Psychedelia, page 45
The Aztec used an even larger number of psycho-active plants than the four major entheogens mentioned above. Early Western chronicles feature numerous Nahuatl terms for plants and mushrooms, some of which are still unknown. Gordon Wasson identified tlitliltzin as a variant of ololiuqui, using the black seeds of another morning glory (Ipomoea violacea) rather than the brown seeds of Rivea corymbosa. More recently, Jonathan Ott among others suggest that pipiltzintzintli was Salvia divinorum, a once-obscure hallucinogen currently popular in the West. Knowledge of these three plant drugs lingered among local Mesoamerican tribes well into modern times, and it is likely that the Aztec's great interest in entheogenic highs vitalized the shamanic cultures of remote villages around Central America for many generations. In addition to these flowering plants, Dobkin de Rios has found Aztec references to three different types of mushrooms, and these could well be three distinct species of Psilocybe, of which several variants grow in Mexico today (Wasson's Mazatec sources alone distinguished between half a dozen different visionary shrooms).
Another indication of the richness of the Aztec's psychedelic flora came with the archeological find of an arresting stone idol showing Xochipilli, the Aztec 'prince of flowers'. Seated with his arms and face uplift in an enraptured, ecstatic posture, Xochipilli's body and base are covered with carvings of psycho-active plants like teonanacatl and ololiuqui. Among them is an obscure plant called sinicuichi (Heimia salicifolia), a shrub whose entheogenic use may have been unique to the Aztec. Schultes includes it in some of his comprehensive floras, describing it vaguely as a moderate hallucinogen which mostly affects the hearing, and whose principal alkaloid was vertine. For many years, this was all that was known about the mysterious drug.
In 1984, a dissertation by Abraham Caceres pointed out that the Xochipilli deity associated with sinicuichi and other plant drugs, is also the god-prince of music and dance. Reflecting upon a general trend of the modern mind, his paper argues that what Westerners perceive as a focus on the hearing is simply a reflection of our own ethnocentric bias towards the visual, self-programming us to expect cultural lore to be primarily visual. Older cultures, however, tend to be more oral-auditory than visual, which appears curious to the modern consciousness. Caceres, along with Dobkin de Rios in her chapter on the Aztec, emphasize the possible role that music and ritual rhythmic motion (including dancing) played in the psychedelic plant experiences of the Aztec people. The songs and melodies offered an aural pathway that guided the psychedelicist through the hallucinogenic Otherworld, all under the divine protection of Xochipilli. Although no connection is made by either writer, this brings to mind the melodic icaros songs that Amazonian ayahuasca shamans use as a central tool in their healing rituals, in order to guide the patient through his visions.
As for the sinicuichi entheogen, anecdotal evidence in the form of modern-day trip reports lends little support to Schultes' statement about its action being primarily auditory, describing instead a range of vague sensory distortions typical for second-rate hallucinogens. Smoking the sinicuichi seems to produce lethargy and mild euphoria with modest visual and aural effects. Drinking a dried leaf infusion or 'tea' produced several cases of unpleasant experiences, with overwhelming muscular pain, strong headaches, and very little hallucinogenic action. This is not the mark of a psychedelic or even deliriant, but rather of a poison. Comments about sound seeming more remote or lower in pitch have been registered, but by no means dominate over the optical or somatic impressions. As discussed above, the modern Western mind may take note and respond most strongly to visual events, while aboriginal people may find auditory, or even olfactory, drug effects the most striking.
Traditional sinicuichi lore features a recurring theme of the color yellow, which may be a magical linking of the shrub's bright flowers to a presumed glow around objects as seen when under the influence. At the height of the experience, this yellow light bathes the entire surroundings with its warm light, as if a second sun had opened up. Alas, not many people have succeeded in reaching this psychedelic peak with the aid of sinicuichi. The Aztec who put its flower next to the sacred mushroom and morning glory seeds presumably knew a better way to extract and consume the shrub leaves. According to neo-shamanist Jim DeKorne, native Amerindian use of sinicuichi still occurs today, but until the right preparation is known the plant remains an ethnobotanical curiosity only. In comparison, the morning glory seeds known as ololiuqui have raised far more interest and remain a psycho-active drug frequently employed in modern times. Several reports from the conquistador era refer to the medicinal and ritual-spiritual use of morning glory seeds among Mex- indians. The Aztecs spoke of three types of ololiuqui, presumably overlapping with the two variants the Mazatec indians described to Gordon Wasson, and the four psycho-active variants recognized by modern science. As with other entheogens, Aztec use was banished by the European invaders and eradicated (or so it seemed) for centuries until 20th century ethnobotanists uncovered it.
