/tag/psilocybin

141

The ecstatic and orgiastic, visionary and boundary‑dissolving experiences, the central mysteries of the mushroom religion, were the very factors in the human situation acting to keep our ancestors human. The commonality of feeling generated by the mushroom held the community together. The divine, inspiring power of the mushroom spoke through the bards and singers. The indwelling spirit of the mushroom moved the hand that carved bone and painted stone. Such things were a commonplace of the Edenic world of the Goddess. Life was lived not as we have chosen to imagine it, on the edge of mute bestiality, but rather, close to a dimension of spontaneous magical and linguistic expression that now shines only briefly in each of us at the pinnacle of experimental intoxication but that then was the empowered and enveloping reality: the presence of the Great Goddess. History is the story of our unfocused agony over the loss of this perfect human world, and then of our forgetting it altogether, denying it and in so doing, denying a part of ourselves. It is a story of relationships, quasi‑symbiotic compacts, with plants that were made and broken. The consequence of not seeing ourselves as a part of the green engine of vegetable nature is the alienation and despair that surrounds us and threatens to make the future unbearable.

114

Wasson maintained a position of stern disapproval of hedonistic use of his beloved 'entheogens'‑a clumsy word freighted with theological baggage that he preferred to the common term 'psychedelic. ' Perhaps it was this attitude that caused Wasson to decide that his magnum opus, written in colloboration with the French mycologist Roger Heim, Les Champignons Hallucinogenes du Mexique, should not be made available in the 1960s in an English translation. There could have been a host of reasons, of course. The fact remains that Wasson's most important work is his only work not available in English.

48

The indole families of compounds that are strong visionary hallucinogens and also occur in plants are four in number: \r\n\r\n1. The LSD‑type compounds. Found in several related genera of morning glories and ergot, the LSD hallucinogens are rare in nature. That they are the best known of the hallucinogens is undoubtedly due to the fact that millions of doses of LSD were manufactured and sold during the 1960s. LSD is a psychedelic, but rather large doses are necessary to elicit the hallucinogenic paradise artificially, of vivid and utterly transmundane hallucinations, that is produced by DMT and psilocybin at quite traditional doses. Nevertheless, many researchers have stressed the importance of the non-hallucinogenic effects of LSD and other psychedelics. These other effects include a sense of mind expansion and increased speed of thought; the ability to understand and to relate to complex issues of behavior, life patterning, and complex, decision‑making networks of connective linkage. LSD continues to be manufactured and sold in larger amounts than any other hallucinogen. It has been shown to aid in psychotherapy and the treatment of chronic alcoholism: 'Wherever it has been tried, all over the world, it has proved to be an interesting treatment for a very old disease. No other drug so far has been able to match its record in salvaging tormented lives from the alcoholic scrap heap, directly, as a treatment, or indirectly, as a means of yielding valuable information.'' Yet, as a consequence of media hysteria its potential may never be known. \r\n\r\n2. The tryptamine hallucinogens, especially DMT, psilocin, and psilocybin. Tryptamine hallucinogens are found throughout the higher plant families, for example, in legumes, and psilocin and psilocybin occur in mushrooms. DMT also occurs endogenously in the human brain. For this reason, perhaps DMT should not be thought of as a drug at all, but DMT intoxication is the most profound and visually spectacular of the visionary hallucinogens, remarkable for its brevity, intensity, and nontoxicity. \r\n\r\n3. The beta ‑carbolines. Beta‑carbolines, such as harmine and harmaline, can be hallucinogenic at close to toxic levels. They are important for visionary shamanism because they can inhibit enzyme systems in the body that would otherwise depotentiate hallucinogens of the DMT type. Hence beta‑carbolines can be used in conjunction with DMT to prolong and intensify visual hallucinations. This combination is the basis of the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca or yage, in use in Amazonian South America. Beta‑carbolines are legal and until very recently were virtually unknown to the general public. \r\n\r\n4. The ibogaine family of substances. These substances occur in two related African and South American tree genera, Tabernanthe and Tabernamontana. Taber nanthe iboga is a small, yellow flowered bush which has a history of usage as a hallucinogen in tropical West Africa. Its active compounds bear a structural relationship to beta‑carbolines. Ibogaine is known more as a powerful aphrodisiac than as a hallucinogen. Nevertheless, in sufficient doses it is capable of inducing a powerful visionary and emotional experience.

44

...the presence of psilocybin in the hominid diet changed the parameters of the process of natural selection by changing the behavioral patterns upon which that selection was operating. Experimentation with many types of foods was causing a general increase in the numbers of random mutations being offered up to the process of natural selection, while the augmentation of visual acuity, language use, and ritual activity through the use of psilocybin represented new behaviors. One of these new behaviors, language use, previously only a marginally important trait, was suddenly very useful in the context of new hunting and gathering lifestyles. Hence psilocybin inclusion in the diet shifted the parameters of human behavior in favor of patterns of activity that promoted increased language; acquisition of language led to more vocabulary and an expanded memory capacity. The psilocybin‑using individuals evolved epigenetic rules or cultural forms that enabled them to survive and reproduce better than other individuals. Eventually the more successful epigenetically based styles of behavior spread through the populations along with the genes that reinforce them. In this fashion the population would evolve genetically and culturally.

4 quotes tagged 'psilocybin'