In this experiment I ate 32 dried specimens of Psilocybe mexicana, which together weighed 2.4 g. This amount corresponded to an average dose, according to the reports of Wasson and Heim, as it is used by the curanderos. The mushrooms displayed a strong psychic effect, as the following extract from the report on that experiment shows...
The sacred mushrooms which María Sabina used during an all night velada (vigil) are usually harvested in the evening when the moon is full, although sometimes they are gathered in the day1. Mushrooms gathered in the moonlight may sometimes be harvested by a young virgin. After the mushrooms are collected they must be taken to a church. There they are placed on an alter to be blessed before the holy spirit. If the virgin who picked the mushrooms comes upon the carcass of a dead animal, one which had died along the path she follows, she must then discard the mushrooms and find a new path back to the field where the mushrooms grew. There she must gather up more fresh mushrooms and then find a new trail leading back to the church, hoping and praying that she will not come across any more dead animals. Once the mushrooms have been consecrated on the alter they are ready for use.
The velada would begin in total darkness so the visions would be bright and clear. After the mushrooms were adorned and blessed by María Sabina, she would slowly pass each one through the swirling smoke of burning Copal incense. The mushrooms are always consumed in pairs of two, signifying one male and one female. Each participant in a ceremony consumes five to six pairs; though more will be given if requested. Because the spiritual energies of the sabia would always dominate the velada, María Sabina would normally consume twice as many mushrooms as her voyagers, sometimes up to twelve pairs.
Collectively we seemed to remember that in the Oaxacan mushroom rituals described by
Gordon Wasson, in Life magazine of all places, mushrooms were always eaten in pairs,
with several pairs consumed. We determined to eat six mushrooms each that same
evening. -terence McKenna ; true hallucinations
Swayambhu said:Thanks for the replies.
It's hard to calculate with any kind of accuracy, but the dosage, from what I've read, does not seem terribly high, which is unusual for the traditional application of psychoactives, which tend toward the heavy dosages, it seems.
Psilocybe cubensis psilocybin 0.63% psilocin 0.60% baeocystin 0.025% Gartz 1994; Stijve and de Meijer 1993
Erowid Psilocybin Mushroom Vault : Info on Comparitive psilocybe mushroom potencies
Comparison of psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin contents of 12 psilocybe mushroom varieties.erowid.org
In Oaxaca and other Mesoamerican regions where mushrooms are used today in all-night séances and healing rituals called veladas (Letcher 2007 ), the fungi are collected in the forest on the night of a new moon by a young girl, and are only used ritually, never sold in the marketplace (Hofmann et al 1992 ). Before the ceremony, the mushrooms are briefly displayed on an altar in church, hinting at the syncretic nature of the Mazatec belief system, which incorporates both Christian and indigenous concepts of the sacred. Among the Mije, dietary restrictions prohibit the consumption of certain foods such as poultry, pork, eggs, and vegetables before a mushroom ceremony; participants must also abstain from drinking alcohol and taking other medicines or drugs for the three days before a ceremony, and do not participate in farming activities during this time (Ratsch 1998 ). On the morning of the ceremony, participants consume a light breakfast of maize; the morning after they must eat a quantity of chili peppers for purification, and must not eat meat or take alcohol for a month afterward (Ratsch 1998 ).
Traditionally, mushrooms are administered in pairs according to the age and gender of participants in the velada: on average, children would receive three pairs, women seven, and men nine pairs. A prayer is offered to the mushrooms, and candles lit before they are ingested with water (Ratsch 1998 ). R. Gordon Wasson, the first westerner to intentionally ingest psilocybin mushrooms, reported that he ingested six pairs of what were probably Psilocybe mexicana in a velada held by Maria Sabina (Letcher 2007 ). Indigenous medicine people often have a preferred species of mushroom they use in religious ceremonies, and will not ingest other species; mixing species of mushrooms is also not traditionally done, as it can lead to an unpleasant experience (Ratsch 1998 ).
Psilocybe mexicana - Teonanacatl - Entheology.com
Of all the Aztec entheogens, Psilocybe mexicana seems to have been subject to the most widespread and varied use. Psilocybe mexicana was known to the Aztecs as teonancatl, meaning “god’s flesh”, which underscores the mushroom’s use in religious ceremonies to bring about visions and noesis, or...entheology.com
It was from this species [psilocybin mexicana] that Dr. Albert Hofmann, working with laboratory-grown specimens, first isolated and named the active compounds psilocybin and psilocin. Hoping to determine whether artificially cultivated mushrooms retained their psychoactive properties, Dr. Hofmann consumed thirty-two specimens. His account of the experience, published in The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens, follows:
"As I was perfectly aware that my knowledge of the Mexican origin of the mushrooms would lead me to imagine only Mexican scenery, I tried deliberately to look on my environment as I knew it normally. But all voluntary efforts to look at things in their customary forms and colours proved ineffective. Whether my eyes were closed or open, I saw only Mexican motifs and colours. When the doctor supervising the experiment bent over me to check my blood pressure, he was transformed into an Aztec priest, and I would not have been astonished if he had drawn an obsidian knife. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, it amused me to see how the Germanic face of my colleague had acquired a purely Indian expression. At the peak of the intoxication, about 1½ 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."
