On the Right Hand of God
A Partial History of the Sacred Fungi

Contents

Introduction

About OTRHOG

Part One
    The Fungus Among Us

Part Two
    The Written Word

Part Three
    Naked in the Desert
    Desert Teacher
    Journey to the Mountains
    The Mushroom Speaks
        Wasson in Mexico
        The Brothers McKenna
        The Old Ones
        Royal Subjects
        Soul Symbiots
        Star-bound Apes
        Jammed Communications
        Warrior Ethic
        Compared To What?
        Illuminati
        The Poisoned Apple
        God's Law
    What the Hell?
    Blessed are the Meek


The Mushroom Speaks

Here are some more encounters with the Sacred Fungi that are worthy of note.

Some researchers claim that most of what we call hallucinations are simply distortions of the senses. They contend that what the person sees and hears is mostly random noise like you get on the TV after the station goes off the air. This is certainly true in the lab using refined substances with little resemblance to the original plant drug. The researchers who have used traditional hallucinogens under the guidance of an experienced practitioner and in the traditional set and setting have produced far different results.

Mr. R.G. Wasson was the first Westerner to document his ingestion of a hallucinogenic mushroom. His report had the intensity of a religious conversion, rather than just some static.


Wasson in Mexico 

At first, Mr. and Mrs. Wasson had confined their investigations to The Scandinavian countries and into Russia. There seemed that there would be more than enough information to keep them occupied in this vast region. While still in the process of getting their first book, Mushrooms, Russia and History, ready to publish, they began to hear of cults still active in the mountains of Mexico that worshipped a sacred mushroom. They had been the first to suggest that the ancient fertility cults of the old world had worshipped the Amanita muscaria as a god, rather than simply a "drug". The tribes still ingesting the Amanita in Siberia show very little of what one would call "worship" in connection with the fungus. An addiction would be a better term.

After decades of pursuing their hobby in far away lands, the Wassons found what they sought in their own "back yard". They quickly set aside their self-imposed limitations and headed for Mexico. On their first visit, in 1952, they found that there was indeed an ancient history of the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the state of Oaxaca. Three years later, R. G. Wasson and a photographer companion became the first documented cases of white folks eating hallucinogenic mushrooms. They were under the supervision of a Mazetec curandera by the name of Maria Sabina.

"It was a soul-shattering experience," wrote Mr. Wasson. He took his very small dose in the manner traditional with the Mazetecs; at night, in an adobe hut, with no light but some coals burning on the hearth, and no sound but the soft chanting of the curandera. "It permits you to see, more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backwards and forwards in time, to enter other planes of existence, even (as the Indians say) to know God." After years of speculation about the power of these hallucinogens to impress human beings as being "deity", there was no longer any doubt in our intrepid mushroom detective's mind. "At last you know what the ineffable is, and what ecstasy means. Ecstasy! Your very soul is seized and shaken until it tingles."

His reports were soon heard by elements of the infant "drug culture" in our country and started an exodus of pilgrims seeking the "magic mushroom" experience. Maria Sabina became a cult hero in California and the "hippies" streamed across the border. Besides the tales of their mushroom "trips", they brought back with them dried specimens that soon found their way into the bloodstream of the mainstream. Dr. Timothy Leary was one of the first to partake, followed by Dr. Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), and others. In no time, it was discovered that it wasn't necessary to travel to Mexico to meet with the magic mushrooms, as they grow profusely throughout the pastures of our southern states. Soon after that, it was shown that they could be grown in compost almost as easily as the commercial varieties. By now, basements all over the country are producing literally tons of "the new sacrament".

Mr. Wasson continued to gather information from the Mexican Indians as he had in Eurasia and he found that the various titles and names for the Mexican sacred fungi were as rich as the descriptions found anywhere.

Some of the more poetic old world names that refer to the Amanita muscaria are: Mainstay of the Sky, Tongue of the Way, The Single Eye, The Hub of the Wheel, The Heavenly Shade, The Son of God, The Little Cross, The Door to Eternity, The Son of Thunder, Ambrosia, Nectar of the Gods, The Woodpecker from Mars, and The Immortal Principle.

You will notice that these titles are mostly singular. That is consistent with the rap of the god they represent, a male, one-and-only, top-of-the-pyramid, with the ultimate ego. It also reflects the straight-line thinking of the people that spoke these names. The names used by the Mexican people for their sacred psilocybians tend toward the plural, like "the little saints", or "the dear little things that leap forth". This is more consistent with the kind of culture that develops in shadow of the psilocybin varieties. It is like the amanita is designed for the predator/warrior side of the brain while the psilocybin varieties cater to the intuitive side.


