Psychoactive mushrooms

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Psychoactive mushrooms are mushrooms with psychotropic agents. 216 species are known worldwide. Their occurrence is spread all over the world. Psychoactive mushrooms were ritually used as an important entheogenic intoxicant in many early cultures around the world.

overview

  1. The best known are mushrooms containing psilocybin , often also referred to as magic mushrooms. With 186 species, they represent the largest group of psychoactive mushrooms.
  2. Another group are mushrooms with ibotenic acid : the fly agaric , panther and king fly agaric
  3. A third group is the ergot with seven types.
  4. Finally, there are a number of traditional “sacred mushrooms” that have not yet been subjected to chemical analysis, including a total of 20 mushrooms.

distribution

Psychoactive mushrooms can be found in points as northern as Alaska or Siberia, in points as southern as Chile or Australia, from the west coast of America to Japan, from sea level to 4,000 m in Mexico. The tropical rainforests of the southern hemisphere , especially in Latin America, are the most species-rich . Research into the species is still pending, especially in Africa and the Middle East. It is generally assumed that a large number of distribution areas are not yet known and the number of species is also unclear.

Use as entheogens

Demeter drinks the Kykeon of Metaneira and is mocked by ascalabos (painting by Adam Elsheimer , 1562)

It is believed that entheogenic plants and fungi played an important role in religious and socio-cultural developments in many societies. The first evidence of the use of psychoactive mushrooms dates back to around 5000 BC. In the Tassiliebene in today's Algeria rock carvings were discovered that showed mushroom-shaped deities. In Central and South America so-called mushroom stones can be found, which date back to 1000–500 BC. To be dated. All over the world there are references to the use of psychoactive mushrooms. The toadstool was used, for example, by Germanic peoples and the Koryaks in Siberia for divination, making contact with ancestors and spirits and traveling to foreign worlds. Hallucinogenic mushrooms are ritually used by the Batak in northern Sumatra in Indonesia, around Lake Toba . In New Guinea and Nepal , for example, psychoactive mushrooms were or are used ritually. According to Albert Hofmann and R. Gordon Wasson ( The Road to Eleusis , 1978), the Mysteries of Eleusis 2000 BC. The psychoactive lysergic acid alkaloids, dissolved in water from ergot, may have been used for the intoxicating kykeon .

See also: Psilocybin-Containing Mushrooms: History
See also: Toadstool: The toadstool as an intoxicant

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ RE Schultes (1976). Fly Agaric Mushrooms . 24-37. Golden Press, Hallucinogenic Plants . Golden Press.
    RE Schultes and A. Hofmann (1979). Plants of the Gods . McGraw Hill Book Co., New York.
  2. Erowid : Psilocybe Mushroom History , 2005.