This talk took place at American University on the 9/20 Day of Activism in 2015.

1. Putting the Magic Back
into Magic Mushrooms
Michael M. Hughes
9/20/2015
American University

2. Barbara Bradley Hagerty
NPR Religion
Correspondent
Wrote about two of my
mushroom experiences;
one terrifying, one
transcendent

3. Baltimore City Paper,
October 8, 2008
Sacred Intentions: Inside
the Johns Hopkins
Psilocybin Studies
First feature article on the
Johns Hopkins study on
psilocybin and mystical
experiences

11. Tassili n’Ajjer National Park
Southeastern Algeria

12. “Plateau of Chasms”

20. Maria Sabina
Mazatec sabia (“Wise One”)
1894-1985
Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico
First ate mushrooms“los niños
santos” as a child with her sister
Became a curandera at age 8 when
her uncle was near death and all the
other healers had failed him. She
went into the jungle, gathered
mushrooms, and ate them next to
her uncle.

21. Maria Sabina
The saint children told her the
location of a plant that would heal
him. She went to the location, found
the plant, boiled it, and gave it to her
uncle.
He completely recovered.
She also healed her sister when all
the other healers had been
unsuccessful.
Worked as a renowned healer for
decades.

22. Maria Sabina Before Wasson
arrived in
Mexico seeking
the sacred
mushrooms,
she had a vision
of men with
white faces and
white hair
traveling
through the hills
looking for her.

23. Sabina’s vision, after healing her sister:
“I knew they were the Principal Ones of
whom my ancestors spoke. They were
seated behind a table on which there
were many written papers. I knew that
they were important papers. There were
a number of Principal Ones, six or eight
of them. Some looked at me, others read
the papers on the table, others appeared
to be searching for something among the
papers. I knew they weren’t of flesh and
bone….

24. I knew that it was a revelation that the
saint children were giving me. Right away
I heard a voice. A voice that was sweet
but authoritarian at the same time. Like
the voice of a father who loves his
children but raises them strictly. A wise
voice that said: “These are the Principal
Ones.”
On the Principal Ones’ table a book
appeared, an open book that went on
growing until it was the size of a person.
In its pages there were letters. It was a
white book, so white it was resplendent.

25. One of the Principal Ones spoke to
me and said: “Maria Sabina, this is the
Book of Wisdom. It is the book of
Language. Everything that is written in
it is for you. The Book is yours, take it
so that you can work.” I exclaimed
with emotion: “That is for me. I receive
it."
The Principal Ones disappeared and
left me alone in front of the immense
Book. I knew that it was the Book of
Wisdom...
Wisdom is language. Language is in
the Book. The Book is granted by the
Principal Ones. The Principal Ones
appear through the great power of the
children.

26. Afterward, in my later visions, the
Book no longer appeared because I
already had its contents in my
memory. . . .
I had another vision: I saw something
fall from the sky with a great roar, like
a lightning bolt. It was a luminous
object that blinded. The . . . object
turned into a kind of vegetal being . . .
Like a bush with flowers of many
colors; in its head it had a great a
great radiance. Its body was covered
with leaves and stalks.

27. When the vision vanished I was
sweating . . . I realized that I was
crying and that my tears were crystals
that tinkled when they fell on the
ground . . . I whistled and clapped,
sounded and danced. I danced
because I knew I was the great Clown
woman and the Lord clown woman. At
dawn I slept . . .
I woke up . . . It was morning. I
touched my body and the ground to
make sure I had returned to the world
of humans. And Maria Ana got better.

28. I am not a Curer because I do not give
potions of strange herbs to drink. I
cure with Language. Nothing else. I
am a Wise Woman. Nothing else . . . I
am the woman of the winds, of the
water, of the paths, because I am
known in heaven, because I am a
doctor woman.
—Maria Sabina, Her Life and Chants

30. A question for
the spirits:
To know the future
or cure disease

31. R. Gordon Wasson
First trip to Mexico met one-eyed
shaman Aurelio Carreras. Wasson only
witnessed the velada (did not take
mushrooms)
Carreras, casting corn kernels, told
Wasson his son was not in Boston, but
in NY, that he would soon join the army,
and that a close family member would
die within the year. All of his statements
turned out to be true.
He left this out of his early written
accounts.