C W Safford, who mistakenly identified teonanacatl as peyote, also mistook ololiuqui for Datura around the same time (circa 1915). R E Schultes and his colleague Blas Reko corrected the identification after finding a cultivated Rivea corymbosa with a curandero of the Zapatec tribe, clearly indicating the same type of unbroken linage of use as Wasson found with the mushrooms. Schultes published his findings in a 1941 paper which is the basis of later research and outlines contemporary ololiuqui use in several tribes in the Mexican mountains. Indeed, Maria Sabina verified that the seeds were part of her shamanic healing tools, where they were considered inferior to the Psilocybin mushrooms but superior to the Salvia divinorum. As reported by Wasson in a lengthy interview in High Times 1976, other shamans rated the morning glory seeds as highly as the mushrooms, while Wasson himself found the effects (after preparation) to be similar. Following Schultes' discovery, a familiar pattern followed, where interest grew in the 1950s but vital phyto- chemical questions remained unanswered.
In the late 1950s Albert Hofmann devoted himself to the ololiuqui mystery on Wasson's behalf and discovered to his surprise that the morning glory seeds contained compounds in the lysergic acid family, whose flagship molecule is Hofmann's own LSD-25. The existence in nature of lysergic acids such as LSA was unknown and unexpected, not least so in the seeds for a popular florist plant. The molecular structure of LSA parallels that of Psilocybin in that it is a biotic (naturally occurring) indole with a substitution at the 4-position of the indole ring, which in turn creates a structural connection between Psilocybin and LSD-25. At the 1959 Princeton conference, Sandoz representative Aurelio Cerletti mentioned the LSA/ololiuqui discovery and pointed out that 'the basic chemical structure of the most potent agent, LSD, which itself is not of natural origin, has been found in one of the oldest natural drugs used for hallucinogenic purposes.' So surprising was the discovery of lysergic acid amide in a higher plant that Hofmann's branch colleagues actually doubted his analysis when he presented it at a 1960 conference in Melbourne, assuming his sample had been tainted by the vast amounts of LSD he presumably had lying around.8 The modern-day interest in the morning glory seeds cluster and its relationship to LSD is examined more in detail in Chapter X.
The identification of the Aztec's pipiltzintzintli as Salvia divinorum remains unconfirmed, but Jonathan Ott's description of it as 'the best bet' is reasonable given the historical data. The drug has a long native history of divinatory usage among tribes such as the Mazatec, yet there are ceremonial indications that the tradition originated elsewhere, possibly with the Aztec. Like the sacred mushrooms and morning glory seeds, the major introduction of Salvia into Western culture was the outcome of Gordon Wasson's explorations into the shamanic indian cultures of Southern Mexico.9 The curandera Maria Sabina described Salvia, or 'ska pastora' as a visionary plant used when mushrooms and morning glory seeds were unavailable, and thus its status in the entheogenic tradition is somewhat lesser. Albert Hofmann, on his sole visit to the Sierra Mazateca in 1962, was offered a chance to participate in a Salvia ritual, but was unable to get any psycho-active effects from the leaves. The active constituent was long a mystery but in recent years it has been identified and named Salvinorin A, a compound which differs from the classic hallucinogens in not being an alkaloid, and not binding at the serotonin receptor sites. Neither a serotonergic hallucinogen like all the major psychedelic drugs, nor a dissociative like PCP or Ketamine, Salvia seems to belong to a psycho-active class of its own.
