It is likely that people have ingested magic mushrooms for millennia. Ancient drawings and artifacts depicting mushroom use have been found across the globe. Shamanic traditions that incorporate psilocybin mushrooms continue to be practiced by Indigenous peoples in the Americas, despite efforts by European colonizers to stamp it out. Starting in the 1950s, the use of magic mushrooms was reintroduced to the West. In the 1970s, techniques for growing psilocybin mushrooms became more widely known, and psychedelic fungi became more widely cultivated and consumed.
Psilocybin Mushroom History
Things to Know
- Cave art suggests that psilocybin mushrooms have been used for thousands of years
- The West was introduced to psilocybin mushrooms by Maria Sabina, a Mazatec curandera or traditional healer
- Johns Hopkins kicked off the psychedelic research era in 2006 by investigating the impact of psilocybin on the mystical experience
- Compass Pathways and Usona Institute have received breakthrough therapy status for psilocybin-assisted therapies sparking major policy changes
9,000-Year-Old Cave Drawings in Africa
Cave drawings of shamans and mushrooms in Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria that are estimated to be 9,000 years old have led anthropologists and historians to speculate that some early humans ate mushrooms.
Ethnobotanist and ethnomycologist Giorgio Samorini1 was the first to correlate ancient cave drawings to humans’ long, intertwined relationship with mushrooms2 and psychoactive substances. Terence McKenna, the author, ethnobotanist and psychedelic pundit, refurbished this theory a couple years later in his book, Food of the Gods, where it became known as the Stoned Ape Theory.3
Ancient Mushroom Use in Latin America
More recent archeological evidence and written historical sources support assertions that the Maya,4 Aztec,5 and Mazatec6 people of Mexico operated in sacred relationship with psilocybin mushrooms. Small mushroom7 sculptures and mushroom pottery objects dating back to 500 BC and AD 900 were discovered in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. These findings suggest the existence of a mushroom culture long before European settlement and signify the profound and ancient connection these indigenous societies have with psilocybin mushrooms.
How Mushrooms Came to the West
R. Gordon Wasson, a PR executive at JP Morgan, is credited for introducing psilocybin mushrooms to the West. In 1955, after multiple trips to Mexico in search of a visionary mushroom he read about in accounts of Aztec ceremonies8 by Spanish missionaries, he visited Huatla de Jiménez, a remote Oaxacan village.There he was introduced to Maria Sabina, a Mazatec woman and respected curandera (medicine woman). Sabina facilitated a medicine ceremony for Wasson, who in 1957 wrote about his experience for Life magazine, revealing to contemporary people in the West the existence of “magic mushrooms.”
Sabina suffered grave consequences after showing Wasson one of the most intimate aspects of her culture. As spiritual seekers descended upon Huatla de Jiménez in increasing numbers during the 1960s and 1970s, the Mazatec community accused her of attracting chaos and desecrating their mushroom ritual. Sabina’s house was subsequently burned down, her son was murdered,9 and the federal police of Mexico frequently raided her home, accusing her of selling drugs to foreigners. Sabina spent her last years alone, and died in 1985 at roughly 101 years old.
Psilocybin Mushrooms in the Home
In 1970, psilocybin was categorized as a Schedule 1 substance and criminalized as part of the war on drugs. In 1976, brothers Terence McKenna10 and Dennis McKenna published a book under a pseudonym called Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide that significantly increased access to psilocybin mushrooms. It was the first guide to teach how to grow magic mushrooms at home. This important moment in mushroom history lay the groundwork for the more advanced mushroom cultivation practices that have since been developed.
The Era of Psychedelic Research
While psychedelic research has its roots in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the 2000’s welcomed a revitalization of psychedelic research. The wave began in 2006, with the publication of a landmark study11 led by Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University about how psilocybin can lead to profound mystical experiences.
The data showed that psilocybin produced mystical experiences during the sessions, with 67 percent of the participants rating the experience as “either the single most meaningful experience of his or her life or among the top five most meaningful experiences of his or her life.” Additionally, survey results showed that participants who received psilocybin also “attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior.”
In a 2011 pilot study12 researchers used 0.2 mg to treat anxiety related to life-threatening cancer in 12 participants with a diagnosis of acute stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety disorder due to cancer, or adjustment disorder with anxiety. The results of the study found notable improvements in mood and an overall alleviation of anxiety and depression at the six-month follow-up.
In 2017, Robin Carhart-Harris’ and a team at Imperial College London produced a revolutionary fMRI study of people actively on psilocybin. The data extracted set forth every other neuroimaging psychedelic study and it has since become the most cited psychedelic study in science.13
In 2018, Compass Pathways14 received breakthrough therapy status from the FDA based on their study on the impact of psilocybin on Treatment Resistant Depression. Compass also patented a form of crystallized synthetic psilocybin. The following year, the Usona Institute15 was granted the same status for its research into the use of psilocybin as a potential treatment for Major Depression.
The results of these studies have led to the subsequent movement to change local and state-level policies that govern the legality of psilocybin.