33. R. Gordon Wasson
“I had always had a horror,” he
wrote, “of those who preached a
kind of pseudo-religion of telepathy,
who for me were unreliable people;
if our discoveries were to be drawn
to their attention, we were in danger
of being adopted by such
undesirables.”
Wasson’s daughter and wife later
wrote about their apparent psychic
episodes.

34. R. Gordon Wasson
“[The sacred mushroom] permits
you to see more clearly than our
perishing eye can see, vistas
beyond the horizons of this life, to
travel backwards and forwards in
time, to enter other planes of
existence, even to know God.”

35. Allan Richardson
Photographer
Joined Wasson’s first velada with
Maria Sabina.
Had a vision: a portrait of a
Spanish caballero above a
mantlepiece. Upon returning to
Mexico city, he entered a
hacienda he had never visited,
and saw the exact painting above
a mantle.

36. Maria Sabina noticed her visions had
changed when she gave the little ones
to Wasson and Richardson the first
time: “I had different visions than
usual. I saw places I had never
imagined existed. I reached the place
the foreigners come from. I saw cities.
Big cities. Many houses, big ones."

38. Andrija Puharich
• Parapsychologist and MD
• US Army Captain
• Fort Deitrick Chemical and Biological
Warfare Center, Edgewood, MD
• Working for CIA on ESP and Mind
Control
Programs
• Aldous Huxley called him “one of the
most brilliant minds in
parapsychology.”
• Became interested in the abilities of
shamans to “travel clairvoyantly”
• Likely the reason a CIA mole, James
Moore, later funded a trip to Mexico
and accompanied Wasson

39. One Step Beyond “The Sacred Mushroom” (1961)
When trying to
psychically
visualize a photo of
a waterfall:
“It has a great deal
of… power. Like
noise. I don’t how
to translate that
into a picture. But it
seems to have that
noise and
speed…."

40. Decided to do an experiment; when
Wasson ingested the mushrooms
with Maria Sabina, he was to
attempt to clairvoyantly visit
Puharich (and Puharich to do the
same).
Their dates got mixed up, but
Wasson described seeing
Puharich’s lab, which he accurately
described as being in a building that
looked like a barn. Puharich has set
up his lab in a barn in Maine.

41. Stanley Krippner, PHD
The anthropological and
ethnobotanical literature is replete
with examples of ostensibly
parapsychological phenomena
occurring with the traditional use of
psychoactive plants. For millennia,
indigenous societies have used
these plant preparations to
communicate with purported other-
worldly realms and entities. . . .

42. Stanley Krippner, PHD
I went on a whirlwind tour of
France, Spain, New York, and
Baltimore, ending up in
Washington, DC where I found
myself gazing at a bust of
Abraham Lincoln. While watching
the features from the side, in
profile, they began to darken and
someone whispered, “He was
shot. The president was shot.”

43. Stanley Krippner, PHD
A wisp of smoke rose from a gun
and curled into the air. Lincoln’s
features slowly faded away and
those of the current president, John
F. Kennedy, took their place. The
wisp of smoke was still emerging
from the gun, and the voice
repeated, “He was shot. The
president was shot.” I opened my
eyes because they were dripping
tears.

44. Stanislav Grof, MD, PhD
One of the creators of transpersonal psychology.
His primary interest has been research of the heuristic and therapeutic
potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness. This included
initially four years of laboratory research of psychedelics – LSD,
psilocybin, mescaline, and tryptamine derivatives – (1956-1960) and
fourteen years of research of psychedelic psychotherapy. He spent
seven of these years (1960-1967) as Principal Investigator of the
psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in
Prague, Czechoslovakia. This was followed by seven years of
research of psychedelic psychotherapy in the United States.
The first two of these years, he worked as Clinical and Research
Fellow at The Johns Hopkins University and in the Research Unit of
the Spring Grove State Hospital in Baltimore, MD. The following five
years, he held the position of Chief of Psychiatric Research at the
Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. In this capacity he headed for
several years the last surviving official research project of psychedelic
therapy in the USA.

45. “Scientifically conducted
consciousness research has
brought convincing evidence for
the objective existence of the
imaginal realm and has thus
validated the main metaphysical
assumptions of the mystical
world view, of the Eastern
spiritual philosophies, and even
certain beliefs of native
cultures.”

