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What are Psilocybin Mushrooms?

Mushrooms are a part of the fungi kingdom, distinctly different from animals and plants. They are characterized by their flesh-like body consisting of the stem, the cap, and the gills that are located on the underside of the cap, where the mushroom creates microscopic spores that are its asexual reproductive units.

History of Use

There are several prehistoric rock art drawings which (quite probably) show the importance of psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms to the artists that drew them. One of these is in Spain, near Villar del Humo, and is approximately 6000 years old, and the other is in Tassili n’Ajjer (a national park in the Sahara desert), dating from 7000 to 9000 years ago. Terence McKenna, who was a famed psychonaut, author, and an avid advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic substances, studied the artwork and culture of Tassili n’Ajjer.

The rock paintings from the Neolithic era depict domesticated cattle, and McKenna concluded that psilocybin mushrooms would have grown from the dung of the animals, which is a very common occurrence. The psychoactivity of the mushrooms would have heavily influenced and further developed the spiritual and religious systems of the Tassili n’Ajjer people and without the domestication of cattle that would not have happened

In South America, numerous indigenous cultures use psilocybin for spiritual, religious and divination practices. This was, of course, halted when the Spanish conquistadors established their rule on the continent, but in remote areas, these practices endured uninterrupted. The Aztecs word for one of the Psilocybe species was teōnanācatl, which translates to divine mushroom. The Catholic missionaries believed that the mushrooms were a means to communicate with demons and devils, and forced the change from teōnanācatl to the sacrament of Eucharist.