Regarding native use of psilocybian mushrooms, Wasson reports that usually each adult Indian is given four, five, six or thirteen pairs. Thirteen pairs is common because thirteen is considered a lucky number. With the wide variations in both mushroom size and potency, such rough guidelines undoubtedly result in enormous differences in the amount of psilocybin and psilocin consumed.
At about 10:30 o'clock Eva Mendez cleaned the mushrooms of their grosser dirt and then, with prayers, passed them through the smoke of resin incense burning on the floor. As she did this, she sat on a mat before a simple altar table adorned with Christian images, the Child Jesus and the Baptism in Jordan. Then she apportioned the mushrooms among the adults. She reserved 13 pair for herself and 13 pair for her daughter. (The mushrooms are always counted in pairs.) I was on tiptoe of expectancy: she turned and gave me six pair in a cup. I could not have been happier: this was the culmination of years of pursuit. She gave Allan six pair too. His emotions were mixed. His wife Mary had consented to his coming only after she had drawn from him a promise not to let those nasty toadstools cross his lips. Now he faced a behaviour dilemma. He took the mushrooms, and I heard him mutter in anguish, "My God, what will Mary say!" Then we ate our mushrooms, chewing them slowly, over the course of a half hour. They tasted bad--acrid with a rancid odor that repeated itself. Allan and I were determined to resist any effects they might have, to observe better the events of the night. But our resolve soon melted before the onslaught of the mushrooms.
It was from this species [psilocybin mexicana] that Dr. Albert Hofmann, working with laboratory-grown specimens, first isolated and named the active compounds psilocybin and psilocin. Hoping to determine whether artificially cultivated mushrooms retained their psychoactive properties, Dr. Hofmann consumed thirty-two specimens. His account of the experience, published in The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens, follows:
"As I was perfectly aware that my knowledge of the Mexican origin of the mushrooms would lead me to imagine only Mexican scenery, I tried deliberately to look on my environment as I knew it normally. But all voluntary efforts to look at things in their customary forms and colours proved ineffective. Whether my eyes were closed or open, I saw only Mexican motifs and colours. When the doctor supervising the experiment bent over me to check my blood pressure, he was transformed into an Aztec priest, and I would not have been astonished if he had drawn an obsidian knife. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, it amused me to see how the Germanic face of my colleague had acquired a purely Indian expression. At the peak of the intoxication, about 1½ 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."
PSILOCYBE CUBENSIS GROWS NATURALLY in connection with cattle, particularly hot-weather-loving Brahmas— and especially in dung a few days old. It may be because of this that the Indians consider it inferior, only using it as a last resort. More likely, it has lower status because it wasn't indigenous to Mexico. It arrived with Spanish importation of Brahma cattle from the Philippine Islands, and, thus, doesn't haw ancient associations in indigenous shamanistic rites. -Stafford; psychedelics encyclopedia
Psilocybe mexicana is a psychedelic mushroom. Its first known usage was by the natives of Central America and North America over 2,000 years ago. Known to the Aztecs as teonanácatl from Nahuatl: teotl "god" + nanácatl "mushroom." This species was categorized by French botanist Roger Heim.[1]
It was from this species that Dr. Albert Hofmann, working with specimens grown in his Sandoz laboratory, first isolated and named the active entheogenic compounds psilocybin and psilocin. Uncertain of whether or not the artificially cultivated mushrooms would retain their natural psychoactive properties, Dr. Hofmann consumed 32 specimens. -Wikipedia
Psilocybe caerulescens, also known as Landslide mushroom ( "derrumbe" in Spanish ), is a psilocybin mushroom having psilocybin and psilocin as main active compounds. Along with Psilocybe mexicana and Psilocybe aztecorum, it is one of the mushrooms likely to have been used by the Aztecs and is currently used by Mazatec shamans for its entheogenic properties. -Wikipedia
It [P. hoogshagenii] was one of several species described and illustrated in the popular American weekly magazine Life ( "Seeking the Magic Mushroom" ), in which R. Gordon Wasson recounted the psychedelic visions that he experienced during the divinatory rituals of the Mixtec people, thereby introducing psilocybin mushrooms to Western popular culture;[3] it was however, mislabeled as Psilocybe zaptecorum.[4] Similarly, Psilocybe specialist Gastón Guzmán suggests that P. zapotecorum, as described by Rolf Singer in 1958,[5] is misidentified as it agrees well with the type of P. hoogshagenii.