46. “The Jungians started referring
to this whole domain as being
not imaginary, but imaginal in
the sense that different people
can visit these realms in their
experiences and they can
actually reach consensual
validation about them in the
same way in which those of us
who watch a particular television
channel will agree that we
experience the same thing.”

47. “When I got the third correct answer in a
row, the feelings [of a universe where no
laws of time and space exist] were so
powerful that I could not continue.
The reason for discontinuation of the ESP
experiment was a strange mixture of a
conviction that it was absurd to test the
obvious and, on the other hand, a
metaphysical fear of confusion that would
follow if I had to give up the usual concept
of time and space and with it all the related
reference points we feel so secure with.”

48. Psilocybin shows you everything you
know is wrong. The world is not a
single, one-dimensional, forward-
moving, causal, connected thing, but
some kind of interdimensional
nexus…
What the alien voice in the
psychedelic experience wants to
reveal is the syntactical nature of
reality. That the real secret of magic,
is that the world is made of words,
and that if you know the words that
the world is made of, you make of it
whatever you wish!
—Terence McKenna

49. Luke, David P. (2008) Psychedelic substances and paranormal phenomena: a review of the
research. Journal of Parapsychology, 72. pp. 77-107.

50. About a dozen controlled studies in “Pharma-
psi” conducted before prohibition in the 1960s.
Some studies were terribly repetitive and
boring!
My private conversations with researchers
suggest they are interested in resuming this
research
Between 18–83% (depending on the type of
experience) of those using cannabis and/or
psychedelics also reported ESP experiences
occurring whilst actually under the influence
(Luke)

52. For instance, my own research into precognition, using
a methodologically-rigorous design with 100
participants, found that precognitive ability correlated
positively with the reported number of psychedelics
consumed by the individuals in the sample (rs =.27, p
=.008, two-tailed). Although indirect, this adds further
support for the notion of psi-inducing psychedelics.
David Luke

54. Paul Stamets from Psilocybin
Mushrooms of the World:
“A peculiar and strangely real dream
enveloped me.” He was at college,
trying to desperately return to his
mountain cabin. Came to a broad, river
valley that had completely flooded.
“Floating, dead, and bloated in the frigid
sunlight were hundreds and hundreds
of cows. The dream abruptly ended and
I awoke in a cold sweat, struck with a
fear of impending disaster.”

55. He went downstairs and told his
friends. “This was like no dream I had
every had; there was a particularly
foreboding strangeness to it that struck
to the very core of my being…..” One
friend asked when this catastrophe
would strike. Stamets told him soon,
but he didn’t know when except that it
would be on a weekend. Friend pointed
to a calendar, to weeks from that
evening, and wrote “Paul says
doomsday” on it.

56. 2 weeks later an unusual temperature
inversion moved into western Washington.
Torrential rainfall hit the Cascades, and the
inversion caused snow to melt. Bridges
were flooded. His cabin was only 20 feet
from a glacial creek, and Stamets would
lose all of his books, manuscripts, and
personal belongings would be lost. So the
next day he drove, and because of bridge
closures had to go nearly a hundred miles
out of his way to get to the cabin. His cabin
was safe but 10 feet closer to the river. The
next day, he packed everything up to head
south to Olympia.

57. “As I entered the Snohomish Valley, I
stared in disbelief at hundreds of cattle
who, stranded by the rising waters, had
drowned overnight. It was December 1, the
exact day my dream had foretold. This
single even shattered my concept of linear
time. The future can be foreseen."
“Now I knew what shamans have known for
centuries: the psilocybin experience can
facilitate precognition of the future."

58. The big question:
Do we need controlled,
scientific documentation of
psi effects facilitated by
psychedelics to study
them and better
understand them?

59. Can we integrate simple, well-
designed psi experiments into current
psychedelic research?
Can the psychedelic community
conduct its own research and data
collection?
Most importantly, we must continue to
tell our stories to each other, even if
they are considered inconsequential
by the scientific mainstream.
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
Muriel Rukeyster, The Speed of Darkness

60. michaelmhughes.com
Michael M. Hughes
9/20/2015
American University
Twitter: @michaelmhughes
Facebook: michaelmhughes