teonanacatl

By the late 1950s Wasson and his co-workers, notably a French mycologist named Roger Heim, had found in Mexico no fewer than twenty-four different kinds of psychoactive mushrooms, thus verifying Schultes’s assertion that the word teonanacatl was a generic term.

One River Wade Davis 1996

By the late 1950s Wasson and his co-workers, notably a French mycologist named Roger Heim, had found in Mexico no fewer than twenty-four different kinds of psychoactive mushrooms, thus verifying Schultes’s assertion that the word teonanacatl was a generic term.

One River Wade Davis 1996

In the Florentine Codex of Sahagún’s work, there is an illustration of a demonic figure dancing in a field atop a cluster of mushrooms identified as teonanacatl.

One River Wade Davis 1996

In the Florentine Codex of Sahagún’s work, there is an illustration of a demonic figure dancing in a field atop a cluster of mushrooms identified as teonanacatl.

One River Wade Davis 1996

Yet try as they might, the Spaniards could not veil the sublime character of teonanacatl.

One River Wade Davis 1996

The true character of teonanacatl and its profound role in the religious life of pre-Columbian Mexico are perhaps best revealed by an illustration that appears in the Codex Magliabechiano, another early-sixteenth-century source.

One River Wade Davis 1996

Wherever they went they heard vague rumors about the mushroom cult, but at no point did they see teonanacatl or meet a curandero willing to describe the rite.

One River Wade Davis 1996

The significance of teonanacatl was not lost on young Schultes.

One River Wade Davis 1996

It was a memory of fire, a reflection of the first encounter between human divinities and the power of teonanacatl, the mushrooms known in the language of the Aztec as “the Flesh of the Gods.”

One River Wade Davis 1996

Throughout all of these travels Schultes had been searching for both teonanacatl and ololiuqui, and any evidence of rituals associated with the plants.

One River Wade Davis 1996