Peyote mushroom

A number of mushrooms, liberty cap (psilocybe), psilocybin, fly agaric, Amantia muscaria and the peyote cactus contain hallucinogenic agents. They are usually eaten raw but can be dried out and stored or cooked into food or made into a tea and drunk. The effects are highly variable and whereas 20-30 liberty caps would be required to give a full dose, just one fly agaric mushroom would produce similar actions. Some recent local surveys in the UK have found between 12% and 15% of 16-year-olds claiming to have used these at least once. 

Many people believe that organic or natural psychedelics such as peyote, magic mushrooms and marijuana are safer or produce better trips than synthetic compounds. This is almost certainly false, since any plant material contains hundreds of compounds, many of which have a definite toxicity, but few of which have psychedelic properties (they tend to make you sick, not stoned). The various impurities or the additives (e.g., amphetamine, belladona, strychnine) sometimes found in synthetic preparations are probably no more toxic than many of the compounds found in the psychedelic plants, and like these compounds, such additives or impurities probably have relatively little effect on the trip. 

Any discussion of the chemistry of drugs must include some consideration of the nonmedical applications of such compounds. Just as early humans were searching their environment for natural products that would assuage pain and cure disease, so were they also looking for plants and other natural materials with psychoactive effects, materials that would provide an escape from the problems and worries of everyday life, or that would just make a person feel better for a period of time. They also incorporated psychoactive drugs into many of their religious ceremonies. The use of the peyote cactus, magic mushrooms, and similar products dates back centuries, if not millennia, in a variety of cultures. One hardly need point out that the use of psychoactive chemicals for recreational purposes continues in essentially every part of the world today. 

The better-known and widely used hallucinogenic plants are San Isidro mushroom Psilocyhe cubensis), ergot Claviceps), soma Amanita muscaria), peyote Cactus lophophora), yage (or ayahuasca), the vision vine of the Amazon Banisteriopsis caapi), cannabis Cannabis sativa and indica) and perhaps coca Erythroxylum novo-gratense). 

Ayahuasca is one entheogen of particular interest to spiritual explorers. The term entheogen comes from theo, or god/spirit, and gen (create). Thus, entheogens are substances that generate experiences of transcendence and God. Peyote or psilocybin mushrooms are traditional examples of entheogens, and often taken for the purpose of having a mystical experience. 

Which brings us back to the mushrooms, and the topic of the law. In the original writing of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, our Federal drug law, there are only four plants listed as being "Scheduled Drugs." In Schedule I there was Marijuana (later defined as the plant Cannabis spp.) and Peyote (later defined as the botanical Lophophora williamsii) in Schedule II there was Opium poppy and poppy straw, and Coca leaves. It is generally known that commercial opium comes from the plant Papaver somniferum and that commercial coca comes... 

Two good examples are the peyote cactus (which contains mescaline) and the magic mushroom (which contains psilocybin). Both were discovered and used by the Mexican Indians and both have been so thoroughly analyzed biochemically that their active ingredients have been synthesized. 

In the process of spiritual growth, many techniques have been used, such as prayer, fasting, study of scriptures, meditation, mantras, surrender to a Higher Power, and service to others. As far back in history as we can probe, the ingestion of various plants, such as the peyote cactus in America, certain mushrooms in many areas, and soma in India, has also been a means of promoting growth in awareness, called by some "Self-realization."... 

The Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico have used hallucinogenic plants for hundreds of years. Peyote (peyotl), psilocybin mushrooms (teonanactl), morning glory seeds (ololiuqui), and Salvia divinorum (hierba Maria, ska Maria Pastora) have been used in religious ceremonies of divination and healing. 

Schedule 1 Ecstasy, China White, GHB, Heroin (synthetic and natural), Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), Marijuana, Mescaline, Peyote, Psilocin and Psilocybin (constituents of magic mushrooms)... 

The use of peyote was basic to pre-Columbian religious practices, and it spread throughout many Central American tribes to those north of Mexico, in spite of the Christian missionaries who discouraged its use. Hostility toward highs from mushrooms and other plants grew as LSD appeared on the drug scene. 

LSD is one of many mind drugs that are known as hallucinogens. Also known as psychedelics, these drugs distort perception, cause spaciness and mild euphoria, and produce other unpredictable effects. In addition to LSD, the most common hallucinogens are marijuana, MDMA (ecstasy, rave), PCP, peyote (mescaline), and psilocybin mushrooms (schrooms). -... 

Don Juan, the Yaqui shaman-teacher in the books by Carlos Castaneda, described Datura and mushrooms as powers or allies, as opposed to peyote, which he described as a teacher. Indians have generally been quite clear in maintaining that peyote provides them with their songs. Peyotists often "hear where they should look for this cactus. Some Indians even complain that they can t sleep near peyote because there was so much noise at night ... 

After a search for teonandcatl in specimens of Mexican mushrooms, a prestigious American botanist, Dr. William E. Safford, concluded that there simply were none. He felt that the Spanish chroniclers must have confused them with dried peyote. In a talk entitled "Identification of teonanacatl of the Aztecs with the narcotic cactus Lophophora williamsii and an account of its ceremonial use in ancient and modern times, Safford—who was known for lengthy titles—declared that the dried mescal button resembled "a dried mushroom so remarkably that, at first glance, it will even deceive a mycologist He hypothesized that the Indians may have deliberately misled the Spanish in order to protect their use of peyote. 

The few scholars who heard Safford or later read his handsomely-published report were mainly hearing about psychoactive mushrooms for the first time, only to be told that the mushrooms never existed. But there was one important dissenter—Dr. Plasius Paul (Bias Pablo) Reko, an Austrian physician who had engaged in extensive botanical collecting as a hobby while living in Mexico. Reko had become convinced that teonandcatl referred to mushrooms, not Safford s hypothesized peyote. 

The nanacates are poisonous mushrooms which have nothing to do with peyote. It is known from olden times that their use induces intoxication, states of ecstasy and mental aberrations, but, notwithstanding the dangers attendant upon their use, people everywhere they grow have taken advantage of their intoxicating properties up to the present time. 

United Nations Drag Control Programme, Recommended Methods for Testing Peyote Cactus (Mescal Buttons)/Mescaline and Psilocybe Mushrooms/Psilocybin, Manual for use by national narcotics laboratories. United Nations Division of Narcotic Drags, New York, 1989. 

Peyote Cactus (Mescal Buttons)/Mescaline and Psilocybe Mushrooms/Psilocy-bin (1989)... 

The Spaniards, appalled, made an effort to suppress the mushroom ceremony and believed that they had succeeded. So completely did the practice disappear from light of day that over time Western scholars concluded that the friars had made a mistake that teonanacatl never had been mind-altering mushrooms, which were doubted to exist, but instead were dried peyote cactus buttons. 

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