Like the fly agaric, Salvia's effects are unpredictable, but moderate doses seem to produce mainly CEV phenomena like kaleidoscopes and abstract objects. At high doses a number of truly bizarre Salvia trips have been reported, suggesting depersonalization, irrational ideas, inability to communicate and lack of physical orientation, resembling the deliriant effects of Datura. True to the psychedelicists' penchant for magic thinking, the color green (of the Salvia leaves) frequently occurs in the more structured trip reports, and the plant drug has acquired enough of a mythical framework that a special female Salvia deity is reported to occasionally appear during the experience; this is the green 'Queen of the Forest' (a similar animistic spirit exists in ayahuasca lore).
Not to be confused with the common household spice, Salvia divinorum did not enter the western underground drug culture until the 1990s, when it flared up as the new entheogenic flavor of the year, an interest sparked by equal parts curiosity, one-upmanship, and legal availability. As of this writing, Salvia is still not classified as an illicit drug in most Western countries. The naturally growing plant is rare, but it has been propagated into Western greenhouses via cuttings from two different Mexican strains. While not a psychedelic drug in the true sense, the strangeness and power of Salvia is likely to attract new generations of psychedelicists, and it could well partake in a future revival of natural 'witch drugs' like Datura. Following the traditional Mazatec models, the plant-drug can be consumed by crushing and soaking the leaves into a tea, or by rolling the leaves into a thick 'cigar' to be chewed. Other forms of administration have been tried out; for more on this and for Salvia lore in general, see the Entheogenic Review 1998:2 and 1999:3.
6
Essentially colonized by the year 1600, the Aztec people left behind a rich psychedelic legacy in the form of botanical knowledge, entheogenic art, and detailed ritual testimonies. Although unique in its breadth and cultural penetration, their hallucinogenic endeavors remain only one aspect of a remarkable civilization. Due to its heterogeneous background and short history, the empire allowed a religious freedom unthinkable in smaller communities, and this made way for a wide range of spiritual applications for the hallucinogenic flora. The state was efficiently governed, inventive and diplomatically skilled, but also brutal and almost pathologically blood-thirsty. Descriptions of large banquets where use of psychedelic mushrooms mix with grisly and cannibalistic elements are likely to confuse modern students, accustomed to the benign dignity of shamanic icons like Maria Sabina.
The psilocybian mushroom, of which more than one variety was known, was the most commonly used entheogen among the Aztec. With no apparent restrictions in place, the hallucinogen was used at large celebrations, in religious rituals, for soothsayer divination, and in private healing sessions of the classic shamanic type. The Aztec culture recognized a class of priests (calmecac) side by side with a class of sorcerers (ticitl), both whom employed psycho-active plants in their specialized crafts. The over-arching state religion rested on a simple cosmology of an animating, omnipresent life-force (teotl), which could be made manifest in sacred objects, which in turn became subjects of worship. Public sacrifices and frequent celebrations according to an official ritual calendar maintained a religious structure which overlay an exceptionally diverse m'lange of belief systems. The empire's principle of regional independence allowed polytheistic worship of a pantheon of imported deities, in addition to which there were magic, shamanic, and Masonic orders.
In its seemingly frictionless contrast between official, cult-based and private spheres of religion, the Aztec society resembles the Roman empire of antiquity. However, due not least to Central America's generous entheogenic flora, the use of hallucinogenic drugs informed the spiritual activities in every socio-cultural strata of the Aztec, while the Greco-Roman world restricted its psychedelic celebrations to the annual kykeon initiation at the Great Temple in Eleusis. Purely recreational use of psychedelic drugs among the Aztec citizens is less well documented, but given the liberal climate and abundance of powerful plants, likely to have occurred. As is typical for societies with widespread use of psycho-active drugs, the use of alcohol (such as the fermented pulque) was restricted and public drunkenness harshly punished.
Yet it is difficult to argue for a truly psychedelic culture among the Aztec. Some might say that the ritual assembly-line beheadings at the top of the great pyramid point to a culture very far removed from psychedelic ideals. The ceremonial blood-thirst of the Aztec remains a curious attribute of a society whose liberal and open-minded nature else wise seems to resemble humanistic high cultures of other times and places. Fascinating as it is, the history of the Aztec will always be stained by their lack of respect for human life, a blood-thirst which seems strangely opposed to their psychedelic concept of a fundamental life-force (not unlike the Polynesian mana and its peaceful cultures). Whatever the historical and mass-psychological reasons, the human sacrifices and fierce warfare of the Aztec high culture places it outside any meaningful discussions about psychedelic societies.