The Brothers MckennaBack to Top

R. G. Wasson had friends and contacts within the scientific community, but he was really an outsider in the fields of research. His work was dismissed out of hand by some scholars who hadn't even bothered to read his books. He was never-the-less one of the first to make the connection between the hallucinogenic fungi and ancient man's concept of deity.

It would seem that all we would need was for someone in the "scientific community" to tear themselves away from more conventional research and delve into this subject. Well, there have been several who have taken up the challenge, but their experiences have been even more bizarre and the eyebrows get higher.

Dennis and Terence McKenna were both studying at the University of California at Berkeley, and had developed some theories as to how these drugs were reacting within our nervous system. It appeared to these two young brothers that recent studies on the action of neurotransmitters, like serotonin, gave a clue as to the most likely area where the tryptamines like psilocybin were interacting with our equipment. The normal flow of neurotransmitters through the pineal gland seemed to react directly with the DNA, exchanging ionic charges and possibly information. The drugs produced by the fungus seemed, when combined under certain circumstances, to produce an unusual reaction. The tryptamines would cause parts of the spiral helix of the DNA to uncoil and coil again in rapid succession, causing what they called, an electron spin resonance, or ESR. This "buzz" has been reported by persons under the influence of large doses of psilocybin mushrooms. The frequency thus produced is thought to generate an electromagnetic wave form within the field in the synapse. That's their description of fungus molecules interacting within our genetic code.

One of the brothers had done some research in shamanism as practiced in South America where psilocybians are used extensively. One phenomenon reported was that a heightened state of mushroom intoxication could be achieved when a certain note or tone was struck while the shaman was already under the influence of the drug. Religious paraphernalia from this area often includes some sort of a whistle thought to evoke this effect. The brothers theorized that the note that brought on these effects was probably the same as the frequency of the drug metabolizing in the body, the ESR. This would cause a "standing wave" within the synapse, and possibly cause something to "stick" or "bond" in some way so that the conscious mind could be aware of it.

Being of the scientific community, they speak a strange language, but that is the gist of what I could gather from their report. In order to test their theories, they packed off to a village in Colombia where they planned to enter the world of the shaman.

In the early morning hours of March 5, 1971, they proceeded to ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms and vocalized the notes that they expected would trigger the effects they sought. Within the hour, one of them began to enter into the "classic shamanic trance".

"From the sixth until the seventeenth of March( 11 days and nights), one of us did not sleep, and the other, while awake, spoke continuously, in apparent and convincing telepathic rapport with anyone he wished." They felt the presence of an invisible "hyperspatial entity" that gave them the impression that it had come to enlighten mankind and give us the "keys to galactarian citizenship." Their trip lasted a total of thirty-seven days.

The book they wrote as a result of the experience is titled, The Invisible Landscape, with the sub-title, Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. In this version of the story, they are writing for their peers at the University, and it can make for some pretty thick reading, but they also published another book under the names of Oss and Oeric. This is the Psilocybin Magic Mushroom Growers Guide. In this work, they are primarily interested in passing information on to the general public interested in magic mushrooms and they were a little more candid. In this version, they let the mushroom speak for itself.


The Old OnesBack to Top

"Our method is scientific but our opinions about Stropharia cubensis are not. Our opinions in this matter do not rest upon the opinions of others nor upon anything written in any book, instead they rest upon the experience on the mushroom psilocybin at the 10 mg level; at that level a peculiar phenomenon occurs. It is the emergence on an I-Thou relationship between the person taking the psilocybin and the mental state it evokes. The mushroom speaks, and our opinions rest upon what it tells eloquently of itself in the cool night of the mind."

An "I-Thou" relationship, is one way to put it. An Entity, is another way to say it. It is true that many other investigators have reported meeting "guides", "allies", and all sorts of ghosts and apparitions without the aid of hallucinogenic mushrooms, but the eloquence of the psilocybin messenger is unsurpassed.

To get the proper effect, you need to pretend that you are a shaman in a primitive tribe. You have found the Sacred Mushroom and have eaten it with elaborate ceremony. You have fasted so that the drug will have no interference in you digestive system. As the drug begins to take effect, you sing the sacred chants that your teachers have told you would open the doors to another world. Within the hour, you are launched on a journey that gives you the right to be a priest in the true order. You see many things and meet many beings, among them a messenger from the main, one and only, big time chief, GOD!!!

