Sources & references
Library
Every claim in this archive should trace to something you can check. This is the shared bibliography — prioritising Indigenous and community sources, primary ethnography, peer-reviewed research, and archival documents over psychedelic lifestyle writing. Each entry lists the pages that cite it.
- 01
Did Ancient Hindu's Use Mushroom? (Searching for Soma). YouTube.
A video documentary by the channel “dakota of earth” revisiting Wasson’s Amanita-as-Soma thesis and the wider hunt for the botanical identity of Soma; an accessible entry point, not a scholarly source.
Cited by Vedic (Indo-Iranian), Dakota Wint, Soma and the fly agaric
- 02
Traditional healing and psychoactive plants in southern Africa (overview). SciELO South Africa.
Context for the southern African pharmacological repertoire, including Boophone disticha.
Cited by Basotho
- 03
Rescheduling of psilocybin for authorised prescriber use. Australian Government Department of Health (TGA).
From July 2023, Australia allowed authorised psychiatrists to prescribe psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression — the first national medical access of its kind.
Cited by The New Legal Map
- 04
Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992. Republic of South Africa.
Criminalises psilocybin possession, use, and cultivation in South Africa.
Cited by Basotho, Psilocybe maluti
- 05
A prehistoric mural in Spain depicting neurotropic Psilocybe mushrooms? (Selva Pascuala). Economic Botany 65(2).
Argues that a row of bell-shaped figures in the Selva Pascuala mural (Villar del Humo, Spain) depicts Psilocybe hispanica; the identification is debated.
Cited by Prehistoric European mushrooms
- 06
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Hodder & Stoughton.
Argued that Christianity began as an Amanita muscaria fertility cult encoded in the Gospels; rejected by mainstream philology and largely discredited.
Cited by Allegro's mushroom Christianity
- 07
Codex Yuta Tnoho (Vindobonensis Mexicanus I). Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.
Mixtec pictorial manuscript; a scene interpreted as a ritual of maize, pulque, and mushrooms before the first dawn of the present era.
Cited by Mixtec (Ñuu Savi)
- 08
Miniature Mushroom Stones from Guatemala. American Antiquity 26(4).
Argued that carved mushroom stones evidence an ancient "mushroom-stone cult," linking them to underworld and nine-lords-of-the-night symbolism.
Cited by Maya, Maya mushroom stones
- 09
María Sabina and her Mazatec mushroom velada. Wellcome Collection.
Accessible general-reader overview suitable for orientation, not primary citation.
- 10
Proposition 122 — Natural Medicine Health Act. Colorado.
Decriminalised personal use of psilocybin for adults 21+ and created a regulated "healing centre" access model; first licences issued 2025.
Cited by The New Legal Map
- 11
Basotho ethnomycology of Psilocybe maluti: interview evidence (preprint). SocArXiv / OSF Preprints.
Interviews with 26 healers and 8 non-healers describing four use domains: initiation, healing, recreation, and magical protection. Not yet peer-reviewed.
Cited by Basotho, Psilocybe maluti, Cullen Taylor Clark, Newly documented: a psilocybin mushroom in the Maloti
- 12
Psilocybe stametsii sp. nov. — a new species from the Los Cedros cloud forest, Ecuador. Fungi Foundation / Natural History Museum of Utah.
Describes a tiny Andean Psilocybe named in Stamets’ honour, collected by Dentinger (2011) and Furci (2022) — the same Utah mycology group behind the Lanmaoa work.
Cited by Paul Stamets
- 13
Phylogenomic systematics of Lanmaoa (Boletaceae) reveals cryptic diversity and suggests a novel psychoactive lineage. Natural History Museum of Utah / University of Utah.
Sequences market and herbarium specimens of the hallucinogenic bolete; finds no known psychoactive compound, pointing to an undescribed molecule behind the lilliputian effect.
Cited by Lanmaoa asiatica, The mushroom that shows you little people
- 14
María Sabina: Her Life and Chants. Ross-Erikson.
Estrada’s Mazatec-language interviews and translation of Sabina’s life story and chants — the closest thing to a first-person testimony.
Cited by Mazatec, María Sabina, The Mushroom That Speaks
- 15
On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry. Scientific Monthly / American Journal of Psychiatry.
A mid-20th-century revival of the fly-agaric berserker theory; still speculative and widely criticised since.
Cited by Norse (Berserkers)
- 16
Contemporary Mazatec veladas: ritual structure and healing. Anthropology of Consciousness.
