Psychoactive Mushrooms Presentation
Psychoactive Mushrooms Presentation
Psychoactive Mushrooms Presentation
Mushrooms
John Clarke
Topics To Cover:
• Psilocybin containing “magic mushrooms”
• Amanita muscaria / Fly Agaric mushrooms
– History/tradition/culture
– Pharmacology
“Magic Mushrooms”
• Multiple species of the Psilocybe genus
– 240 psychoactive mushrooms, 170 are
psilocybin-containing
– 60 Psilocybe spp. growing naturally in the US,
25 are hallucinogenic
Traditional Use
• Used by Mesoamerican natives
• Religious communion, divination, and
healing
• Used for thousands of years until Spanish
invaded
• 1955: Wasson first westerner to take
mushrooms
Effects
• Mood lift, euphoria, giggling, laughter, giddiness,
increased flow of ideas/deep thinking, things become
more interesting/colourful
• Completely legal
Amanita muscaria
• Appear (alongside Psilocybe spp.) in
Algerian art from 3500 BC
• Appearances in paintings from
renaissance, more prominent in Victorian
era
• Typically associated with fairies, elves,
“little people”
• Christmas
• Alice in Wonderland
Amanita muscaria
Traditional Use
• Use was widespread, but in Siberia in
particular
• Siberian shamans would use it as an
alternative method to enter a trance state
• Eastern Siberian shamans and laypeople
used it religiously and recreationally
Effects
• Euphoria, analgesia, relaxation, trance/dreamlike state,
synaesthesia, clarity of thought, social feelings,
increased sexual feelings, seeing little people