John Miller
Psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms or shrooms, are a type of hallucinogenic mushroom that contains the prodrug psilocybin, which turns into the psychedelic psilocin upon ingestion. The effects of psilocybin mushrooms include perceptual changes, such as visual and auditory hallucinations, and feelings of disorientation, lethargy, giddiness, euphoria, joy, and depression. Psilocybin mushrooms have been used in traditional ceremonies by indigenous people in Central America and continue to be used in Indigenous American cultures in religious, spiritual, and divinatory contexts. The therapeutic use of psilocybin is currently being explored for its potential to treat mental health conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and end-of-life care.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Common Names | Magic Mushrooms, Shrooms, Golden Tops, Blue Meanies, Liberty Caps, Golden Halo, Golden Teacher, Cube, Gold Cap, Sacred Mushroom, Blue Mushroom, San Ysidro, Palenque Mushroom, Hed Keequai |
| Scientific Name | Psilocybe Cubensis |
| Active Compounds | Psilocybin, Psilocin, Norpsilocin, Baeocystin, Norbaeocystin, Aeruginascin |
| Effects | Hallucinations, Perceptual Changes, Disorientation, Lethargy, Giddiness, Euphoria, Joy, Depression, Fear, Paranoia, Flashbacks, Mystical Experience, Profound Change in Consciousness, Increased Heart Rate, Nausea |
| Dosage | Microdose: 0.1 g to 0.3 g, Psychedelic Dose: 1.0 g to 3.5–5.0 g (dried mushrooms) |
| Legal Status | Outlawed in Most Countries, Classified as a Schedule I Controlled Substance |
| History | Used in Indigenous Cultures in Central America and South America for Spiritual and Healing Rituals, Depicted in Ancient Art in Africa, Europe, and the Americas |
| Distribution | Found on All Continents, with the Majority of Species in Subtropical Humid Forests, Especially Mexico, the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia |
| Habitat | Grows on Cow and Horse Dung, Sugar Cane Mulch, or Rich Pasture Soil, Often Associated with Cattle Ranching and Dispersed by Cattle Egrets |
| Appearance | Cap: 1.6–8 cm, Conic to Convex with a Central Papilla, Becoming Broadly Convex with Age, Smooth and Sticky Surface, Brown to Pale Margin, Fades to Golden-Brown or Yellowish; Gills: Narrow and Grey, Darkening with Age; Stipe: Hollow and White, Becoming Yellowish, 4–15 cm High |
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What You'll Learn
History and Ancient Use
Psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms or shrooms, are hallucinogenic and psychedelic. They are known to induce a range of psychological, perceptual, interpersonal, and physical effects, including altered thinking, sense of time, and emotions. The use of psilocybin mushrooms dates back thousands of years, with evidence of their presence in prehistoric rock art and ancient rituals.
Ancient Use
Psilocybin mushrooms have been used in various cultures throughout history, with evidence suggesting their consumption in spiritual and ceremonial contexts. Rock art from Tassili, Algeria, dating back to around 9000-7000 BCE, is believed to depict psychedelic mushrooms and their effects on users. Similarly, prehistoric rock art near Villar del Humo in Spain indicates the use of Psilocybe hispanica in religious rituals approximately 6,000 years ago.
In Mesoamerica, psilocybin mushrooms held cultural and spiritual significance. Archaeological evidence suggests that these mushrooms were used as early as 3,000 years ago for ritual, therapeutic, divinatory, and pleasure purposes. They were often depicted in ritual paraphernalia, sculptures, and pictographic manuscripts, such as the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus 1, which portrays a pre-colonial mushroom ritual.
The indigenous people of Central America, including the Mixtec and Nahua cultures, incorporated psilocybin mushrooms into their healing and spiritual practices. The Nahua word "teonanacatl," translates to "flesh of the gods," reflecting the sacred nature of these mushrooms. They were also used in the coronation of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II in 1502.
History
Following the Spanish conquest, Catholic missionaries campaigned against the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms by the Aztecs, considering it idolatry. Despite suppression, the use of psilocybin mushrooms persisted in some remote areas. The first mention of hallucinogenic mushrooms in European medicinal literature was in the London Medical and Physical Journal in 1799, where a family experienced psychedelic effects after consuming Psilocybe semilanceata mushrooms.
In 1958, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann isolated psilocybin and psilocin from Psilocybe mexicana mushrooms. Sandoz, his employer, marketed and sold pure psilocybin to physicians and clinicians worldwide for psychedelic therapy. However, the increasing drug law restrictions in the 1960s and 1970s hindered scientific research into psilocybin's effects. Despite this, the popularity of psilocybin mushrooms as an entheogen grew in subsequent decades due to increased access to information on cultivation methods.
