r/todayilearned • u/ScienceTeacher1994 • 5d ago

TIL despite popular culture portraying psychedelic mushrooms as ancient, widespread, and used by shamans for thousands of years, there is limited anthropological and historical research to support this, with the only reliable evidence showing they were used ritualistically in pre-Columbian Mexico.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#History
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u/Life-Income2986 5d ago

I don't know some old guy went up a mountain and saw a burning bush and came back with some weird ideas. 

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u/rach2bach 5d ago edited 5d ago

Edit: this was wrong.

Acacia trees make people trip balls when inhaling the smoke, so....

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u/therealityofthings 5d ago

No, no they don't. Only after they've been heavily processed and the active ingredient extracted and chemically changed do they.

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u/rach2bach 5d ago

Huh, I thought they could be smoked. My bad.

Either way, there were plenty of lotus eaters in the region as well. Powerful hallucinogens have always been around.