LSD - My Problem Child
Albert Hofmann
6. The Mexican Relatives of LSD
The Sacred Mushroom Teonanácatl
Late in 1956 a notice in the daily paper caught my interest.
Among some Indians in southern Mexico, American researchers had discovered
mushrooms that were eaten in religious ceremonies and that produced an inebriated
condition accompanied by hallucinations.
Since, outside of the mescaline cactus found also in Mexico,
no other drug was known at the time that, like LSD, produced hallucinations,
I would have liked to establish contact with these researchers, in order
to learn details about these hallucinogenic mushrooms. But there were no
names and addresses in the short newspaper article, so that it was impossible
to get further information. Nevertheless, the mysterious mushrooms, whose
chemical investigation would be a tempting problem, stayed in my thoughts
from then on.
As it later turned out, LSD was the reason that these mushrooms
found their way into my laboratory, with out my assistance, at the beginning
of the following year.
Through the mediation of Dr. Yves Dunant, at the time director
of the Paris branch of Sandoz, an inquiry came to the pharmaceutical research
management in Basel from Professor Roger Heim, director of the Laboratoire
de Cryptogamie of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, asking
whether we were interested in carrying out the chemical investigation of
the Mexican hallucinogenic mushrooms. With great joy I declared myself ready
to begin this work in my department, in the laboratories for natural product
research. That was to be my link to the exciting investigations of the Mexican
sacred mushrooms, which were already broadly advanced in the ethnomycological
and botanical aspects.
For a long time the existence of these magic mushrooms had
remained an enigma. The history of their rediscovery is presented at first
hand in the magnificent two-volume standard work of ethnomycology, Mushrooms,
Russia and History (Pantheon Books, New York, 1957), for the authors,
the American researchers Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and her husband, R. Gordon
Wasson, played a decisive role in this rediscovery. The following descriptions
of the fascinating history of these mushrooms are taken from the Wassons'
book.
The first written evidence of the use of inebriating mushrooms
on festival occasions, or in the course of religious ceremonies and magically
oriented healing practices, is found among the Spanish chroniclers and naturalists
of the sixteenth century, who entered the country soon after the conquest
of Mexico by Hernando Cortés. The most important of these witnesses is the
Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun, who mentions the magic mushrooms
and describes their effects and their use in several passages of his famous
historical work, Historia General de tas Cosas de Nueva Espana, written
between the years 1529 and 1590. Thus he describes, for example, how merchants
celebrated the return home from a successful business trip with a mushroom
party:
Coming at the very first, at the time of feasting, they ate
mushrooms when, as they said, it was the hour of the blowing of the flutes.
Not yet did they partake of food; they drank only chocolate during the
night. And they ate mushrooms with honey. When already the mushrooms were
taking effect, there was dancing, there was weeping.... Some saw in a
vision that they would die in war. Some saw in a vision that they would
be devoured by wild beasts.... Some saw in a vision that they would become
rich, wealthy. Some saw in a vision that they would buy slaves, would
become slave owners. Some saw in a vision that they would commit adultery
[and so] would have their heads bashed in, would be stoned to death....
Some saw in a vision that they would perish in the water. Some saw in
a vision that they would pass to tranquillity in death. Some saw in a
vision that they would fall from the housetop, tumble to their death.
. . . All such things they saw.... And when [the effects of] the mushroom
ceased, they conversed with one another, spoke of what they had seen in
the vision.
In a publication from the same period, Diego Duran, a Dominican
friar, reported that inebriating mushrooms were eaten at the great festivity
on the occasion of the accession to the throne of Moctezuma II, the famed
emperor of the Aztecs, in the year 1502. A passage in the seventeenth-century
chronicle of Don Jacinto de la Serna refers to the use of these mushrooms
in a religious framework:
And what happened was that there had come to [the village] an
Indian . . . and his name was Juan Chichiton . . . and he had brought
the red-colored mushrooms that are gathered in the uplands, and with them
he had committed a great idolatry.... In the house where everyone had
gathered on the occasion of a saint's feast . . . the teponastli
[an Aztec percussion instrument] was playing and singing was going on
the whole night through. After most of the night had passed, Juan Chichiton,
who was the priest for that solemn rite, to all of those present at the
fiesta gave the mushrooms to eat, after the manner of Communion, and gave
them pulque to drink. . . so that they all went out of their heads,
a shame it was to see.
In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, these mushrooms
were described as teo-nancatl, which can be translated as "sacred
mushroom."
There are indications that ceremonial use of such mushrooms
reaches far back into pre-Columbian times. So-called mushroom stones have
been found in El Salvador, Guatemala, and the contiguous mountainous districts
of Mexico. These are stone sculptures in the form of pileate mushroom, on
whose stem the face or the form of a god or an animal-like demon is carved.
Most are about 30 cm high. The oldest examples, according to archaeologists,
date back to before 500 B.C.
R. G. Wasson argues, quite convincingly, that there is a connection
between these mushroom stones and teonanácatl. If true, this means
that the mushroom cult, the magico-medicinal and religious-ceremonial use
of the magic mushrooms, is more than two thousand years old.
To the Christian missionaries, the inebriating, vision- and
hallucination-producing effects of these mushrooms seemed to be Devil's
work. They therefore tried, with all the means in their power, to extirpate
their use. But they succeeded only partially, for the Indians have continued
secretly down to our time to utilize the mushroom teonanácatl, which
was sacred to them.
Strange to say, the reports in the old chronicles about the
use of magic mushrooms remained unnoticed during the following centuries,
probably because they were considered products of the imagination of a superstitious
age.
All traces of the existence of "sacred mushrooms" were in
danger of becoming obliterated once and for all, when, in 1915, an American
botanist of repute, Dr. W. E. Safford, in an address before the Botanical
Society in Washington and in a scientific publication, advanced the thesis
that no such thing as magic mushrooms had ever existed at all: the Spanish
chroniclers had taken the mescaline cactus for a mushroom! Even if false,
this proposition of Safford's served nevertheless to direct the attention
of the scientific world to the riddle of the mysterious mushrooms.
It was the Mexican physician Dr. Blas Pablo Reko who first
openly disagreed with Safford's interpretation and who found evidence that
mushrooms were still employed in medicinal-religious ceremonies even in
our time, in remote districts of the southern mountains of Mexico. But not
until the years 19338 did the anthropologist Robert J. Weitlaner and Dr.
Richard Evans Schultes, a botanist from Harvard University, find actual
mushrooms in that region, which were used there for this ceremonial purpose;
and only in 1938 could a group of young American anthropologists, under
the direction of Jean Bassett Johnson, attend a secret nocturnal mushroom
ceremony for the first time. This was in Huautla de Jiménez, the capital
of the Mazatec country, in the State of Oaxaca. But these researchers were
only spectators, they were not permitted to partake of the mushrooms. Johnson
reported on the experience in a Swedish journal (Ethnological Studies
9, 1939).
Then exploration of the magic mushrooms was interrupted. World
War II broke out. Schultes, at the behest of the American government, had
to occupy himself with rubber production in the Amazon territory, and Johnson
was killed after the Allied landing in North Africa.
It was the American researchers, the married couple Dr. Valentina
Pavlovna Wasson and her husband, R. Gordon Wasson, who again took up the
problem from the ethnographic aspect. R. G. Wasson was a banker, vice-president
of the J. P. Morgan Co. in New York. His wife, who died in 1958, was a pediatrician.
