Lost Saints

Psilocybin mushrooms have been used in Indigenous Mesoamerican healing ceremonies since at least the sixteenth century. Westerners discovered this practice in the early to mid-twentieth century, notably when amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson met Mazatec curandera María Sabina in 1955, leading to widespread popularization of magic mushrooms in the West. For the Mazatec, the mushrooms were sacred and used only for healing, but Western hippies consumed them as psychedelic drugs with little regard for cultural sensitivities, desacralizing them. This article argues that this desacralization constitutes spiritual abuse with far-reaching consequences at individual, local, and global levels, and that recognizing it as such has implications for restorative justice and understanding psilocybin as sacred medicine.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Mushrooms containing psilocybin have been used in Indigenous healing ceremonies in Mesoamerica since at least the sixteenth century. However, the sacramental use of mushrooms was only discovered by Westerners in the early to mid-twentieth century. Most notably, the meeting between amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson and Mazatec curandera María Sabina in 1955 resulted in the widespread popularization of ingesting “magic mushrooms” in the West. To Sabina and the Mazatec people, psilocybin mushrooms were sacred and only to be used for healing. However, Western “hippies” viewed mushrooms as psychedelic drugs which they consumed with little regard for cultural sensitivities, rendering the mushrooms desacralized. This article argues that the desacralization of psilocybin mushrooms constitutes a form of spiritual abuse that has had far-reaching and long-lasting consequences at individual, local and global levels. Further, acknowledging and understanding the desacralization of psilocybin mushrooms as spiritual abuse has important implications for restorative justice and the understanding of psilocybin as a sacred medicine.