Recent ethnography describing the velada in phases of purification, ceremony, and post-ritual observance.
Cited by Mazatec, The Mushroom That Speaks
- 17
María Sabina, tourism, and the mushroom trade in Huautla de Jiménez. Ethnographic / cultural-tourism scholarship.
Context for what mushroom tourism did to Huautla and the Mazatec after 1957 — the cautionary backdrop to Western retreat and ceremony culture.
Cited by Neo-Shamanism and the Retreat Economy, The West Discovers the Mushroom
- 18
Hallucinogens in Precolumbian Art. in Art and Environment in Native America.
Early argument reading mushroom imagery in Mixtec and other Mesoamerican art as entheogenic.
Cited by Mixtec (Ñuu Savi)
- 19
Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning. Psychopharmacology.
The Johns Hopkins study widely credited with reopening rigorous clinical psilocybin research in the 2000s.
Cited by Roland Griffiths, The Clinical Renaissance
- 20
Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92). Guatemala.
Broadly restricts psychotropics; legal use limited to authorised medical/research contexts.
Cited by Maya, Amanita muscaria, Maya mushroom stones
- 21
Hallucinogenic Mushrooms in Mexico: An Overview. Economic Botany 62(3).
Species-level overview; identifies P. caerulescens (Nahua teotlaquilnanácatl) among ceremonially used mushrooms and counts Indigenous peoples with recorded use.
Cited by Chatino, Chinantec, Mixe (Ayöök), Nahua, Zapotec, Psilocybe aztecorum, Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe hoogshagenii, Psilocybe mexicana, Psilocybe zapotecorum, Gastón Guzmán, Mexico's other mushroom peoples, Teonanácatl: ‘flesh of the gods’?
- 22
Les champignons hallucinogènes du Mexique. Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris.
Heim’s mycological identification of the Oaxacan sacred species alongside Wasson’s ethnographic notes.
Cited by Mazatec, Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe mexicana, Albert Hofmann, Roger Heim
- 23
La folie des Kuma: le champignon nonda et Boletus manicus. Cahiers du Pacifique.
Heim and Wasson investigate the New Guinea "mushroom madness," identifying nonda boletes (including Boletus manicus) without isolating a compound that explains the reported effects.
Cited by Lanmaoa asiatica, Roger Heim, The mushroom that shows you little people
- 24
LSD: My Problem Child. McGraw-Hill.
Hofmann’s memoir, covering his 1958 isolation and synthesis of psilocybin and psilocin from Heim’s cultivated Mexican mushrooms, and his 1962 journey to the Mazatec country with the Wassons.
Cited by Albert Hofmann
- 25
Encounter with the Plumed Serpent: Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica. University Press of Colorado.
Ñuu Savi–centred reading of the codices, including the mushroom scene of Codex Yuta Tnoho.
Cited by Mixtec (Ñuu Savi)
- 26
The Koryak. Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. VI, AMNH.
Foundational ethnography documenting Koryak use of Amanita muscaria (wapaq).
Cited by Koryak, Amanita muscaria, Soma and the fly agaric
- 27
Mushrooms, Drugs, and Potters: A New Approach to the Function of Precolumbian Mesoamerican Mushroom Stones. American Antiquity 41(2).
The central counterargument: reinterprets mushroom stones as potters’ anvils/moulds rather than ritual paraphernalia.
Cited by Maya, Maya mushroom stones, How the Mushroom Becomes Myth
- 28
The Psychedelic Experience. University Books.
A product of the Harvard Psilocybin Project (1960–62); a founding text of 1960s psychedelic counterculture and the backlash that followed.
Cited by Timothy Leary, The West Discovers the Mushroom
- 29
Drugs of Abuse Act, 2008. LesothoLII.
National framework under which public legal summaries classify psychedelics as illegal in Lesotho.
Cited by Basotho, Psilocybe maluti
- 30
Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. Faber & Faber.
A critical cultural history that deflates several popular entheogenic myths — useful precisely where it disagrees with the psychedelic canon.
Cited by Koryak, Norse (Berserkers), Vedic (Indo-Iranian), Tassili n'Ajjer, Amanita muscaria, Albert Hofmann, Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary, Allegro's mushroom Christianity, The Eleusinian kykeon, Prehistoric European mushrooms, Soma and the fly agaric, Tassili rock art, How the Mushroom Becomes Myth, The Mushroom That Speaks, Terence McKenna and the Stoned Ape
- 31
The Mixe of Oaxaca: Religion, Ritual, and Healing. University of Texas Press.