The Wassons began their work in 1953, in the Mazatec village Huautla de
Jiménez, where fifteen years earlier J. B. Johnson and others had established
the continued existence of the ancient Indian mushroom cult. They received
especially valuable information from an American missionary who had been
active there for many years, Eunice V. Pike, member of the Wycliffe Bible
Translators. Thanks to her knowledge of the native language and her ministerial
association with the inhabitants, Pike had information about the significance
of the magic mushrooms that nobody else possessed. During several lengthy
sojourns in Huautla and environs, the Wassons were able to study the present
use of the mushrooms in detail and compare it with the descriptions in the
old chronicles. This showed that the belief in the "sacred mushrooms" was
still prevalent in that region. However, the Indians kept their beliefs
a secret from strangers. It took great tact and skill, therefore, to gain
the confidence of the indigenous population and to receive insight into
this secret domain.
In the modern form of the mushroom cult, the old religious
ideas and customs are mingled with Christian ideas and Christian terminology.
Thus the mushrooms are often spoken of as the blood of Christ, because they
will grow only where a drop of Christ's blood has fallen on the earth. According
to another notion, the mushrooms sprout where a drop of saliva from Christ's
mouth has moistened the ground, and it is therefore Jesus Christ himself
who speaks through the mushrooms.
The mushroom ceremony follows the form of a consultation.
The seeker of advice or a sick person or his or her family questions a "wise
man" or a "wise woman," a sabio or sabia, also named curandero
or curandera, in return for a modest payment. Curandero can
best be translated into English as "healing priest," for his function is
that of a physician as well as that of a priest, both being found only rarely
in these remote regions. In the Mazatec language the healing priest is called
co-ta-ci-ne, which means "one who knows." He eats the mushroom in
the framework of a ceremony that always takes place at night. The other
persons present at the ceremony may sometimes receive mushrooms as well,
yet a much greater dose always goes to the curandero. The performance
is executed with the accompaniment of prayers and entreaties, while the
mushrooms are incensed briefly over a basin, in which copal (an incense-like
resin) is burned. In complete darkness, at times by candlelight, while the
others present lie quietly on their straw mats, the curandero, kneeling
or sitting, prays and sings before a type of altar bearing a crucifix, an
image of a saint, or some other object of worship. Under the influence of
the sacred mushrooms, the curandero counsels in a visionary state,
in which even the inactive observers more or less participate. In the monotonous
song of the curandero, the mushroom teonanácatl gives its
answers to the questions posed. It says whether the diseased person will
live or die, which herbs will effect the cure; it reveals who has killed
a specific person, or who has stolen the horse; or it makes known how a
distant relative fares, and so forth.
The mushroom ceremony not only has the function of a consultation
of the type described, for the Indians it also has a meaning in many respects
similar to the Holy Communion for the believing Christian. From many utterances
of the natives it could be inferred that they believe that God has given
the Indians the sacred mushroom because they are poor and possess no doctors
and medicines; and also, because they cannot read, in particular the Bible,
God can therefore speak directly to them through the mushroom. The missionary
Eunice V. Pike even alluded to the difficulties that result from explaining
the Christian message, the written word, to a people who believe they possess
a means-the sacred mushrooms of course - to make God's will known to them
in a direct, clear manner: yes, the mushrooms permit them to see into heaven
and to establish communication with God himself.
The Indians' reverence for the sacred mushrooms is also evident
in their belief that they can be eaten only by a "clean" person. "Clean"
here means ceremonially clean, and that term among other things includes
sexual abstinence at least four days before and after ingestion of the mushrooms.
Certain rules must also be observed in gathering the mushrooms. With non-observance
of these commandments, the mushrooms can make the person who eats it insane,
or can even kill.
The Wassons had undertaken their first expedition to the Mazatec
country in 1953, but not until 1955 did they succeed in overcoming the shyness
and reserve of the Mazatec friends they had managed to make, to the point
of being admitted as active participants in a mushroom ceremony. R. Gordon
Wasson and his companion, the photographer Allan Richardson, were given
sacred mushrooms to eat at the end of June 1955, on the occasion of a nocturnal
mushroom ceremony. They thereby became in all likelihood the first outsiders,
the first whites, ever permitted to take teonanácatl.
In the second volume of Mushrooms, Russia and History,
in enraptured words, Wasson describes how the mushroom seized possession
of him completely, although he had tried to struggle against its effects,
in order to be able to remain an objective observer. First he saw geometric,
colored patterns, which then took on architectural characteristics. Next
followed visions of splendid colonnades, palaces of supernatural harmony
and magnificence embellished with precious gems, triumphal cars drawn by
fabulous creatures as they are known only from mythology, and landscapes
of fabulous luster. Detached from the body, the spirit soared timelessly
in a realm of fantasy among images of a higher reality and deeper meaning
than those of the ordinary, everyday world. The essence of life, the ineffable,
seemed to be on the verge of being unlocked, but the ultimate door failed
to open.
This experience was the final proof, for Wasson, that the
magical powers attributed to the mushrooms actually existed and were not
merely superstition.
In order to introduce the mushrooms to scientific research,
Wasson had earlier established an association with mycologist Professor
Roger Heim of Paris. Accompanying the Wassons on further expeditions into
the Mazatec country, Heim conducted the botanical identification of the
sacred mushrooms. He showed that they were gilled mushrooms from the family
Strophariaceae, about a dozen different species not previously described
scientifically, the greatest part belonging to the genus Psilocybe.
Professor Heim also succeeded in cultivating some of the species in the
laboratory. The mushroom Psilocybe mexicana turned out to be especially
suitable for artificial cultivation.
Chemical investigations ran parallel with these botanical
studies on the magic mushrooms, with the goal of extracting the hallucinogenically
active principle from the mushroom material and preparing it in chemically
pure form. Such investigations were carried out at Professor Heim's instigation
in the chemical laboratory of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in
Paris, and work teams were occupied with this problem in the United States
in the research laboratories of two large pharmaceutical companies: Merck,
and Smith, Kline and French. The American laboratories had obtained some
of the mushrooms from R. G. Wasson and had gathered others themselves in
the Sierra Mazateca.
As the chemical investigations in Paris and in the United
States turned out to be ineffectual, Professor Heim addressed this matter
to our firm, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, because he felt
that our experimental experience with LSD, related to the magic mushrooms
by similar activity, could be of use in the isolation attempts. Thus it
was LSD that showed teonanácatl the way into our laboratory.
As director of the department of natural products of the Sandoz
pharmaceutical-chemical research laboratories at that time, I wanted to
assign-the investigation of the magic mushrooms to one of my coworkers.
However, nobody showed much eagerness to take on this problem because it
was known that LSD and everything connected with it were scarcely popular
subjects to the top management. Because the enthusiasm necessary for successful
endeavors cannot be commanded, and because the enthusiasm was already present
in me as far as this problem was concerned, I decided to conduct the investigation
myself.
Some 100 g of dried mushrooms of the species Psilocybe
mexicana, cultivated by Professor Heim in the laboratory, were available
for the beginning of the chemical analysis. My laboratory assistant, Hans
Tscherter, who during our decade-long collaboration, had developed into
a very capable helper, completely familiar with my manner of work, aided
me in the extraction and isolation attempts. Since there were no clues at
all concerning the chemical properties of the active principle we sought,
the isolation attempts had to be conducted on the basis of the effects of
the extract fractions. But none of the various extracts showed an unequivocal
effect, either in the mouse or the dog, which could have pointed to the
presence of hallucinogenic principles. It therefore became doubtful whether
the mushrooms cultivated and dried in Paris were still active at all. That
could only be determined by experimenting with this mushroom material on
a human being. As in the case of LSD, I made this fundamental experiment
myself, since it is not appropriate for researchers to ask anyone else to
perform self-experiments that they require for their own investigations,
especially if they entail, as in this case, a certain risk.
