Mushrooms, medicinal

The physical healing I experienced from that trip was amazing. Serious muscle tensions had been completely released. I was more in tune with my body as a result of the mushroom medicine. Psychological fears and habits that I had carried with me for years were healed. The visions I had experienced were enough to keep my imagination and intellect busy for years. 

Some types of mushrooms contain moderate quantities of good-quality protein and are good sources of dietary fiber, vitamins C and B, and minerals (Breene 1990). Extensive clinical studies have demonstrated that some species have medicinal and therapeutic value, by injection or oral administration, in the prevention/treatment of... 

Lovastatin and mevastatin are new-generation drugs that were introduced into medicine for treating hyperlipocholesterolemia, and they are unique compounds. Lovastatin is isolated from Aspergillus terreus mushrooms. Mevastatin is a chemically analogous compound that differs only in the absence of a methyl group at C3 of the naphthaline system, and it is isolated from Penicillium citrinum mushrooms. 

The field of nuclear medicine has grown tremendously in the last two decades largely as a result of the development of the Mo-99/Tc-99m generator system. The ready availability of Tc-99m created a mushrooming interest in nuclear medicine clinical and research activity. Technetium-99m in a variety of forms is annually used in millions of nuclear medicine procedures performed worldwide. During recent years there has been a significant increase in interest in very short-lived (<30 min)... 

In a general sense, for everyone present the purpose of the session is a therapeutic catharsis. The chemicals of transformation of revelation that open the circuits of light, vision, and communication, called by us mind-manifesting, were known to the American Indians as medicines the means given to men to know and to heal, to see and to say the truth. Among the Mazatecs, many, one time or another during their lives, have eaten the mushrooms, whether to cure themselves of an ailment or to resolve a problem but it is not everyone who has a predilection for such extreme and arduous experiences of the creative... 

From the beginning, the problem is to discover what the sickness is the sick one is suffering from and prognosticate the remedy. Medicine woman, she eats the mushrooms to see into the spirit of the sick, to disclose the hidden, to intuit how to resolve the unsolved for an experience of revelations. The transformation of her everyday self is transcendental and gives her the power to move in the two relevant spheres of transcendence in order to achieve understanding that of the other consciousness where the symptoms of illness can be discerned and that of the divine, the source of the events in the world. Together with visionary empathy, her principal means of realization is articulation, discourse, as if by saying she will say the answer and announce the truth. 

Now it is night-time and he prepares to exercise his shamanistic function. His great- grandfather was one of the counselors of the town and a medicine man. With the advent of modern medicine and the invasion of the foreigners in search of mushrooms, the shamanistic customs of the Mazatecs have almost completely vanished. He himself no longer believes many of the beliefs of his ancestors, but as one of the... 

Robert W. Buck, M.D., "Mushroom Toxins—A Brief Review of the Literature," New England Journal of Medicine, 265, 1961, 681-86. 

An excellent description of encounters with Salvia divinorum can be found in a tape by Bret Blosser. While on a cave hunting expedition in the Sierra Mazateca in the late 70 s, Blosser quite accidentally came upon Mazatecs who use this plant, and was able to participate in several sessions with native shamans. He had the opportunity to receive instruction and learn about the plant s use over a span of several years, during which he periodically revisited the area. In his tape, Blosser discusses the uses for Salvia divinorum within the Mazatec culture, which includes medicinally - to treat both physical and "psychic" illnesses, and in divining - the future, the cause or cure for an illness, and information about friends, family, and enemies. He provides insightful descriptions of his journeys, and of the preparation and guidance of his sessions. The curandero who administered Blosser s journeys works with psilocybe mushrooms more frequently than Salvia divinorum, and indicated that Salvia divinorum is "too fast" for most people. 

Trip 1) In 1972, Weil arrived in Huautla de Jimdnez, where he had the good fortune to be taken into the house of a curandera living in a nearby village. As a healer, she used modern medicines and also mushrooms, which she regarded as the gran remedio that cures all ills. She had already collected a bunch of San Isidro mushrooms that were obviously meant for Weil, as she said Weil had only a twenty-four hour permit to stay in the area. 

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