Ethnography of Mixe (Ayöök) religion and healing, including divinatory use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Cited by Mixe (Ayöök), Mexico's other mushroom peoples
- 32
Amanita muscaria and the Thunderbolt Legend in Guatemala and Mexico. Mycologia 66(1).
Records highland Guatemalan Quiché speakers identifying Amanita muscaria with a word for "thunderbolt" — symbolic resonance, not proof of Classic Maya psilocybin rite.
Cited by Maya, Maya mushroom stones
- 33
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge. Bantam Books.
Sets out the "Stoned Ape" hypothesis — that psilocybin drove human cognitive evolution. Influential in psychedelic culture; not accepted by mainstream anthropology.
Cited by Dennis McKenna, Terence McKenna, Terence McKenna and the Stoned Ape
- 34
The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna. Polaris Publications.
Dennis McKenna’s memoir of the brothers’ 1971 "Experiment at La Chorrera" in the Colombian Amazon and his subsequent career in ethnopharmacology — a first-hand, more sceptical counterpoint to Terence’s mythmaking.
Cited by Dennis McKenna
- 35
A description of two novel Psilocybe species from southern Africa and some notes on African traditional hallucinogenic mushroom use. Mycologia 116(5).
Formally describes two native southern African species — Psilocybe maluti and Psilocybe ingeli — and reports Basotho traditional use of P. maluti, co-authored with the traditional healer Mamosebetsi Sethathi. The first strong published African case.
Cited by Basotho, Psilocybe maluti, Cullen Taylor Clark, Newly documented: a psilocybin mushroom in the Maloti
- 36
The Mushrooms of Language. in M. Harner (ed.), Hallucinogens and Shamanism, Oxford University Press.
Classic argument that Mazatec chant is the working technology of the velada — the mushroom "speaks" through ritual language.
Cited by Mazatec, Henry Munn, María Sabina, The Mushroom That Speaks
- 37
An attempt to explain the berserk-rage of the old Nordic warriors through natural history. Kongliga Vetenskaps Academiens nya Handlingar, Sweden.
The original conjecture that Norse berserker fury came from eating fly agaric — an 18th-century idea, not a medieval source.
Cited by Norse (Berserkers)
- 38
Measure 109 — Oregon Psilocybin Services Act. Oregon Health Authority.
The first US framework for regulated, licensed adult psilocybin services; service centres began operating from 2023.
Cited by The New Legal Map
- 39
Drugs and Mysticism (the "Good Friday" / Marsh Chapel Experiment). Harvard University (doctoral dissertation).
The 1962 double-blind study of psilocybin and religious experience — an early attempt at rigour, later criticised for follow-up and safety reporting.
Cited by Timothy Leary, The Clinical Renaissance
- 40
COMP360 psilocybin Phase 3 programme (COMP005, COMP006) topline results. COMPASS Pathways / Psychiatric Times.
Two Phase 3 trials for treatment-resistant depression reported positive primary endpoints (June 2025, Feb 2026); an NDA submission was targeted for late 2026. Promising, but not yet an approval.
Cited by Roland Griffiths, The Clinical Renaissance
- 41
How to Change Your Mind. Penguin Press.
The bestseller that re-popularised psychedelic science for a mainstream audience and helped frame the "renaissance" narrative.
Cited by Roland Griffiths, Timothy Leary, Neo-Shamanism and the Retreat Economy, The Clinical Renaissance
- 42
Mushroom madness in the New Guinea Highlands. Oceania 31(2): 137–139.
Classic ethnographic report of "komugl tai" / nonda-associated behaviour among the Kuma of the Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea — the anthropological origin of the puzzle.
Cited by Lanmaoa asiatica, The mushroom that shows you little people
- 43
The Healing Thunderbolt: Nahua entheogenic medicine and lightning. Harvard Divinity School, Psychedelic Intersections.
Frames contemporary Nahua mushroom use within a thunderbolt/rain medicinal complex, sometimes combined with yauhtli (Tagetes lucida).
Cited by Nahua
- 44
The Use of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms for Diagnostic Purposes among Some Highland Chinantecs. Economic Botany 30(3).
Describes diagnostic use of mushrooms identified as Psilocybe hoogshagenii among contemporary Chinantec healers.
Cited by Chinantec, Psilocybe hoogshagenii, Mexico's other mushroom peoples
- 45
Florentine Codex (General History of the Things of New Spain), Books 9 & 11. Digital Florentine Codex, Getty Research Institute.