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:
Thirty minutes after my taking the mushrooms, the exterior world
began to undergo a strange transformation. Everything assumed a Mexican
character. As I was perfectly well aware that my knowledge of the Mexican
origin of the mushroom 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
colors proved ineffective. Whether my eyes were closed or open, I saw
only Mexican motifs and colors. 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 1 1/2 hours after ingestion of
the mushrooms, the rush of interior pictures, mostly abstract motifs rapidly
changing in shape and color, reached such an alarming degree that I feared
that I would be torn into this whirlpool of form and color 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 real
world to an old and familiar home.
This self-experiment showed once again that human beings react
much more sensitively than animals to psychoactive substances. We had already
reached the same conclusion in experimenting with LSD on animals, as described
in an earlier chapter of this book. It was not inactivity of the mushroom
material, but rather the deficient reaction capability of the research animals
vis-à-vis such a type of active principle, that explained why our extracts
had appeared inactive in the mouse and dog.
Because the assay on human subjects was the only test at our
disposal for the detection of the active extract fractions, we had no other
choice than to perform the testing on ourselves if we wanted to carry on
the work and bring it to a successful conclusion. In the self-experiment
just described, a strong reaction lasting several hours was produced by
2.4 g dried mushrooms. Therefore, in the sequel we used samples corresponding
to only one-third of this amount, namely 0.8 g dried mushrooms. If these
samples contained the active principle, they would only provoke a mild effect
that impaired the ability to work for a short time, but this effect would
still be so distinct that the inactive fractions and those containing the
active principle could unequivocally be differentiated from one another.
Several coworkers and colleagues volunteered as guinea pigs for this series
of tests.
Psilocybin and Psilocin
With the help of this reliable test on human subjects, the
active principle could be isolated, concentrated, and transformed into a
chemically pure state by means of the newest separation methods. Two new
substances, which I named psilocybin and psilocin, were thereby obtained
in the form of colorless crystals.
These results were published in March 1958 in the journal
Experientia, in collaboration with Professor Heim and with my colleagues
Dr. A. Brack and Dr. H. Kobel, who had provided greater quantities of mushroom
material for these investigations after they had essentially improved the
laboratory cultivation of the mushrooms.
Some of my coworkers at the time-Drs. A. J. Frey, H. Ott,
T. Petrzilka, and F. Troxler-then participated in the next steps of these
investigations, the determination of the chemical structure of psilocybin
and psilocin and the subsequent synthesis of these compounds, the results
of which were published in the November 1958 issue of Experientia.
The chemical structures of these mushroom factors deserve special attention
in several respects. Psilocybin and psilocin belong, like LSD, to the indole
compounds, the biologically important class of substances found in the plant
and animal kingdoms. Particular chemical features common to both the mushroom
substances and LSD show that psilocybin and psilocin are closely related
to LSD, not only with regard to psychic effects but also to their chemical
structures. Psilocybin is the phosphoric acid ester of psilocin and, as
such, is the first and hitherto only phosphoric-acid-containing indole compound
discovered in nature. The phosphoric acid residue does not contribute to
the activity, for the phosphoric-acid-free psilocin is just as active as
psilocybin, but it makes the molecule more stable. While psilocin is readily
decomposed by the oxygen in air, psilocybin is a stable substance.
Psilocybin and psilocin possess a chemical structure very
similar to the brain factor serotonin. As was already mentioned in the chapter
on animal experiments and biological research, serotonin plays an important
role in the chemistry of brain functions. The two mushroom factors, like
LSD, block the effects of serotonin in pharmacological experiments on different
organs. Other pharmacological properties of psilocybin and psilocin are
also similar to those of LSD. The main difference consists in the quantitative
activity, in animal as well as human experimentation. The average active
dose of psilocybin or psilocin in human beings amounts to 10 mg (0.01 g);
accordingly, these two substances are more than 100 times less active than
LSD, of which 0.1 mg constitutes a strong dose. Moreover, the effects of
the mushroom factors last only four to six hours, much shorter than the
effects of LSD (eight to twelve hours).
The total synthesis of psilocybin and psilocin, without the
aid of the mushrooms, could be developed into a technical process, which
would allow these substances to be produced on a large scale. Synthetic
production is more rational and cheaper than extraction from the mushrooms.
Thus with the isolation and synthesis of the active principles,
the demystification of the magic mushrooms was accomplished. The compounds
whose wondrous effects led the Indians to believe for millennia that a god
was residing in the mushrooms had their chemical structures elucidated and
could be produced synthetically in flasks.
Just what progress in scientific knowledge was accomplished
by natural products research in this case? Essentially, when all is said
and done, we can only say that the mystery of the wondrous effects of teonanácatl
was reduced to the mystery of the effects of two crystalline substances-since
these effects cannot be explained by science either, but can only be describe.
A Voyage into the Universe of the Soul with Psilocybin
The relationship between the psychic effects of psilocybin
and those of LSD, their visionaryhallucinatory character, is evident in
the following report from Antaios, of a psilocybin experiment by
Dr. Rudolf Gelpke. He has characterized his experiences with LSD and psilocybin,
as already mentioned in a previous chapter, as "travels in the universe
of the soul."
Where Time Stands Still
(10 mg psilocybin, 6 April 1961, 10:20)
After ca. 20 minutes, beginning effects: serenity, speechlessness,
mild but pleasant dizzy sensation, and "pleasureful deep breathing."
10:50 Strong! dizziness, can no longer concentrate .
10:55 Excited, intensity of colors: everything pink to red.
11:05 The world concentrates itself there on the center
of the table. Colors very intense.
11:10 A divided being, unprecedented-how can I describe
this sensation of life? Waves, different selves, must control me.
Immediately after this note I went outdoors, leaving the
breakfast table, where I had eaten with Dr. H. and our wives, and lay
down on the lawn. The inebriation pushed rapidly to its climax. Although
I had firmly resolved to make constant notes, it now seemed to me a complete
waste of time, the motion of writing infinitely slow, the possibilities
of verbal expression unspeakably paltry - measured by the flood of inner
experience that inundated me and threatened to burst me. It seemed to
me that 100 years would not be sufficient to describe the fullness of
experience of a single minute. At the beginning, optical impressions predominated:
I saw with delight the boundless succession of rows of trees in the nearby
forest. Then the tattered clouds in the sunny sky rapidly piled up with
silent and breathtaking majesty to a superimposition of thousands of layers-heaven
on heaven-and I waited then expecting that up there in the next moment
something completely powerful, unheard of, not yet existing, would appear
or happen - would I behold a god? But only the expectation remained, the
presentiment, this hovering, "on the threshold of the ultimate feeling."
. . . Then I moved farther away (the proximity of others disturbed me)
and lay down in a nook of the garden on a sun-warmed wood pile-my fingers
stroked this wood with overflowing, animal-like sensual affection. At
the same time I was submerged within myself; it was an absolute climax:
a sensation of bliss pervaded me, a contented happiness-I found myself
behind my closed eyes in a cavity full of brick-red ornaments, and at
the same time in the "center of the universe of consummate calm." I knew
everything was good-the cause and origins of everything was good. But
at the same moment I also understood the suffering and the loathing, the
depression and misunderstanding of ordinary life: there one is never "total,"
but instead divided, cut in pieces, and split up into the tiny fragments
of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years: there one is a slave
of Moloch time, which devoured one piecemeal; one is condemned to stammering,
bungling, and patchwork; one must drag about with oneself the perfection
and absolute, the togetherness of all things; the eternal moment of the
golden age, this original ground of being-that indeed nevertheless has
always endured and will endure forever-there in the weekday of human existence,
as a tormenting thorn buried deeply in the soul, as a memorial of a claim
never fulfilled, as a fata morgana of a lost and promised paradise; through
this feverish dream "present" to a condemned "past" in a clouded "future."
I understood. This inebriation was a spaceflight, not of the outer but
rather of the inner man, and for a moment I experienced reality from a
location that lies somewhere beyond the force of gravity of time.