There is no doubt in your simple mind who it is that runs this show. And then the messenger lays a version of the following rap on you. The version you get as a "bushman" is limited by your language and its ability to convey these abstract concepts. The 20th century university translation of what the sacred fungus has to say, goes like this.

"I am old, older than thought in your species, which is itself fifty times older than your history. Though I have been on earth for ages I am from the stars. My home is no one planet, for many worlds scattered through the shining disc of the galaxy have conditions which allow my spores an opportunity for life. My mycelial network is nearly immortal--only the sudden toxification of a planet or the explosion of its parent star can wipe me out. The mycelial body is as fragile as a spider's web but the collective hyper-mind and memory is a vast historical archive of the career of evolving intelligence on many worlds in our spiral star swarm. Space, you see, is a vast ocean to those hardy life forms that have the ability to reproduce from spores. Across the aeons of time and space drift many spore-forming life-forms in suspended animation for millions of years until contact is made with a suitable environment. You as an individual and man as a species are on the brink of the formation of a symbiotic relationship with my genetic material that will eventually carry humanity and earth into the galactic mainstream of the higher civilizations."

That is very similar to the story I got from my encounter with the "magic mycelium", but let's see how that would translate into the primitive mind.

"I am old..." That's easy, no problem. "I come from the Stars..." Read heaven. "shining disc of the galaxy..." That's pretty eloquent, and they claim immortality. All this stuff about spores and mycelium would mean nothing to the ancient, who could not see them and knew that the mushroom arrived from the heavens with the thunderstorm, without seed, root or leaves. The mushroom continues...

"Within my memory is the knowledge of hyper-light drive ships and how to build them. I will trade this knowledge for a free ticket to new worlds around suns younger and more stable than your own. To secure an eternal existence down the long river of cosmic time I again and again offer this agreement to higher beings and thereby have spread throughout the galaxy... Higher animals with manipulative abilities can become partners with the star knowledge within me and if they act in good faith, return both themselves and their humble mushroom teacher to the million worlds to which all citizens of our starswarm are heir."

Now, the entity says that he can show you how to get to that heaven in the stars. "I will show you how to build something that will get us there..." Just in time to save us from the destruction of this Planet. Salvation from this Earthly existence, for those who follow instructions. "If you act as my right hand, and have faith in me, you will come to live with me in this promised land."




Royal SubjectsBack to Top

It is no accident that the titles of the various divisions of labor among social insects are the same as the titles used to label our own classes and castes. The workers, warriors, nurses and royalty perform specific functions that are controlled by hormones and pheromones circulating through the colony. Ants who tend fungus farms seem to be the closest to mankind as far as their behavior is concerned. These ants, that are known to take slaves, domesticate aphids, wage war and form alliances with nearby nests involving trade and co-operation, and otherwise behave like human beings, are intimately involved with their fungus gardens to the point of worship.

Human beings are decidedly more complex than ants, and we are far less regimented, but we have less freedom than we would like to think. Just as the fungus garden passes out the orders to its insect subjects through the allomones it furnishes with their diet, our fungus symbiots pass molecular messages to us. Look back through history, the commands of the gods have led us into one disaster after another. The most murderous leaders of the most warlike countries throughout history have claimed the sanction of their god. It wasn't that they felt it was convenient to do for political purposes, but that they strongly believed that is what their god required of them.

Today, more than 5 billion of us are milling around, tending nests that can contain from a few to tens of millions of souls. Our gods still tell our leaders to protect us from the "godless ones" that live over the hill or over the water. Someone is still telling our magicians to reach for the stars. Our moral choices, based on rituals of bloodthirsty warriors, who drank each other's urine, murdered at will, raped and pillaged their way into our hearts, are leading us down the same killing course. There is a fungus among us.


Soul SymbiotsBack to Top

We have used many sources to put together this story. Most of them have the solid feel of careful research, but we are always glad to look to some unorthodox reporters for a clue. Edgar Cayce is famous for the information that he was able to access while in a trance state. He was able to diagnose and prescribe remedies for all manner of illnesses without the conventional examination. He often was able to perform these feats without the patient even being present. He was also able to reveal the whereabouts of remedies that the patients were unable to find on their own. On occasion, he gave "readings", that would put many a fortune teller to shame. Not only did he report to the subject important things about their life, he was able to receive information that seemed to come from "past lives". Meticulous records have been kept of his every utterance while in this trance state. The accuracy of his diagnosis of diseases is well known, but to verify information from former lives is a bit difficult. To realize that the DNA contains the records of many of our ancestor's lives makes it a little easier to handle. The evidence suggests that he was able to tap into this source of information with at least some degree of accuracy. On one particular occasion, he was asked something about the origins of man. Here is how he replied.

