expanding experiences. It also details how psilocybin has been used since the 1960s in psychotherapy, prisoner rehabilitation, the enhancement of creativity, and the induction of mystical experiences and is being studied as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594770449
Publisher:	Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Publication date:	07/25/2005
Edition description:	New Edition of Teonan�catl
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ralph Metzner (1936–2019) obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University, where he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert on psychedelic research. He was Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and president and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation. Dr. Metzner is the author of numerous books, including Overtones and Undercurrents, Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone, and Green Psychology.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
Visionary Mushroom of the Americas
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.

Maria Sabina related that she discovered the magical effects of the mushrooms when as a 7- or 8-year-old child playing in the woods with her sister, she ate some and found herself in a realm with lots of “children” (los niños), who talked to her and played with her with great good humor and laughter. She knew that her father and grandfather used these mushrooms in healing. Ever after, she referred to the mushroom spirits as “los niños” and as she grew up she learned to consult with them when she needed help in healing. They might tell her about certain herbs at a particular place that she should find and apply to the patient. She became known as a gifted curandera, and devoted herself fully to her vocation—except during her two marriages, when she was raising her children.

When I became a widow for the second time, I gave myself up for always to wisdom, in order to cure the sicknesses of people and to be myself always close to God. One should respect the little mushrooms. At bottom I feel they are my family. As if they were my parents, my book. In truth I was born with my destiny. To be a Wise Woman. To be daughter of los santos niños (the saint children). (Estrada 1981)

During her veladas, Maria Sabina would sing and chant for hours, with percussive clapping and slapping her hands against her body, praying for the sick person, calling to the holy little ones, los santos niños. She would invoke the names of Christian saints and also the spirits of her native land, like the Lord of the Mountain and spirits of nature. Her words were mostly Mazatec, but sometimes included unknown words or repeated syllables, a kind of spirit language similar to that found among shamans around the world.

Her chanted statements would have the form of a first person declaration: “I am ... woman, says” at the end. The syllable t’so, “says,” is a kind of impersonal affirmation commonly found in trance mediums that indicate that it is not she, the personality that is saying these things, it is the mushrooms. Here are a few samples of her lines that give a sense of the awe and mystery that emanated from this tiny, humble woman, transformed into a powerful healer-shaman during her mushroom trance:

I am a woman who waits, says
I am a daylight woman, says
I am a Moon woman, says
I am a Morning Star woman, says
I am a God Star woman says...
I am the doctor woman, says
I am the herb woman, says...
I am a lord eagle woman, says
Our woman who flies, says...
Our woman who looks inside of things, says
You are the saint, says
You are the saintess, says...
I am a woman wise in medicine, says
Whirling woman of colors, says
Woman of the sea, says...

In one particularly powerful vision that Maria had when she was trying to heal her sister, who was very ill, she met beings she called “the Principal Ones, who inspired me with respect . . . of whom my ancestors spoke . . . I knew it was a revelation the saint children were giving me. I understood that the mushrooms were speaking to me. On the Principal Ones a book appeared, an open book that kept on growing until it was the size of a person. It was a white book, so white it was resplendent. One of the Principal Ones spoke to me and said, ‘Maria Sabina, this is the Book of Wisdom. It is the Book of Language. Everything that is written in it is for you. The Book is yours, take it so that you can work.’ . . . At that moment, I began to speak. Then I realized that I was reading the Sacred Book of Language. The Book of the Principal Ones. . . . And it’s because the mushrooms are saints; they give wisdom.”

She realized too that this was a divine or spiritual wisdom book that she was seeing and reading. In her personality she was a peasant woman who never learned to read. In her essence she was a spiritual giant, a sabia, a wise woman: “I am lord eagle woman, says...” After that vision and transmission of spiritual healing, she no longer saw the book “because I already had its contents in my memory.” Her reputation as a healer grew and people came to her from far away with difficult problems, including possession by bad spirits.

R. Gordon Wasson brought back specimens of the mushrooms that Maria Sabina and other healers used and worked with the great French mycologist Roger Heim to identify them, name them, and publish the results of their findings in the mycology literature. Wasson also contacted Albert Hofmann, who identified the psychoactive principles in the visionary Mexican mushrooms as psilocin and psilocybin.

In 1962 Albert Hofmann and his wife accompanied Wasson and some other friends on a journey to Mexico to investigate the hallucinogenic plant now known as Salvia divinorum. As part of this journey they also went to Huatla de Jimenez, where they met with Maria Sabina. Hofmann provided her with pills that contained the synthetic psilocybin, asking for her evaluation. She agreed to conduct a session with the synthetic tablets. At the end of the ceremony, Hofmann reported:

As we took leave of Maria Sabina and her clan at the crack of dawn, the curandera said that the pills had the same power as the mushrooms, that there was no difference. This was a confirmation from the most competent authority that the synthetic psilocybin is identical with the natural product.

Maria Sabina also remarked that with the help of the tablets she would now be able to conduct mushroom healings even during the seasons when they normally don’t grow.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Visionary Mushrooms of the Americas
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.