As I began again to feel this force of gravity, I was childish
enough to want to postpone the return by taking a new dose of 6 mg psilocybin
at 11:45, and once again 4 mg at 14:30. The effect was trifling, and in
any case not worth mentioning.
Mrs. Li Gelpke, an artist, also participated in this series
of investigations, taking three self-experiments with LSD and psilocybin.
The artist wrote of the drawing she made during the experiment:
Nothing on this page is consciously fashioned. While I worked
on it, the memory (of the experience under psilocybin) was again reality,
and led me at every stroke. For that reason the picture is as many-layered
as this memory, and the figure at the lower right is really the captive
of its dream.... When books about Mexican art came into my hands three
weeks later, I again found the motifs of my visions there with a sudden
start....
I have also mentioned the occurrence of Mexican motifs in
psilocybin inebriation during my first self-experiment with dried Psilocybe
mexicana mushrooms, as was described in the section on the chemical investigation
of these mushrooms. The same phenomenon has also struck R. Gordon Wasson.
Proceeding from such observations, he has advanced the conjecture that ancient
Mexican art could have been influenced by visionary images, as they appear
in mushroom inebriation.
The "Magic Morning Glory" Ololiuhqui
After we had managed to solve the riddle of the sacred mushroom
teonanácatl in a relatively short time, I also became interested
in the problem of another Mexican magic drug not yet chemically elucidated,
ololiuhqui. Ololiuhqui is the Aztec name for the seeds of
certain climbing plants (Convolvulaceae) that, like the mescaline
cactus peyotl and the teonanácatl mushrooms, were used in
pre-Columbian times by the Aztecs and neighboring people in religious ceremonies
and magical healing practices. Ololiuhqui is still used even today
by certain Indian tribes like the Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and Mixtec,
who until a short time ago still led a genuinely isolated existence, little
influenced by Christianity, in the remote mountains of southern Mexico.
An excellent study of the historical, ethnological, and botanical
aspects of ololiuhqui was published in 1941 by Richard Evans Schultes,
director of the Harvard Botanical Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It
is entitled "A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Rivea corymbosa,
the Narcotic Ololiuqui of the Aztecs." The following statements about
the history of ololiuhqui derive chiefly from Schultes's monograph.
[Translator's note: As R. Gordon Wasson has pointed out, "ololiuhqui"
is a more precise orthography than the more popular spelling used by Schultes.
See Botanical Museum Leaflets Harvard University 20: 161-212, 1963.]
The earliest records about this drug were written by Spanish
chroniclers of the sixteenth century, who also mentioned peyotl and
teonanácatl. Thus the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun, in
his already cited famous chronicle Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva
Espana, writes about the wondrous effects of ololiuhqui: "There
is an herb, called coatl xoxouhqui (green snake), which produces
seeds that are called ololiuhqui. These seeds stupefy and deprive
one of reason: they are taken as a potion."
We obtain further information about these seeds from the physician
Francisco Hernandez, whom Philip II sent to Mexico from Spain, from 1570
to 1575, in order to study the medicaments of the natives. In the chapter
"On Ololiuhqui" of his monumental work entitled Rerum Medicarum
Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus seu Plantarum, Animalium Mineralium Mexicanorum
Historia, published in Rome in 1651, he gives a detailed description
and the first illustration of ololiuhqui. An extract from the Latin
text accompanying the illustration reads in translation: "Ololiuhqui,
which others call coaxihuitl or snake plant, is a climber with thin,
green, heart-shaped leaves.... The flowers are white, fairly large.... The
seeds are roundish. . . . When the priests of the Indians wanted to visit
with the gods and obtain information from them, they ate of this plant in
order to become inebriated. Thousands of fantastic images and demons then
appeared to them...." Despite this comparatively good description, the botanical
identification of ololiuhqui as seeds of Rivea corymbosa (L.)
Hall. f. occasioned many discussions in specialist circles. Recently preference
has been given to the synonym Turbina corymbosa (L.) Raf.
When I decided in 1959 to attempt the isolation o the active
principles of ololiuhqui, only a single report on chemical work with
the seeds of Turbina corymbosa was available. It was the work of
the pharmacologist C. G. Santesson of Stockholm, from the year 1937. Santesson,
however, was not successful in isolating an active substance in pure form.
Contradictory findings had been published about the activity
of the ololiuhqui seeds. The psychiatrist H. Osmond conducted a self-experiment
with the seeds of Turbina corymbosa in 1955. After the ingestion
of 60 to 100 seeds, he entered into a state of apathy and emptiness, accompanied
by enhanced visual sensitivity. After four hours, there followed a period
of relaxation and well-being, lasting for a longer time. The results of
V. J. Kinross-Wright, published in England in 1958, in which eight voluntary
research subjects, who had taken up to 125 seeds, perceived no effects at
all, contradicted this report.
Through the mediation of R. Gordon Wasson, I obtained two
samples of ololiuhqui seeds. In his accompanying letter of 6 August
1959 from Mexico City, he wrote of them:
. . . The parcels that I am sending you are the following: .
. .
A small parcel of seeds that I take to be Rivea corymbosa,
otherwise known as ololiuqui well-known narcotic of the Aztecs, called
in Huautla "la semilla de la Virgen." This parcel, you will find, consists
of two little bottles, which represent two deliveries of seeds made to
us in Huautla, and a larger batch of seeds delivered to us by Francisco
Ortega "Chico," the Zapotec guide, who himself gathered the seeds from
the plants at the Zapotec town of San Bartolo Yautepec....
The first-named, round, light brown seeds from Huautla proved
in the botanical determination to have been correctly identified as Rivea
(Turbina) corymbosa, while the black, angular seeds from San Bartolo
Yautepec were identified as Ipomoea violacea L.
While Turbina corymbosa thrives only in tropical or
subtropical climates, one also finds Ipomoea violacea as an ornamental
plant dispersed over the whole earth in the temperate zones. It is the morning
glory that delights the eye in our gardens in diverse varieties with blue
or blue-red striped calyxes.
The Zapotec, besides the original ololiuhqui (that
is, the seeds of Turbina corymbosa, which they call badoh),
also utilize badoh negro, the seeds of Ipomoea violacea. T.
MacDougall, who furnished us with a second larger consignment of the last-named
seeds, made this observation.
My capable laboratory assistant Hans Tscherter, with whom
I had already carried out the isolation of the active principles of the
mushrooms, participated in the chemical investigation of the ololiuhqui
drug. We advanced the working hypothesis that the active principles of the
ololiuhqui seeds could be representatives of the same class of chemical
substances, the indole compounds, to which LSD, psilocybin, and psilocin
belong. Considering the very great number of other groups of substances
that, like the indoles, were under consideration as active principles of
ololiuhqui, it was indeed extremely improbable that this assumption
would prove true. It could, however, very easily be tested. The presence
of indole compounds, of course, may simply and rapidly be determined by
colorimetric reactions. Thus even traces of indole substances, with a certain
reagent, give an intense blue-colored solution.
We had luck with our hypothesis. Extracts of ololiuhqui
seeds with the appropriate reagent gave the blue coloration characteristic
of indole compounds. With the help of this colorimetric test, we succeeded
in a short time in isolating the indole substances from the seeds and in
obtaining them in chemically pure form. Their identification led to an astonishing
result. What we found appeared at first scarcely believable. Only after
repetition and the most careful scrutiny of the operations was our suspicion
concerning the peculiar findings eliminated: the active principles from
the ancient Mexican magic drug ololiuhqui proved to be identical
with substances that were already present in my laboratory. They were identical
with alkaloids that had been obtained in the course of the decades-long
investigations of ergot; partly isolated as such from ergot, partly obtained
through chemical modification of ergot substances.