In spite of a deep knowledge that suggests a high degree of societal interest, the entheogens did not affect the Aztec empire to any measurable degree. The widespread use of hallucinogenic plants was a cultural and spiritual attribute, but hardly a cultural or spiritual influence. Unlike the ayahuasca tribes of Amazonia, The Psychedelic Experience was never a central spiritual-mythical backbone of Aztec culture. The murals of mushroom-eaters and demons are famous today, but this visionary drug art was by no means a dominating cultural theme. In this sense, the Aztec civilization may seem more like modern Western societies, where psycho-active drug use occurs almost everywhere, but has no significant impact on the goals or governing of the state. The main difference is one of attitude; the Aztec had no moral objections to hallucinogenic reveries, nor did they seek to restrict such in any major extent. It's possible that an official recognition of ritualized drug initiations, similar to the Great Mysteries of the Mediterranean high cultures, could have caused a gradual change in the violent Aztec customs, but it would not have prevented the arrival of the ships of Fernando Cort's and the inevitable downfall of Mesoamerica's greatest civilization.
The Aztec left behind carved idols and mural paintings destined to intrigue psychedelic researchers, but the most notorious of all drug-related Mesoamerican relics, the mushroom stone, is of a substantially older date. Usually associated with the pre-Aztec high culture of the Maya people, mushroom stones have been found that date back to around 1000 BCE. They were familiar to Western science by the late 1800s, and over the next half-century their design and proposed usage were occasionally debated among archeologists. A major find in Guatemala 1946 brought further focus on the odd effigies, which were typically around 30 centimeters high and showed the head of a deity or sacred animal protruding from the stem of what, to most eyes, looked very much like a large mushroom. But this resemblance was often taken to be a coincidence, and the object was instead seen as a stylized phallus, a field marker, or some type of small ceremonial seat. These suggestions were in turn refuted on ethnographical and practical grounds, and so the mystery lingered until Gordon and Valentina Wasson in 1957 suggested that the mushroom-like objects did in fact represent psycho-active mushrooms, whose sacred nature to the Mayan people was indicated by the carved animal-deity faces. Historical antecedents of religious mushroom use in the region was readily available via the Aztec codices, wherein the Wassons had found at least ten references to vision-giving mushrooms.
The Maya kingdom had reach its cultural peak around the year 900 and was at its last legs when the Aztec arose. Despite residing fairly close apart in Southern Mexico, the two civilizations were fundamentally different; where the Aztec people displayed an explosive growth and rapid downfall, their southern Mayan neighbors existed for more than 3.000 years, of which the most classic period alone lasted around 650 years. At its height the Mayan civilization established major urban centers and grew to a million-size population, absorbing influences from the entire Central American region, and engaged in trade with people as remote as the aforementioned Taino of South America. Today, the Mayan high culture is remembered mostly for its invention of the first written language of the New World, and for its exceptional interest in calendars and corresponding astronomical observations. Their calendar, which starts in the year 3114 BCE, received some psychedelic attention when it was (inaccurately) stated that its end-date of the year 2012 AD matched an extreme reading on Terence McKenna's 'Timewave Zero' graph, suggesting, to some, a cataclysmic event to come. Another enigmatic aspect to the Mayan is their seeming knowledge of star constellations which are not visible to the human eye.
Pop science speculation aside, the Mayan also diverged from the Aztec in an unfortunate lack of archeological and cultural remnants. In contrast to the early Rio Grande tribes, where the desert climate helped preserve ancient objects, and the Aztec civilization, where first-hand accounts from Western observers are abundant, there is not much to work with when examining the psychedelic potential of the Mayan culture. Several monographs have been written in the wake of Wasson's mushroom stone hypothesis, but it's the curious stones themselves that remain the strongest indication of an entheogenic culture among the Mayans. In her 1984 anthology, Marlene Dobkin de Rios makes an effort to extricate possible hallucinogenic hints from other known traits of the Maya, such as the recurring toad motif and its speculative link to the old folkloristic belief of an intoxicating toad poison.