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Effects and Safety
A-plus silicide mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms, are psychedelic drugs that can induce hallucinations and distort a person's senses, emotions, and sense of time and space. The effects of magic mushrooms are highly variable and depend on factors such as dosage, individual expectations, past experiences, and the environment in which they are consumed.
Effects
Magic mushrooms can induce a range of effects, including:
- Hallucinations: Visual and auditory hallucinations are common, with users seeing or hearing things that are not there or are distorted.
- Altered senses: Magic mushrooms can distort the senses, affecting how individuals perceive objects and people in their environment.
- Emotional changes: Users may experience intense emotions ranging from euphoria and bliss to anxiety, terror, or panic.
- Altered sense of time and space: Magic mushrooms can make individuals lose their sense of time and space.
- Physical side effects: Increased heart rate and nausea are possible physical side effects.
The effects of magic mushrooms usually begin within 30 minutes when consumed orally and can last approximately four to six hours. However, when taken as a soup or tea, the effects may appear sooner, within 5-10 minutes.
Safety
While magic mushrooms have a low risk of addiction, there are still potential dangers associated with their consumption:
- Poisoning: Magic mushrooms resemble certain poisonous mushrooms, and misidentification can lead to poisoning and, in rare cases, death.
- Bad trips: Negative psychological experiences, known as "bad trips," can occur, especially if consumed in a stressful or unfamiliar environment or in combination with certain other drugs.
- Delayed adverse effects: In addition to the risk of a bad trip, individuals may experience delayed adverse effects, such as headaches or flashbacks, after consuming magic mushrooms.
- Interactions with medications: Magic mushrooms should not be taken with certain medications, especially psychiatric medications, as they may worsen the underlying condition or lead to a relapse.
- Unpredictable behaviour: Hallucinogenic drugs can induce unpredictable and potentially dangerous behaviour, increasing the risk of injury.
There is also limited knowledge about the safety of magic mushrooms for specific populations. For example, there is no data on the safety of consuming magic mushrooms during pregnancy. Additionally, individuals with cardiovascular disease or heart failure should exercise caution as magic mushrooms may pose unknown risks in these conditions.
While magic mushrooms have been used for thousands of years, their potential therapeutic benefits are still being investigated through clinical trials. Currently, there are no approved therapeutic products containing psilocybin in many places, including Canada and the United States, where it is classified as a Schedule I substance. However, research suggests that psilocybin may hold promise in treating various mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.
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Medical Applications
Psilocybin, the key ingredient in magic mushrooms, has been used in traditional ceremonies and for recreational purposes. It is also being studied for its potential medical applications.
Magic mushrooms have a long history of use in traditional ceremonies. They are naturally occurring and are consumed for their hallucinogenic effects. They are psychedelic drugs, which means they can alter a person's thinking, sense of time and emotions, and cause hallucinations.
In modern times, magic mushrooms are used recreationally, often at dance clubs or by people seeking a transcendent spiritual experience. However, the focus here is on their potential medical applications.
Psilocybin is being studied as a possible treatment for psychiatric disorders, including depression, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even cluster headaches. It is currently in late-stage clinical trials for treatment-resistant depression and has been approved for this use in Australia as of 2023. Research suggests that psilocybin can reduce anxiety and depression, especially in people with cancer, and can promote well-being, quality of life, and acceptance of their illness.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is also investigating psilocybin's potential to help treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addiction, pain, and neurodegenerative disorders.
It is important to note that the effects of magic mushrooms can vary widely, and there are risks associated with their use. They can cause perceptual changes, such as hallucinations, and physical side effects like increased heart rate, nausea, and vomiting. Mixing magic mushrooms with other drugs can be unpredictable and dangerous, and there is also the risk of misidentifying mushrooms and consuming toxic species.
While psilocybin shows potential in treating certain medical conditions, more research is needed to fully understand its effects and safety profile.
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Spiritual and Religious Use
Psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms", are naturally occurring and are consumed for their hallucinogenic effects. They are psychedelic drugs, which means they can affect all the senses, altering a person's thinking, sense of time, and emotions.
Psilocybin mushrooms have been used for spiritual and religious purposes for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence suggests that psilocybin mushrooms were used in spiritual and religious contexts in Mesoamerica as early as 3,000 years ago, and there is evidence that indigenous people in Central America used them for healing and spiritual rituals as far back as 3000 B.C. In Mesoamerica, the mushrooms were consumed in spiritual and divinatory ceremonies before being documented by Spanish chroniclers in the 16th century.
In the 16th century, Dominican friar Diego Durán wrote of the use of mushrooms by the natives for religious festivities conducted on the occasion of Aztec emperor Moctezuma II's accession to the throne in 1502. The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún also described witnessing mushroom use in the Florentine Codex (1545-1590), detailing how merchants would consume mushrooms to evoke revelatory visions upon returning from a successful business trip.
The Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus 1 is a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century pictographic manuscript created by the Mixtec people of contemporary Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla regions of Mexico. It portrays an ancient, pre-colonial mushroom ritual, probably referring to a calendrical adjustment during the sacred times before the first dawn. The manuscript depicts the God of Wind carrying a deity named Lady Eleven Lizard, who holds four mushrooms on her headdress. Behind them is Lady Four Lizard, who also wears four mushrooms on her headdress. Both figures represent the female spirit of the sacred mushrooms and display their totemic animal, the Lizard, which is associated with rain and fertility.
In addition to Mesoamerican cultures, there is evidence of psilocybin mushroom use in other ancient cultures. For example, the Tassili Mushroom Figure discovered in Tassili, Algeria, is believed to depict psychedelic mushrooms and the transformation of the user under their influence, dating back to 9000-7000 BC. 6,000-year-old pictographs discovered near the Spanish town of Villar del Humo illustrate mushrooms that have been identified as Psilocybe hispanica, a hallucinogenic species native to the area.
Today, psilocybin mushrooms continue to be used in Indigenous American cultures in religious, divinatory, or spiritual contexts. Terence McKenna documented the worldwide practices of psilocybin mushroom usage as part of a cultural ethos relating to the Earth and mysteries of nature. He suggested that mushrooms enhanced self-awareness and a sense of contact with a "Transcendent Other," reflecting a deeper understanding of our connectedness with nature.
Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin can induce states of consciousness that have lasting personal meaning and spiritual significance in religious or spiritually inclined people. These states are called mystical experiences, during which people may have visions or relive memories, feel a sense of "oceanic self-boundlessness", and experience intense emotions ranging from bliss to terror. In a 25-year follow-up experiment, all subjects given psilocybin reported that their experience had elements of "a genuine mystical nature" and was one of the high points of their spiritual life.
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Legal Status
The legal status of psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms, varies worldwide. Psilocybin and psilocin are listed as Schedule I drugs under the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which requires its members to prohibit psilocybin and restrict its use to medical and scientific research under controlled conditions. However, due to pressure from the Mexican government, the mushrooms containing the drug were not specifically included in the convention.
Many countries have some level of regulation or prohibition of psilocybin mushrooms, such as the US Psychotropic Substances Act, the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and the Japanese Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Law of 2002. Possession and use of psilocybin mushrooms are prohibited in most jurisdictions, often carrying severe legal penalties. However, there has been ambiguity and selective enforcement in some national, state, and provincial drug laws. Most US state courts have considered the mushroom a "container" of illicit drugs, making it illegal.
A notable loophole in the legal status of psilocybin mushrooms is that their spores do not contain psilocybin or psilocin and are therefore legal to possess and sell in many areas. However, some jurisdictions, such as Germany and a few US states, have specifically criminalized the possession and sale of psilocybin mushroom spores. The cultivation of psilocybin mushrooms is generally considered drug manufacture and is penalized, although one US state, New Mexico, has ruled that growing psilocybin mushrooms does not constitute "manufacturing" a controlled substance.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of psilocybin mushrooms, leading to legal changes in some jurisdictions. For example, in November 2020, Oregon voters passed an initiative to legalize magic mushrooms for mental health treatment in supervised settings. The District of Columbia also passed a similar initiative in 2020, allowing the possession and non-profit gifting or distribution of psilocybin mushrooms. In 2022, the Canadian province of Alberta announced it would regulate and allow the use of psilocybin for medicinal purposes in drug-assisted psychotherapy, and Australia approved psilocybin for prescription medications to treat PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. In the US, Colorado became the second state to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms in 2022.
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Frequently asked questions
A-Plus Silicide Mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms or shrooms, are a type of hallucinogenic mushroom that contains the prodrug psilocybin, which turns into the psychoactive psilocin upon ingestion.
A-Plus Silicide Mushrooms can be eaten fresh, cooked, or brewed into a tea. They can also be combined with other foods to mask their bitter taste or prepared as edibles such as chocolate bars and gummies.
The effects of A-Plus Silicide Mushrooms can vary from person to person. Common effects include hallucinations, distorted senses, altered thinking, and changes in emotions. Some people may experience a "bad trip," which can be influenced by the user's state of mind and environment.
The use of A-Plus Silicide Mushrooms can carry risks and may lead to negative experiences or "bad trips." While life-threatening symptoms are rare, consuming large amounts or a strong batch can result in unpleasant effects. It is important to be cautious and informed about the potential risks before consuming any drug.
Research suggests that psilocybin, the active ingredient in A-Plus Silicide Mushrooms, may have therapeutic potential for various mental health conditions, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and end-of-life care. However, more research is needed to fully understand its effects and potential applications.