Lysergic acid amide, lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, and
alkaloids closely related to them chemically were established as the main
active principles of ololiuhqui. (See formulae in the appendix.)
Also present was the alkaloid ergobasine, whose synthesis had constituted
the starting point of my investigations on ergot alkaloids. Lysergic acid
amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, active principles of ololiuhqui,
are chemically very closely related to lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD),
which even for the non-chemist follows from the names.
Lysergic acid amide was described for the first time by the
English chemists S. Smith and G. M. Timmis as a cleavage product of ergot
alkaloids, and I had also produced this substance synthetically in the course
of the investigations in which LSD originated. Certainly, nobody at the
time could have suspected that this compound synthesized in the flask would
be discovered twenty years later as a naturally occurring active principle
of an ancient Mexican magic drug.
After the discovery of the psychic effects of LSD, I had also
tested lysergic acid amide in a self-experiment and established that it
likewise evoked a dreamlike condition, but only with about a tenfold to
twenty-fold greater dose than LSD. This effect was characterized by a sensation
of mental emptiness and the unreality and meaninglessness of the outer world,
by enhanced sensitivity of hearing, and by a not unpleasant physical lassitude,
which ultimately led to sleep. This picture of the effects of LA-111, as
lysergic acid amide was called as a research preparation, was confirmed
in a systematic investigation by the psychiatrist Dr. H. Solms.
When I presented the findings of our investigations on ololiuhqui
at the Natural Products Congress of the International Union for Pure and
Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in Sydney, Australia, in the fall of 1960, my
colleagues received my talk with skepticism. In the discussions following
my lecture, some persons voiced the suspicion that the ololiuhqui
extracts could well have been contaminated with traces of lysergic acid
derivatives, with which so much work had been done in my laboratory.
There was another reason for the doubt in specialist circles
concerning our findings. The occurrence in higher plants (i.e., in the morning
glory family) of ergot alkaloids that hitherto had been known only as constituents
of lower fungi, contradicted the experience that certain substances are
typical of and restricted to respective plant families. It is indeed a very
rare exception to find a characteristic group of substances, in this case
the ergot alkaloids, occurring in two divisions of the plant kingdom broadly
separated in evolutionary history.
Our results were confirmed, however, when different laboratories
in the United States, Germany, and Holland subsequently verified our investigations
on the ololiuhqui seeds. Nevertheless, the skepticism went so far
that some persons even considered the possibility that the seeds could have
been infected with alkaloid-producing fungi. That suspicion, however, was
ruled out experimentally.
These studies on the active principles of ololiuhqui
seeds, although they were published only in professional journals, had an
unexpected sequel. We were apprised by two Dutch wholesale seed companies
that their sale of seeds of Ipomoea violacea, the ornamental blue
morning glory, had reached unusual proportions in recent times. They had
heard that the great demand was connected with investigations of these seeds
in our laboratory, about which they were eager to learn the details. It
turned out that the new demand derived from hippie circles and other groups
interested in hallucinogenic drugs. They believed they had found in the
ololiuhqui seeds a substitute for LSD, which was becoming less and
less accessible.
The morning glory seed boom, however, lasted only a comparatively
short time, evidently because of the undesirable experiences that those
in the drug world had with this "new" ancient inebriant. The ololiuhqui
seeds, which are taken crushed with water or another mild beverage, taste
very bad and are difficult for the stomach to digest. Moreover, the psychic
effects of ololiuhqui, in fact, differ from those of LSD in that
the euphoric and the hallucinogenic components are less pronounced, while
a sensation of mental emptiness, often anxiety and depression, predominates.
Furthermore, weariness and lassitude are hardly desirable effects as traits
in an inebriant. These could all be reasons why the drug culture's interest
in the morning glory seeds has diminished.
Only a few investigations have considered the question whether
the active principles of ololiuhqui could find a useful application
in medicine. In my opinion, it would be worthwhile to clarify above all
whether the strong narcotic, sedative effect of certain ololiuhqui
constituents, or of chemical modifications of these, is medicinally useful.
My studies in the field of hallucinogenic drugs reached a
kind of logical conclusion with the investigations of ololiuhqui.
They now formed a circle, one could almost say a magic circle: the starting
point had been the synthesis of lysergic acid amides, among them the naturally
occurring ergot alkaloid ergobasin. This led to the synthesis of lysergic
acid diethylamide, LSD. The hallucinogenic properties of LSD were the reason
why the hallucinogenic magic mushroom teonanácatl found its way into
my laboratory. The work with teonanácatl, from which psilocybin and
psilocin were isolated, proceeded to the investigation of another Mexican
magic drug, ololiuhqui, in which hallucinogenic principles in the
form of lysergic acid amides were again encountered, including ergobasin-with
which the magic circle closed.
In Search of the Magic Plant "Ska María Pastora" in the Mazatec Country
R. Gordon Wasson, with whom I had maintained friendly relations
since the investigations of the Mexican magic mushrooms, invited my wife
and me to take part in an expedition to Mexico in the fall of 1962. The
purpose of the journey was to search for another Mexican magic plant. Wasson
had learned on his travels in the mountains of southern Mexico that the
expressed juice of the leaves of a plant, which were called hojas de
la Pastora or hojas de María Pastora, in Mazatec ska
Pastora or ska María Pastora (leaves of the shepherdess
or leaves of Mary the shepherdess), were used among the Mazatec in medico-religious
practices, like the teonanácatl mushrooms and the ololiuhqui
seeds.
The question now was to ascertain from what sort of plant
the "leaves of Mary the shepherdess" derived, and then to identify this
plant botanically. We also hoped, if at all possible, to gather sufficient
plant material to conduct a chemical investigation on the hallucinogenic
principles it contained.
Ride through the Sierra Mazateca
On 26 September 1962, my wife and I accordingly flew to Mexico
City, where we met Gordon Wasson. He had made all the necessary preparations
for the expedition, so that in two days we had already set out on the next
leg of the journey to the south. Mrs. Irmgard Weitlaner Johnson, (widow
of Jean B. Johnson, a pioneer of the ethnographic study of the Mexican magic
mushrooms, killed in the Allied landing in North Africa) had joined us.
Her father, Robert J. Weitlaner, had emigrated to Mexico from Austria and
had likewise contributed toward the rediscovery of the mushroom cult. Mrs.
Johnson worked at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, as
an expert on Indian textiles.
After a two-day journey in a spacious Land Rover, which took
us over the plateau, along the snow-capped Popocatépetl, passing Puebla,
down into the Valley of Orizaba with its magnificent tropical vegetation,
then by ferry across the Popoloapan (Butterfly River), on through the former
Aztec garrison Tuxtepec, we arrived at the starting point of our expedition,
the Mazatec village of Jalapa de Diaz, lying on a hillside.
There we were in the midst of the environment and among the
people that we would come to know in the succeeding 2 1/2 weeks.
There was an uproar upon our arrival in the marketplace, center
of this village widely dispersed in the jungle. Old and young men, who had
been squatting and standing around in the half-opened bars and shops, pressed
suspiciously yet curiously about our Land Rover; they were mostly barefoot
but all wore a sombrero. Women and girls were nowhere to be seen.
One of the men gave us to understand that we should follow. him. He led
us to the local president, a fat mestizo who had his office in a
one-story house with a corrugated iron roof. Gordon showed him our credentials
from the civil authorities and from the military governor of Oaxaca, which
explained that we had come here to carry out scientific investigations.
The president, who probably could not read at all, was visibly impressed
by the large-sized documents equipped with official seals. He had lodgings
assigned to us in a spacious shed, in which we could place our air mattresses
and sleeping bags.