Sixteenth-century Nahua-authored account describing banquet guests eating "little black mushrooms" that intoxicate and bring visions.
Cited by Nahua, Teonanácatl: ‘flesh of the gods’?
- 46
The oldest representations of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the world (Tassili n’Ajjer). Integration: Journal of Mind-Moving Plants and Culture.
The best-known argument that Tassili n’Ajjer rock art depicts mushrooms; treated by later scholarship as disputed.
Cited by Tassili n'Ajjer, Tassili rock art
- 47
Ritual use of Psilocybe zapotecorum in a Zapotec community of the Valles Centrales, Oaxaca. IMA Fungus.
Contemporary ethnography from El Peral, San Antonino El Alto — documents Ni’to be’ya / Hongo Santo / Hongo Borracho used for healing and divination, incensed with copal before the altar of San Miguel Arcángel.
Cited by Zapotec, Psilocybe zapotecorum
- 48
Ritual use of Psilocybe zapotecorum (indexed record). PubMed 40453385.
Indexed abstract of the 2025 Zapotec ethnography.
- 49
Teonanácatl: The Narcotic Mushroom of the Aztecs. American Anthropologist / Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard.
The paper that reconnected the colonial word teonanácatl to living Oaxacan mushroom use, drawing on Schultes’ 1938–39 fieldwork among Mazatec, Chinantec, and Zapotec communities.
Cited by Chinantec, Mazatec, Nahua, Zapotec, Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe mexicana, Richard Evans Schultes, Teonanácatl: ‘flesh of the gods’?, The West Discovers the Mushroom
- 50
Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World: An Identification Guide. Ten Speed Press.
The best-known modern field guide to psilocybin species; widely used for identification and a key vehicle for popularising the group. A reference work, not a peer-reviewed study.
Cited by Paul Stamets
- 51
Two new species of Psilocybe mushrooms discovered in southern Africa. Phys.org / ScienceDaily.
Accessible reporting on the 2024 discovery, including how citizen mycologists Talan Moult and Cullen Taylor Clark and healer Mamosebetsi Sethathi contributed to the work.
Cited by Basotho, Psilocybe maluti, Cullen Taylor Clark
- 52
Mushrooms, markets, and the moral economy of Huautla. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development.
On tourism, trade, and the legal-social grey zone around Mazatec mushroom practice today.
Cited by Mazatec, María Sabina, R. Gordon Wasson
- 53
Ley General de Salud (arts. 234, 245). Cámara de Diputados, Mexico.
Lists psilocybin and hallucinogenic mushrooms, including Psilocybe mexicana, as controlled substances.
Cited by Chatino, Chinantec, Mazatec, Mixe (Ayöök), Nahua, Zapotec, Psilocybe aztecorum, Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe hoogshagenii, Psilocybe mexicana, Psilocybe zapotecorum, Mexico's other mushroom peoples
- 54
Seeking the Magic Mushroom. Life Magazine, 13 May 1957.
The mass-market article that exposed the Mazatec velada to a global audience and set the tourism and commodification pressures that followed.
Cited by Mazatec, Psilocybe mexicana, María Sabina, R. Gordon Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, Neo-Shamanism and the Retreat Economy, The West Discovers the Mushroom
- 55
Mushrooms, Russia and History. Pantheon Books.
Two-volume study framing the authors’ ethnomycological thesis; includes the 1955 velada account.
Cited by Mazatec, María Sabina, R. Gordon Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, Teonanácatl: ‘flesh of the gods’?
- 56
Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The influential (and contested) argument identifying the Rigvedic Soma with Amanita muscaria.
Cited by Koryak, Vedic (Indo-Iranian), Amanita muscaria, R. Gordon Wasson, Soma and the fly agaric, How the Mushroom Becomes Myth
- 57
The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The influential proposal that the Eleusinian kykeon was psychoactive — most likely an ergot (Claviceps) preparation. Serious, and unproven.
Cited by Albert Hofmann, The Eleusinian kykeon
- 58
Four new genera of the fungal family Boletaceae (incl. Lanmaoa, type L. asiatica). Fungal Diversity 81: 1–24.
Erects the genus Lanmaoa (named for the Ming-era naturalist Lan Mao, 1397–1476) and describes L. asiatica, the blue-bruising Yunnan bolete later tied to "little people" hallucinations.
Cited by Lanmaoa asiatica, The mushroom that shows you little people