...
The mushroom [P. hoogshagenii] is known locally by several common names. In Spanish, it is called los niños or los Chamaquitos ( "the little boys" ), in Mazatec as pajaritos de monte ( " little birds of the woods" ), in Nahuatl as cihuatsinsintle or teotlaquilnanácatl ( "divine mushroom that describes or paints" ), and in Mixe as Atka:t ( "judge" ) or na.shwi.ñ mush ( "mushrooms of the earth" ).[7]
-Wikipedia
Psilocybe aztecorum
The species was first mentioned by French mycologist Roger Heim in 1956 based on material collected by American ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson in Paso de Cortés, on the slopes of Popocatépetl mountain in Mexico. Heim originally named the species as a variety of Psilocybe mexicana; limited to dried mushroom material for analysis, he only described the spores, which he explained were "relatively longer and narrower than that of Psilocybe mexicana".[2] A year later, Heim renamed the fungus Psilocybe aztecorum and officially described it, in addition to several other Mexican Psilocybe taxa.[3] Some of these mushrooms, including P. aztecorum, were illustrated in the popular American weekly magazine Life ( "Seeking the Magic Mushroom" ), in which Wasson recounted the psychedelic visions that he experienced during the divinatory rituals of the Mazatec people, thereby introducing psilocybin mushrooms to Western popular culture.
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The species was first reported by French mycologist Roger Heim in 1956 as a variety of Psilocybe mexicana before he officially described it under its current name a year later. Named for its association with the Nahua people also called Aztecs, P. aztecorum may have been one of the sacred mushroom species, or teonanácatl (A Nahuatl word translated variously as "sacred mushroom" or "flesh of the gods" ), reported in the codices of 16th-century Spanish chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún. The mushrooms are still used for spiritual ceremonies by Nahua Indians in the Popocatépetl region, although this traditional usage is waning. -Wikipedia
Many will contest that most Panaeolus strains of mushrooms will generally exceed the level of potency found in Ps. Mexicana mushrooms. SWIM disagrees. Might SWIM also add that he means Ps. Mexicana (generally the strain of Jalisco, Mexico origin) fruit bodies, and NOT sclerotia (a.k.a. philosopher's stones; they are basically mushroom potatoes). Fuck that shit! With all due respect to mycology, as well as the sacred Mother Earth, sclerotia has given Ps. Mexicana a bad name. ... Some enjoy sclerotia (a.k.a. "philosopher's stones", although SWIM has come to the conclusion that the only thing philosophical about sclerotia is that they suck in comparison to fruit bodies).
It is actually P. mexicana which is the preferred species of the Mazatecs. They have always avoided any mushroom which grew in manure and were eating mushrooms before the Spanish ever brought cattle to the new world. They parajitos, as they are referred to (little birds) are similar in the high to liberty cabs and are very calming shrooms with intense visuals similar to P. semilanceata (liberty caps.). The shamans, brujos, curanceras, saios, etc and medicine men in general always use P. mexicana, P. caerulescens and P. hoogshagenii as their three preferred species. The manure shrooms are not preferred only by modern meztizos who like to sell the P. cubensis to tourists or use them for a tourist ceremonial trip.
I guess the point is being able to get what you need from the experience you're given.
Your feeling of being in connection with the ancients with the zapotecorum is very much the same feeling I get with the Huatla [Chicon Nindo] mexicana. The species that have a history of long traditional usage have a character about them that is quite distinct from cubensis. The sense of serenity and peace is one of those qualities I value most highly. It is important to honor our feelings, intuition, and observations about these experiences and not be too ready to dismiss them as based on possible conditioning or presuppositions. It is our imaginative capacity that opens up perception of the landscape of the soul. I have absolutely no doubt that I can easily distinguish the effects of cubes from the mexicana in a blind trial. Having done cubensis hundreds of times, perhaps a thousand times (I've lost count) over the past 38 years, their character is very well known to me. The mexicana are of another character altogether, very easily distinguished. Certain perceptions have the ring of truth, which open the doorway to deeper seeing and initiatory encounters that are inherently transformative. With the mexicana, doors of perception are opened that cubensis never touched. I am eager to explore the other species that bring the tradition to us.
I have eaten a variety of different types of mushrooms, several strains of cubensis, zapos, various mexis, pans, tamps etc. The mexis featured in that photo--the chicon nindo strain, are very potent. They are upwards of three-times the potency of an average cubensis. A half gram is moderate, a gram is relatively strong. 4grams would be obscenely intense, the equivallent of 12-grams of potent cubensis. After 20 years investigating and exploring mushrooms, as well as living amongst the Mazatec, it is my personal opinion that the mexicana is the best quality of the traditional corpus of mushrooms.