From Ancient Rituals to Revolutionary Therapies: Tracing 6,000 Years of Altered Consciousness

Commonly referred to as hallucinogens, psychedelics are chemical substances that
alter ordinary sensory perceptions, challenging the conditions and criteria typically
regarded as regular and consistent for an individual’s experience. Affecting a new
hue in the user’s lens of reality, psychedelics can subjectively expand both the
observable world and the individual’s intrinsic cognitive landscape.

To understand what something is, it’s necessary to ask where it came from. Looking
back throughout history, we find psychedelics in the deepest routes of the human
story. Psychedelics are embedded in the rituals, beliefs, and practices of ancient
cultures. From spiritual insights and religious ceremonies to medicinal and even
nutritional uses, psychoactive plants have been central to humanity’s evolution. Just
as the philosophical and intellectual advancements of the Greeks laid the foundation
for modern societies, psychedelics have shaped human experiences of reality and
consciousness for millennia, offering a profound glimpse into the interplay between
nature and the human mind.

Early Rituals and Shamanistic Practices (Circa 4000 BCE – 1000 BCE)

The earliest evidence of the use of psychedelic mushrooms in Europe dates back to
4000 BCE where paintings are found in a cave in Spain. The post-palaeolithic rock
art of the Selva Pascuala mural, found near the village of Villar del Humo in
South-Eastern Spain depicts what appears to be psilocybin mushrooms.
In the shadowed recesses of the Tassili plateau in Southeastern Algeria, ancient
shamans painted their connection to the divine; mushroom-holding shamans were
depicted on cave walls.
Ergot – the fungus from which LSD was first isolated – may have been used in the
Eleusinian Mysteries to make the potion called Kykeon – consumed ceremonially to
induce an experience of death and rebirth, believed to be a sacred rite able to initiate
psychic changes in those who ingested the drink.
The Indian Rig Veda described the use of the psychedelic drink called Soma. The
name Soma is mentioned primarily within three themes, as a God, as a plant and as
a libation made from a plant. R Gordon Wasson, an ethnomycologist and a world
renowned figure in the fields of ethnobotany, botany and anthropology produces a
solid ground of research on why he believes the Soma of the Rig Veda to be the fly agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria. Wasson explores and documents in his 1968
book ‘Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality’.
In Siberia, shamans have made use of this same mushroom, the psychoactive
fly-agaric, Amanita Muscaria in their ceremonies to reach states of consciousness
that allow them to connect with the spirit world and bring knowledge back to their
people.
Teotlnanacatl, ‘the flesh of the Gods’, now realised to be a mushroom of the genus
Psilocybe, a core theme in the Aztec’s rituals and spiritual perspectives. The
mushroom has been and still is to this day a sacred plant deeply ingrained in the
culture of these people native to Mexico, Central and South America.
The peoples we know as the Huicholes have kept their ancient lifestyle for centuries;
their culture and rituals largely involve the peyote cactus, known for its psychoactive
protoalkaloid mescaline.

Prominent characters in the 20th century who served to kindle interest in psychedelic substances

Albert Hoffman
The Austrian chemist Albert Hoffman discovered LSD while working with ergot, a
fungus commonly found growing on certain grains, particularly rye wheat. After
unknowingly absorbing or consuming the substance, he noticed the altered state of
perception it produced in him and he was curious to experiment with this new
alkaloid he had isolated from ergot.
Aldous Huxley
The rich and sharp mind of Aldous Huxley met with a certain quantity, one May
morning in 1953, of mescaline. Given to him by his friend, Humphry Osmond, a
psychiatrist in the field of the earliest research and experimentation into the
application of psychedelics in a therapeutic setting. This initiation into the world of
psychoactive plants caused Huxley to document his experience in ‘The Doors of
Perception’, one of the first in the line of contemporary literature into psychedelics.
Alan Watts
An early pioneer in the field of psychedelics in the mid to late 1950s. Alan Watts
described his LSD journey as a parallel to the religious experience. His famous line
on the utility of the psychedelic experience speaks to show how we must integrate
the lessons from this otherworldly realm into ‘real life’ when we come back to the
ground, “once you get the message, hang up the phone”. So his stance towards
these substances could be described as ‘mysticism in a bottle’, however at the same
time implying the importance of applying what we learn from the psychedelic voyage

