Magic mushrooms have been used since prehistoric times.

Arts & Culture

T hough research into the therapeutic effects of psilocybin is a relatively modern development, people have experimented with magic mushrooms (fungi with hallucinogenic effects) since the early days of human civilization. Following the discovery of a mural in northern Australia depicting mushroom-like figures and psychedelic drawings, archaeologists surmised that mushrooms likely played a social and cultural role in Sandawe and Bradshaw cultures as far back as 10,000 BCE. Similar mushroom-headed figures have also been found in prehistoric caves in North Africa and Spain.

While little is known about these early psychedelic dabblings, the Aztecs' ritual use of magic mushrooms has been well documented. Known in that culture as "teonanacatl," or "flesh of the gods," the fungi were used in religious ceremonies to induce trances, produce visions, and communicate with gods. Magic mushrooms were later outlawed by 16th-century Spanish colonizers, who cited their use as barbaric and anti-Catholic. As a result, the Spanish destroyed all records and evidence of psilocybin (the hallucinogenic chemical found in psilocybe mushrooms), and drove the ritual use of mushrooms underground, where it stayed for centuries.

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By the Numbers

Typical percentage of psilocybin in magic mushrooms today

0.2%-0.4%

Americans who reportedly used hallucinogens in 2021

7.4 million

Did you know?

Magic mushrooms were stigmatized because of the hippie movement.

If it weren't for the 1960s "hippie" counterculture, the West's relationship with magic mushrooms might be a lot less controversial today. In 1957, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffmann isolated psilocybin from the fungi and began to use the compound in medical trials — albeit briefly. The early research was promising, but the rampant use of psychedelics within the hippie movement led to federal backlash against the drug in the U.S., discouraging medical studies. Much of the decade's social and political turbulence was attributed to psychedelic drug use, and this fueled the DEA's push to ban the use of magic mushrooms and their hallucinogenic counterparts. As a result, psilocybin was outlawed under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, and research didn't pick back up until the turn of the 21st century.