1. Ethnomycology and Distribution of the Psilocybian Mushrooms
John W. Allen and James Arthur

2. Global Ecologies, World Distribution, and Relative Potency of Psilocybin Mushrooms
Paul Stamets

3. The “Wondrous Mushroom” Legacy of R. Gordon Wasson
Thomas Riedlinger

4. Biochemistry and Neuropharmacology of Psilocybin Mushrooms
David E. Presti, Ph.D., and David E. Nichols, Ph.D.

5. A History of the Use of Psilocybin in Psychotherapy
Torsten Passie, M.D.

6. Prisoner Behavior Change and Experimental Mysticism: Two Classic Studies from the Harvard Psilocybin Project
Diane Conn Darling, Rick Doblin, and Ralph Metzner

7. A Note on Current Psilocybin Research Projects
Rick Doblin, Ph.D.

8. The Initiation of the “High Priest”
Timothy Leary

9. Initial Experiences from the Harvard Psilocybin Project
Ralph Metzner

Experiential Teachings of the Mushroom Spirits

The Mushroom Beings Would Help Us Return to Our True Nature
Leila Castle

The Land of Eternal Waiting—Report of a Mushroom Experience with Maria Sabina
Frederick Swain

A Mazatec Indian Curandero’s Healing Practice Using Psychoactive Mushrooms
Bret Blosser

I Was Awed by the Mysterious Precision and Generosity of the Mushroom Spirits
Raoul Adamson

I Was Being Told to Paint with the Blood of the Heart
Kate S.

I Was Having a Conversation with the Sun
Evan Psilo

Shadow, Be My Friend
Ganesha

Where Ancient Spirits Dwell and the Air Hums with Magic and Mystery
Cat L.

My Heart Was the Doorway to Greater Vision and Awareness
Abraham L.

It Was the Divine Play of Hide and Seek
Jason Serle

The Power of the Heart in the Face of Darkness
Mindfire

Encounter and Metamorphosis with the Sirenian
Leopold

My Role, However Humble, Was Necessary and Cosmically Inspired
Phil O. Cybe

I Felt the Vitality of What It Was Like to Be Primitive
Thirdpalissy

I Saw My Entire Worldview and Value System Realign
David S.

Pondering the Separation between What I Experience and What Actually Is
Mark Bryan

I Remember What It Was Like before I Had This Face
Jack Silver

We Are All Actors and Directors in a Giant Cosmic Drama
Mark A. Schroll, Ph.D.

The Little Beings Tell Me That Laughing Is Also Holy
Karin Riese

Mushroom Magic in the Lightning Field
Martin Goodman

Biographical Information

What People are Saying About This

"A compilation of scientific information, historical lore, and experiential reports about the magical psilocybe mushrooms. . . . It is sure to be treasured for years to come."

"An outstanding comprehensive gathering of vital information from the psychedelic world."

". . . this book is a must-have for entheogen and mushroom lovers alike."

"One gets the impression when finishing the Sacred Mushroom of Visions that the many dimensions of psilocybin offer humanity a truly wonderful gift; for personal experience, for scientific research, and as a light through which the environment discourse of the modern age can be shone. If you have an interest, indeed a belief, in entheogenic, empathogenic, (as many of the narratives elude to) shamanism, or simply mycology, then this book is a must for your shelf."

Editorial Reviews

"An outstanding comprehensive gathering of vital information from the psychedelic world."

author of The Secret Chief and From Thanatos to Er Myron Stolaroff

". . . this book is a must-have for entheogen and mushroom lovers alike."

Vol 6 Issue 07 Heads

"A compilation of scientific information, historical lore, and experiential reports about the magical psilocybe mushrooms. . . . It is sure to be treasured for years to come."

Andrew Weil

"One gets the impression when finishing the Sacred Mushroom of Visions that the many dimensions of psilocybin offer humanity a truly wonderful gift; for personal experience, for scientific research, and as a light through which the environment discourse of the modern age can be shone. If you have an interest, indeed a belief, in entheogenic, empathogenic, (as many of the narratives elude to) shamanism, or simply mycology, then this book is a must for your shelf."

Psychedelic Press

"One gets the impression when finishing the Sacred Mushroom of Visions that the many dimensions of psilocybin offer humanity a truly wonderful gift; for personal experience, for scientific research, and as a light through which the environment discourse of the modern age can be shone. If you have an interest, indeed a belief, in entheogenic, empathogenic, (as many of the narratives elude to) shamanism, or simply mycology, then this book is a must for your shelf."

". . . this book is a must-have for entheogen and mushroom lovers alike."

"A compilation of scientific information, historical lore, and experiential reports about the magical psilocybe mushrooms. . . . It is sure to be treasured for years to come."

"An outstanding comprehensive gathering of vital information from the psychedelic world."

From the Publisher

"An outstanding comprehensive gathering of vital information from the psychedelic world."

Myron Stolaroff

". . . this book is a must-have for entheogen and mushroom lovers alike."

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