I looked around the region somewhat. The ruins of a large
church from colonial times, which must have once been very beautiful, rose
almost ghostlike in the direction of an ascending slope at the side of the
village square. Now I could also see women looking out of their huts, venturing
to examine the strangers. In their long, white dresses, adorned with red
borders, and with their long braids of blue-black hair, they offered a picturesque
sight.
We were fed by an old Mazatec woman, who directed a young
cook and two helpers. She lived in one of the typical Mazatec huts. These
are simply rectangular structures with thatched gabled roofs and walls of
wooden poles joined together, windowless, the chinks between the wooden
poles offering sufficient opportunity to look out. In the middle of the
hut, on the stamped clay floor, was an elevated, open fireplace, built up
out of dried clay or made of stones. The smoke escaped through large openings
in the walls under the two ends of the roof. Bast mats that lay in a corner
or along the walls served as beds. The huts were shared with the domestic
animals, as well as black swine, turkeys, and chickens. There was roasted
chicken to eat, black beans, and also, in place of bread, tortillas,
a type of cornmeal pancake that is baked on the hot stone slab of the hearth.
Beer and tequila, an Agave liquor, were served.
Next morning our troop formed for the ride through the Sierra
Mazateca. Mules and guides were engaged from the horsekeeper of the village.
Guadelupe, the Mazatec familiar with the route, took charge of guiding the
lead animal. Gordon, Irmgard, my wife, and I were stationed on our mules
in the middle. Teodosio and Pedro, called Chico, two young fellows who trotted
along barefoot beside the two mules laden with our baggage, brought up the
rear.
It took some time to get accustomed to the hard wooden saddles.
Then, however, this mode of locomotion proved to be the most ideal type
of travel that I know of. The mules followed the leader, single file, at
a steady pace. They required no direction at all by the rider. With surprising
dexterity, they sought out the best spots along the almost impassable, partly
rocky, partly marshy paths, which led through thickets and streams or onto
precipitous slopes. Relieved of all travel cares, we could devote all our
attention to the beauty of the landscape and the tropical vegetation. There
were tropical forests with gigantic trees overgrown with twining plants,
then again clearings with banana groves or coffee plantations, between light
stands of trees, flowers at the edge of the path, over which wondrous butterflies
bustled about.... We made our way upstream along the broad riverbed of Rio
Santo Domingo, with brooding heat and steamy air, now steeply ascending,
then again falling. During a short, violent tropical downpour, the long
broad ponchos of oilcloth, with which Gordon had equipped us, proved quite
useful. Our Indian guides had protected themselves from the cloudburst with
gigantic, heart-shaped leaves that they nimbly chopped off at the edge of
the path. Teodosio and Chico gave the impression of great, green hay cricks
as they ran, covered with these leaves, beside their mules.
Shortly before nightfall we arrived at the first settlement,
La Providencia ranch. The patron, Don Joaquin Garcia, the head of a large
family, welcomed us hospitably and full of dignity. It was impossible to
determine how many children, in addition to the grown-ups and the domestic
animals, were present in the large living room, feebly illuminated by the
hearth fire alone.
Gordon and I placed our sleeping bags outdoors under the projecting
roof. I awoke in the morning to find a pig grunting over my face.
After another day's journey on the backs of our worthy mules,
we arrived at Ayautla, a Mazatec settlement spread across a hillside. En
route, among the shrubbery, I had delighted in the blue calyxes of the magic
morning glory Ipomoea violacea, the mother plant of the ololiuhqui
seeds. It grew wild there, whereas among us it is only found in the Garden
as an ornamental plant.
We remained in Ayautla for several days. We had lodging in
the house of Doña Donata Sosa de García. Doña Donata was in charge of a
large family, which included her ailing husband. In addition, she presided
over the coffee cultivation of the region. The collection center for the
freshly picked coffee beans was in an adjacent building. It was a lovely
picture, the young Indian woman and girls returning home from the harvest
toward evening, in their bright garments adorned with colored borders, the
coffee sacks carried on their backs by headbands. Doña Donata also managed
a type of grocery store, in which her husband, Don Eduardo, stood behind
the counter.
In the evening by candlelight, Doña Donata, who besides Mazatec
also spoke Spanish, told us about life in the village; one tragedy or another
had already struck nearly every one of the seemingly peaceful huts that
lay surrounded by this paradisiacal scenery. A man who had murdered his
wife, and who now sits in prison for life, had lived in the house next door,
which now stood empty. The husband of a daughter of Doña Donata, after an
affair with another woman, was murdered out of jealousy. The president of
Ayautla, a young bull of a mestizo, to whom we had made our formal visit
in the afternoon, never made the short walk from his hut to his "office"
in the village hall (with the corrugated iron roof) unless accompanied by
two heavily armed men. Because he exacted illegal taxes, he was afraid of
being shot to death. Since no higher authority sees to justice in this remote
region, people have recourse to self-defense of this type.
Thanks to Doña Donata's good connections, we received the
first sample of the sought-after plant, some leaves of hojas de la Pastora,
from an old woman. Since the flowers and roots were missing, however, this
plant material was not suitable for botanical identification. Our efforts
to obtain more precise information about the habitat of the plant and its
use were also fruitless.
The continuation of our journey from Ayautla was delayed,
as we had to wait until our boys could again bring back the mules that they
had taken to pasture on the other side of Rio Santo Domingo, over the river
swollen by intense downpours.
After a two-day ride, on which we had passed the night in
the high mountain village of San Miguel-Huautla, we arrived at Rio Santiago.
Here we were joined by Doña Herlinda Martinez Cid, a teacher from Huautla
de Jiménez. She had ridden over on the invitation of Gordon Wasson, who
had known her since his mushroom expeditions, and was to serve as our Mazatec
and Spanish-speaking interpreter. Moreover, she could help us, through her
numerous relatives scattered in the region, to pave the way to contacts
with curanderos and curanderas who used the hojas de la
Pastora in their practice. Because of our delayed arrival in Rio Santiago,
Doña Herlinda, who was acquainted with the dangers of the region, had been
apprehensive about us, fearing we might have plunged down a rocky path or
been attacked by robbers.
Our next stop was in San José Tenango, a settlement lying
deep in a valley, in the midst of tropical vegetation with orange and lemon
trees and banana plantations. Here again was the typical village picture:
in the center, a marketplace with a half-ruined church from the colonial
period, with two or three stands, a general store, and shelters for horses
and mules. We found lodging in a corrugated iron barracks, with the special
luxury of a cement floor, on which we could spread out our sleeping bags.
In the thick jungle on the mountainside we discovered a spring,
whose magnificent fresh water in a natural rocky basin invited us to bathe.
That was an unforgettable pleasure after days without opportunities to wash
properly. In this grotto I saw a hummingbird for the first time in nature,
a blue-green, metallic, iridescent gem, which whirred over great liana blossoms.
The desired contact with persons skilled in medicine came
about thanks to the kindred connections of Doña Herlinda, beginning with
the curandero Don Sabino. But he refused, for some reason, to receive us
in a consultation and to question the leaves. From an old curandera,
a venerable woman in a strikingly magnificent Mazatec garment, with the
lovely name Natividad Rosa, we received a whole bundle of flowering specimens
of the sought-after plant, but even she could not be prevailed upon to perform
a ceremony with the leaves for us. Her excuse was that she was too old for
the hardship of the magical trip; she could never cover the long distance
to certain places: a spring where the wise women gather their powers, a
lake on which the sparrows sing, and where objects get their names. Nor
would Natividad Rosa tell us where she had gathered the leaves. They grew
in a very, very distant forest valley. Wherever she dug up a plant, she
put a coffee bean in the earth as thanks to the gods.
