URBAN LEGENDS IN MEDICINE
OUR OUROBOROS : PSYCHIATRY ’ S CIRCULAR REUNION WITH OLD WISDOM
AUTHOR Abraham de Witt , MD
Superstitions have a tendency to
sprout up from the soil that intermingles seeds of science and spirituality . One thought-provoking demonstration of this interplay relates to what the Aztecs called “ Teonanacatl ,” or Flesh of the Gods , now called Psilocybe mexicana , which is a species of mushroom with psychedelic properties . Though this fungus is just one in a family of substances with similar properties , its seemingly teleological story in American culture offers unique insights into the worldview underpinning traditional shamanic healing in Mesoamerica .
Maria Sabina , a Mazatec curendera ( a female shaman ), masterfully conveys the paradoxical ineffability that imbues the topic of psychedelics , that drives perceptions of their superstitious quality . “ There is a world beyond ours that is far away , nearby , and invisible . And that is where God lives , where the dead live , the spirits and the saints , a world where everything has already happened and everything is known . That world … has a language of its own . I report what it says . The sacred mushroom takes me by the hand and brings me to the world where everything is known . It is they , the sacred mushrooms , that speak in a way I can understand . When I return from the trip that I have taken with them , I tell what they have told me and what they have shown me .”
The first publicized American encounter with the numinous hue of psychedelics began with a pithy 1957 TIME magazine cover that read : The Discovery of Mushrooms that Cause Strange Visions . This sizeable photo essay introduced to the West the practice of healing , facilitated by the use of psychedelic compounds . The momentous coalescence of Maria Sabina ’ s wisdom and the intrepid enterprise of New York banker R . Gordon Wasson 6 would forever change the landscape of American culture . Michael Pollan aptly frames this communion of apparent antitheses in his book titled How to Change Your Mind . “ From the vantage point of today , it is hard to believe that psilocybin was introduced to the West by a vice president of J . P . Morgan in the pages of a mass-circulation magazine owned by Henry Luce ; two more establishment characters it would be difficult to dream up .” 3 He goes on to say , “ For Maria Sabina and her village , the attention was ruinous ” due to “ a torrent of commercial exploitation of the vilest kind .” 3
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Much has come to pass since this meeting of Sabina and Wasson ; research efforts utilizing psychedelics flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s , but ultimately came to a screeching halt in the collision of pseudo-academic and sociopolitical dynamics . The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 listed psychedelics under Schedule I status , indicating these were drugs with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse . However , the purported medicinal utility of these compounds was not entirely understood , and their formal study was resumed in the early 1990s , albeit with residual stigma and academic discord . Despite the marred history and present contentions surrounding psychedelics , we are at the precipice of seeing their implementation in modern medicine . Psilocybin itself has been granted Food and Drug Administration breakthrough therapy status for the treatment of major depressive disorder , and Johns Hopkins now has a $ 17 million psychedelic research facility . There is considerable promise in the potential medicinal uses of psychedelic compounds , but also much caution that ought to be heeded , lest we face further “ exploitation of the vilest kind .”
At their worst , present-day superstitions regarding psychedelics render their use as harmful diversion . They are imagined by some as counterproductive tools of escapism employed to fill a sprawling existential void within young Americans . When psychedelics aren ’ t regarded as categorically harmful , their perceived usefulness is often relegated to insubstantial fluff . At their best , however , the research-informed use of these compounds and the ideas engendered challenge the foundational principles upon which psychiatry and occidental philosophy are rooted . This tantalizing challenge to our notion of consciousness beckons us toward insights of what it is to be human and how better to be well .
Contemporary imaging studies utilizing psilocybin , the psychoactive ingredient in these mushrooms , have begun to characterize a neural nexus termed the Default Mode Network ( DMN ). It is postulated that the DMN provides a cohesive narrative to human experience that facilitates human engagement with recognizable patterns , upon which we rely for efficient survival . 1 Efforts as simple as noting the season of harvest for fruit or as complex as delineating cycles of the celestial bodies for navigation are woven into a personalized story of the perceiver . This is conceivably to facilitate functional integration of memory and emotional motivation in these efforts . It ’ s no secret that we humans generally lack motivation to perform meaningless , tedious tasks that do not readily