in our day to day lives. Alan Watts liked to think of himself as an entertainer, his
primary field of knowledge and philosophical exploration was in the psychology of
religion, particularly those from the East, like Zen and Taoism; so his point of view
considering the parallels between the religious and the psychedelic experience has a
solid ground, it seems they are two paths leading to the same summit.
Timothy Leary
This man served as a huge catalyst in the development of awareness around
psychoactive substances. His character was controversial to say the least, however
it is certain that he rekindled interest and research into psychedelics and how they
can give us an insight into our own psychology. Leary was a professor of psychology
at Harvard University and it’s clear that his first experience with psilocybin containing
mushrooms shook his understanding of the mechanics of the mind, he said, “I
learned more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than
in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research in psychology.”
Ram Dass
Also a professor of psychology at Harvard, Richard Alpert worked with Timothy
Leary, eventually forming ‘The Harvard Psilocybin Project’, a series of experiments in
psychology with the aid of psychoactive substances. Ram Dass, as he was better
known later on in life, became one of the West’s most well known spiritual teachers,
giving lectures all around the US for decades after his return from India. Having an
educational background in developmental psychology, his way of expressing the
human predicament is fascinating and resonates with millions of those who meet
with his words.
Terence Mckenna
As a child Terence was fascinated by the complexity of nature, his attention captured
by a ‘certain visual suggestiveness of mystery’. Mckenna’s interest and subsequent
research and experimentation into psychedelics could be said to have been sparked
by his exposure to the world of science-fiction. These stories of ‘imagined science’
upon society served to break down, in the mind of a young Terence Mckenna,
conceptual barriers about what was possible. This breaking down of barriers is a
core character of the psychedelic attitude concerning the world around us, he said
“to entertain all possibilities but to never commit to belief – belief always being seen
as a kind of trap because if you believe something, you’re forever precluded from
believing its opposite, so you have run a line down the centre of the cognitive
universe and divided things into the believable and the unbelievable”. This divide
immediately implies separation and separation is nothing more than illusion. Terence
and his brother Dennis spent months in the Colombian Amazon experimenting with
Psilocybe Cubensis mushrooms; they attempted to bond a psychedelic substance
with their own neural DNA with the intention of gaining access to the collective memory of the human species. His journey deep into the psychedelic realm and his
views on the insights gained regarding subjects such as metaphysics, alchemy,
language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism and the theoretical
origins of human consciousness are expounded upon in all of his books and lectures.

Conclusion

Arriving in the 1970s, the war on drugs effectively brought psychedelic research to a
halt. U.S. president Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as “public enemy number
one”, and substances like psilocybin and LSD were lumped together with other illicit
drugs, and research virtually ceased due to legal and political pressures. The revival
of research into mind altering substances initially came through The Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and John Hopkins university. Over the
last couple decades, multiple studies and trials have brought psychedelic assisted
therapies into the spotlight. MDMA assisted therapies for PTSD, ketamine for
depression, global expansion of psychedelic research and legal and public support
for psychedelics follow from the 21st century rebirth of the research. Cities like
Denver and Oregon have decriminalized or legalized psychedelics, with the FDA
fast-tracking psilocybin research in 2020 for major depressive disorder, reflecting
growing public and legal support.
As we look to the future, the resurgence of psychedelic research marks a pivotal
moment in both science and society. From ancient ceremonies pointing towards the
divine to a promising frontier for mental health treatment, psychedelics have been
intimately woven with the human story. As global research expands and legal
barriers continue to shift, the future of psychedelics in therapy appears increasingly
promising. Nowadays there are several centers providing psychedelic assisted therapy with some promising results. Life Synergy is offering a Psychedelic Assisted Retreat with three mushroom therapy sessions and with a friendly form of DMT from Tepezcohuite on its monthly Mushroom Retreat in Mexico.