We now possessed ample plants with flowers and roots, which
were suitable for botanical identification. It was apparently a representative
of the genus Salvia, a relative of the well-known meadow sage. The plants
had blue flowers crowned with a white dome, which are arranged on a panicle
20 to 30 cm long, whose stem leaked blue.
Several days later, Natividad Rosa brought us a whole basket
of leaves, for which she was paid fifty pesos. The business seemed to have
been discussed, for two other women brought us further quantities of leaves.
As it was known that the expressed juice of the leaves is drunk in the ceremony,
and this must therefore contain the active principle, the fresh leaves were
crushed on a stone plate, squeezed out in a cloth, the juice diluted with
alcohol as a preservative, and decanted into flasks in order to be studied
later in the laboratory in Basel. I was assisted in this work by an Indian
girl, who was accustomed to dealing with the stone plate, the metate,
on which the Indians since ancient times have ground their corn by hand.
On the day before the journey was to continue, having given
up all hope of being able to attend a ceremony, we suddenly made another
contact with a curandera, one who was ready " to serve us ." A confidante
of Herlinda's, who had produced this contact, led us after nightfall along
a secret path to the hut of the curandera, lying solitary on the
mountainside above the settlement. No one from the village was to see us
or discover that we were received there. It was obviously considered a betrayal
of sacred customs, worthy of punishment, to allow strangers, whites, to
take part in this. That indeed had also been the real reason why the other
healers whom we asked had refused to admit us to a leaf ceremony. Strange
birdcalls from the darkness accompanied us on the ascent, and the barking
of dogs was heard on all sides. The dogs had detected the strangers. The
curandera Consuela García, a woman of some forty years, barefoot
like all Indian women in this region, timidly admitted us to her hut and
immediately closed up the doorway with a heavy bar. She bid us lie down
on the bast mats on the stamped mud floor. As Consuela spoke only Mazatec,
Herlinda translated her instructions into Spanish for us. The curandera
lit a candle on a table covered with some images of saints, along with a
variety of rubbish. Then she began to bustle about busily, but in silence.
All at once we heard peculiar noises and a rummaging in the room-did the
hut harbor some hidden person whose shape and proportions could not be made
out in the candlelight? Visibly disturbed, Consuela searched the room with
the burning candle. It appeared to be merely rats, however, who were working
their mischief. In a bowl the curandera now kindled copal,
an incense-like resin, which soon filled the whole hut with its aroma. Then
the magic potion was ceremoniously prepared. Consuela inquired which of
us wished to drink of it with her. Gordon announced himself. Since I was
suffering from a severe stomach upset at the time, I could not join in.
My wife substituted for me. The curandera laid out six pairs of leaves
for herself. She apportioned the same number to Gordon. Anita received three
pairs. Like the mushrooms, the leaves are always dosed in pairs, a practice
that, of course, has a magical significance. The leaves were crushed with
the metate, then squeezed out through a fine sieve into a cup, and
the metate and the contents of the sieve were rinsed with water.
Finally, the filled cups were incensed over the copal vessel with
much ceremony. Consuela asked Anita and Gordon, before she handed them their
cups, whether they believed in the truth and the holiness of the ceremony.
After they answered in the affirmative and the very bitter-tasting potion
was solemnly imbibed, the candles were extinguished and, lying in darkness
on the bast masts, we awaited the effects.
After some twenty minutes Anita whispered to me that she saw
striking, brightly bordered images. Gordon also perceived the effect of
the drug. The voice of the curandera sounded from the darkness, half
speaking, half singing. Herlinda translated: Did we believe in Christ's
blood and the holiness of the rites? After our "creemos" ("We believe"),
the ceremonial performance continued. The curandera lit the candles,
moved them from the "altar table" onto the floor, sang and spoke prayers
or magic formulas, placed the candles again under the images of the saints-then
again silence and darkness. Thereupon the true consultation began. Consuela
asked for our request. Gordon inquired after the health of his daughter,
who immediately before his departure from New York had to be admitted prematurely
to the hospital in expectation of a baby. He received the comforting information
that mother and child were well. Then again came singing and prayer and
manipulations with the candles on the "altar table" and on the floor, over
the smoking basin.
When the ceremony was at an end, the curandera asked
us to rest yet a while longer in prayer on our bast mats. Suddenly a thunderstorm
burst out. Through the cracks of the beam walls, lightning flashed into
the darkness of the hut, accompanied by violent thunderbolts, while a tropical
downpour raged, beating on the roof. Consuela voiced apprehension that we
would not be able to leave her house unseen in the darkness. But the thunderstorm
let up before daybreak, and we went down the mountainside to our corrugated
iron barracks, as noiselessly as possible by the light of flashlights, unnoticed
by the villagers, but dogs again barked from all sides.
Participation in this ceremony was the climax of our expedition.
It brought confirmation that the hojas de la Pastora were used by
the Indians for the same purpose and in the same ceremonial milieu as teonanácatl,
the sacred mushrooms. Now we also had authentic plant material, not only
sufficient for botanical identification, but also for the planned chemical
analysis. The inebriated state that Gordon Wasson and my wife had experienced
with the hojas had been shallow and only of short duration, yet it
had exhibited a distinctly hallucinogenic character.
On the morning after this eventful night we took leave of
San José Tenango. The guide, Guadelupe, and the two fellows Teodosio and
Pedro appeared before our barracks with the mules at the appointed time.
Soon packed up and mounted, our little troop then moved uphill again, through
the fertile landscape glittering in the sunlight from the night's thunderstorm.
Returning by way of Santiago, toward evening we reached our last stop in
Mazatec country, the capital Huautla de Jiménez.
From here on, the return trip to Mexico City was made by automobile.
With a final supper in the Posada Rosaura, at the time the only inn in Huautla,
we took leave of our Indian guides and of the worthy mules that had carried
us so surefootedly and in such a pleasant way through the Sierra Mazatec.
The Indians were paid of, and Teodosio, who also accepted payment for his
chief in Jalapa de Diaz (where the animals were to be returned afterward),
gave a receipt with his thumbprint colored by a ballpoint pen. We took up
quarters in Dona Herlinda's house.
A day later we made our formal visit to the curandera
María Sabina, a woman made famous by the Wassons' publications. It had been
in her hut that Gordon Wasson became the first white man to taste of the
sacred mushrooms, in the course of a nocturnal ceremony in the summer of
1955. Gordon and María Sabina greeted each other cordially, as old friends.
The curandera lived out of the way, on the mountainside above Huautla.
The house in which the historic session with Gordon Wasson had taken place
had been burned, presumably by angered residents or an envious colleague,
because she had divulged the secret of teonanácatl to strangers.
In the new hut in which we found ourselves, an incredible disorder prevailed,
as had probably also prevailed in the old hut, in which half-naked children,
hens, and pigs bustled about. The old curandera had an intelligent
face, exceptionally changeable in expression. She was obviously impressed
when it was explained that we had managed to confine the spirit of the mushrooms
in pills, and she at once declared herself ready to " serve us" with these,
that is, to grant us a consultation. It was agreed that this should take
place the coming night in the house of Doña Herlinda.
In the course of the day I took a stroll through Huautla de
Jiménez, which led along a main street on the mountainside. Then I accompanied
Gordon on his visit to the Instituto Nacional Indigenista. This governmental
organization had the duty of studying and helping to solve the problems
of the indigenous population, that is, the Indians. Its leader told us of
the difficulties that the "coffee policy" had caused in the area at that
time. The president of Huautla, in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional
Indigenista had tried to eliminate middlemen in order to shape the coffee
prices favorably for the producing Indians. His body was found, mutilated,
the previous June.
Our stroll also took us past the cathedral, from which Gregorian
chants resounded. Old Father Aragon, whom Gordon knew well from his earlier
stays, invited us into the vestry for a glass of tequila.
