9781422282489

12 HALLUCINOGENS: ECSTASY, LSD, AND KETAMINE

the mushroom stones as part of an ancient religious ceremony. Those in the cults ingested the hallucinogenic mushrooms, creating an entheogenic effect, the ability to bring on a spiritual experience. Every Mesoamerican civilization that flourished 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, including the Olmecs, the Mayas, and the Aztecs, used magic mushrooms in religious rituals. These civilizations also used other hallucinogenic herbs, plants, and animals to alter their state of mind and to treat illnesses. Franciso Javier Carod-Artal, an expert on the subject, says early American civilizations used psychedelic honey, toads, and toloache, the “devil’s herb,” which they brewed into tea to communicate with their gods and ancestors. People who were to be sacrificed to the gods drank the beverage before execution. “It has been hypothesized that during ritual human sacrifices, some prisoners and those people that would be sacrificed were drunk with some conscious-altering beverages, probably ones including toloache,” Carod-Artal writes.

An Olmec altar in Tabasco, Mexico. The Olmecs used hallucinogens as part of their religious worship.