A Mushroom Ceremony
As we returned home to Herlinda's house toward evening, María
Sabina had already arrived there with a large company, her two lovely daughters,
Apolonia and Aurora (two prospective curanderas), and a niece, all
of whom brought children along with them. Whenever her child began to cry,
Apolonia would offer her breast to it. The old curandero Don Aurelio also
appeared, a mighty man, one-eyed, in a black-and-white patterned serape
(cloak). Cacao and sweet pastry were served on the veranda. I was reminded
of the report from an ancient chronicle which described how chocolatl
was drunk before the ingestion of teonanácatl.
After the fall of darkness, we all proceeded into the room
in which the ceremony would take place. It was then locked up-that is, the
door was obstructed with the only bed available. Only an emergency exit
into the back garden remained unlatched for absolute necessity. It was nearly
midnight when the ceremony began. Until that time the whole party lay, in
darkness sleeping or awaiting the night's events, on the bast mats spread
on the floor. María Sabina threw a piece of copal on the embers of
a brazier from time to time, whereby the stuffy air in the crowded room
became somewhat bearable. I had explained to the curandera through
Herlinda, who was again with the party as interpreter, that one pill contained
the spirit of two pairs of mushrooms. (The pills contained 5.0 mg synthetic
psilocybin apiece.)
When all was ready, María Sabina apportioned the pills in
pairs among the grown-ups present. After solemn smoking, she herself took
two pairs (corresponding to 20 mg psilocybin). She gave the same dose to
Don Aurelio and her daughter Apolonia, who would also serve as curandera.
Aurora received one pair, as did Gordon, while my wife and Irmgard got only
one pill each.
One of the children, a girl of about ten, under the guidance
of María Sabina, had prepared for me the juice of five pairs of fresh leaves
of hojas de la Pastora. I wanted to experience this drug that I had
been unable to try in San José Tenango. The potion was said to be especially
active when prepared by an innocent child. The cup with the expressed juice
was likewise incensed and conjured by María Sabina and Don Aurelio, before
it was delivered to me.
All of these preparations and the following ceremony progressed
in much the same way as the consultation with the curandera Consuela
Garcia in San José Tenango.
After the drug was apportioned and the candle on the "altar"
was extinguished, we awaited the effects in the darkness.
Before a half hour had elapsed, the curandera murmured
something; her daughter and Don Aurelio also became restless. Herlinda translated
and explained to us what was wrong. María Sabina had said that the pills
lacked the spirit of the mushrooms. I discussed the situation with Gordon,
who lay beside me. For us it was clear that absorption of the active principle
from the pills, which must first dissolve in the stomach, occurs more slowly
than from the mushrooms, in which some of the active principle already becomes
absorbed through the mucous membranes during chewing. But how could we give
a scientific explanation under such conditions? Rather than try to explain,
we decided to act. We distributed more pills. Both curanderas and
the curandero each received another pair. They had now each taken a total
dosage of 30 mg psilocybin.
After about another quarter of an hour, the spirit of the
pills did begin to yield its effects, which lasted until the crack of dawn.
The daughters, and Don Aurelio with his deep bass voice, fervently answered
the prayers and singing of the curandera. Blissful, yearning moans
of Apolonia and Aurora, between singing and prayer, gave the impression
that the religious experience of the young women in the drug inebriation
was combined with sensual-sexual feelings.
In the middle of the ceremony María Sabina asked for our request.
Gordon inquired again after the health of his daughter and grandchild. He
received the same good information as from the curandera Consuela.
Mother and child were in fact well when he returned home to New York. Obviously,
however, this still represents no proof of the prophetic abilities of both
curanderas.
Evidently as an effect of the hojas, I found myself
for some time in a state of mental sensitivity and intense experience, which,
however, was not accompanied by hallucinations. Anita, Irmgard, and Gordon
experienced a euphoric condition of inebriation that was influenced by the
strange, mystical atmosphere. My wife was impressed by the vision of very
distinct strange line patterns.
She was astonished and perplexed, later, on discovering precisely
the same images in the rich ornamentation over the altar in an old church
near Puebla. That was on the return trip to Mexico City, when we visited
churches from colonial times. These admirable churches offer great cultural
and historical interest because the Indian artists and workmen who assisted
in their construction smuggled in elements of Indian style. Klaus Thomas,
in his book Die kunstlich gesteuerte Seele [The artificially steered
mind] (Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart, 1970), writes about the possible
influence of visions from psilocybin inebriation on Meso-American Indian
art: "Surely a cultural-historical comparison of the old and new creations
of Indian art . . . must convince the unbiased spectator of the harmony
with the images, forms and colors of a psilocybin inebriation." The Mexican
character of the visions seen in my first experience with dried Psilocybe
mexicana mushrooms and the drawing of Li Gelpke after a psilocybin inebriation
could also point to such an association.
As we took leave of María 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. As a parting gift I let María Sabina have a vial
of psilocybin pills. She radiantly explained to our interpreter Herlinda
that she could now give consultations even in the season when no mushrooms
grow.
How should we judge the conduct of María Sabina, the fact
that she allowed strangers, white people, access to the secret ceremony,
and let them try the sacred mushroom?
To her credit it can be said that she had thereby opened the
door to the exploration of the Mexican mushroom cult in its present form,
and to the scientific, botanical, and chemical investigation of the sacred
mushrooms. Valuable active substances, psilocybin and psilocin, resulted.
Without this assistance, the ancient knowledge and experience that was concealed
in these secret practices would possibly, even probably, have disappeared
without a trace, without having borne fruit, in the advancement of Western
civilization.
From another standpoint, the conduct of this curandera
can be regarded as a profanation of a sacred custom-even as a betrayal.
Some of her countrymen were of this opinion, which was expressed in acts
of revenge, including the burning of her house.
The profanation of the mushroom cult did not stop with the
scientific investigations. The publication about the magic mushrooms unleashed
an invasion of hippies and drug seekers into the Mazatec country, many of
whom behaved badly, some even criminally. Another undesirable consequence
was the beginning of true tourism in Huautla de Jiménez, whereby the originality
of the place was eradicated.
Such statements and considerations are, for the most part,
the concern of ethnographical research. Wherever researchers and scientists
trace and elucidate the remains of ancient customs that are becoming rarer,
their primitiveness is lost. This loss is only more or less counterbalanced
when the outcome of the research represents a lasting cultural gain.
From Huautla de Jiménez we proceeded first to Teotitlán, in
a breakneck truck ride along a half-paved road, and from there went on a
comfortable car trip back to Mexico City, the starting point of our expedition.
I had lost several kilograms in body weight, but was overwhelmingly compensated
in enchanting experiences.
The herbarium samples of hojas de la Pastora, which
we had brought with us, were subjected to botanical identification by Carl
Epling and Carlos D. Jativa at the Botanical Institute of Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They found that this plant was a hitherto undescribed
species of Salvia, which was named Salvia divinorum
by these authors.
The chemical investigation of the juice of the magic sage
in the laboratory in Basel was unsuccessful. The psychoactive principle
of this drug seems to be a rather unstable substance, since the juice prepared
in Mexico and preserved with alcohol proved in self-experiments to be no
longer active. Where the chemical nature of the active principle is concerned,
the problem of the magic plant ska María Pastora still awaits solution.
So far in this book I have mainly described my scientific
work and matters relating to my professional activity. But this work, by
its very nature, had repercussions on my own life and personality, not least
because it brought me into contact with interesting and important contemporaries.
I have already mentioned some of them-Timothy Leary, Rudolf Gelpke, Gordon
Wasson. Now, in the pages that follow, I would like to emerge from the natural
scientist's reserve, in order to portray encounters which were personally
meaningful to me and which helped me solve questions posed by the substances
I had discovered.
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