"A way of escape for the souls which were entangled in matter was prepared. A form was chosen to be a vehicle for the soul on earth, and the way was made for souls to enter earth and experience it as part of their cycle. Of the forms already existing on earth one of the anthropoid apes most nearly approached the necessary pattern. Souls descended on these apes, hovering above and about them rather than inhabiting them, and influenced them toward a different goal from the simple one they had been pursuing. They came down out of the trees, built fires, made tools, lived in communities, and began to communicate with each other. Swiftly, even as man measures time, they lost their animal look, shed bodily hair, and took on refinements of manner and habit.
All this was done by the souls, working through the glands..."

This is a fair description of how we came to be symbiots to the "souls" who are our fungus entities. Their influence on us is decidedly through the glands, and a "vehicle" is just what they are looking for. There are probably many people who look on Edgar as just another fake, but, under the circumstances, I have no trouble with his trance state or the information thus obtained. I know that those channels are available to us; I have used them myself.


Star-bound ApesBack to Top

The evolutionists say that we are descended from the same stock as the apes. The creationists say that God created man. It is very possible that they are both right. The sacred fungi possess the equipment to modify our genetic structure; they operate in a place within our nervous system that has the capability of altering our appearance and behavior. It is quite possible that our mushroom "god" has "created" us through the process we know as genetic engineering.
The tools that we use to modify species in the lab aren't scalpels and lasers, but enzymes. These are chemical agents well within the capabilities of our fungus friends to produce.


Jammed CommunicationsBack to Top

The fungi that are the subject of this work have mastered the art of jamming communication channels and inserting information to their own advantage. Our "mushrooming" civilization has severed the communication channels that should bind us into the biosphere. Our food is processed to destroy the information due our bodies. Our waste is processed to destroy any information it might carry back to the environment. Civilization puts us inside the false environment of buildings and vehicles and society. We spend less and less time interacting with the real world. It becomes easier to make decisions based on our abstract needs and disregard the environment altogether. Those who make the most important decisions work on the top floor. They fly around the world making decisions that severely impact the Earth they seldom touch, except on vacation, when they usually kill something for fun.
When we die, we poison our bodies for burial and crypt them against Nature. We insulate ourselves from the messages of Nature by refusing to believe in them, and calling anyone who is hears them, crazy.
No matter how much we wish we could, human beings cannot survive in the wild. We have already left the Earth, but not yet arrived in the Stars.


Warrior EthicBack to Top

The main credo of the warrior ethic is "might is right". The solving of problems with the maximum use of force and domination is the way of the warrior. The way to honor, fame and success depends on one's ability to murder and destroy. The son is honored above mother and daughter. It is the daughter who is the least valued and often used for sacrifice. In places where sacrifice is no longer the norm, daughters are traded like slaves to secure benefits from surrounding tribes. The mother is valued for her ability to produce sons.

The greatest honor is to die in battle and become one of the mythical heros. A life in the hereafter was guaranteed to the ones so honored. Our culture is descended from these warrior civilizations and still runs on the same rules. We are the number one warrior nation in the world. "Might is right" is still our way of life. Our heroes, from Super-man, Rambo and James Bond, to George Washington, Spider-man and the Ninja Turtles, are all warriors solving problems with intimidation, force, aggression and violence.

It may be stated quite safely that the reason for the discrimination against women in our culture is basically because of our involvement with these ancient "gods". It is our diet that has brought us to this point and diet is the only way back. The rules laid down by centuries of steady hormone consumption favor the male in every way. The feminists that try to out do the men in their own field are doomed to failure. The deck is stacked and the only way to beat it is if all of us, and especially the women, take their chips and go home. As long as we all participate in the insanity, we support those who run the game. The way to show that "MIGHT ISN'T RIGHT", is to prove it by living a giving, supportive, helpful life dedicated to healing, not the wounds of the warriors, but the victims of their aggression. The main victim of the prolonged practice of the warrior's way of life, is the biosphere. It is the environment that must eventually suffer the consequences.

The thing that made Darwin's theories on evolution so appealing to the intellectuals of the day, is that the concept of "survival of the fittest" provided them with a rationalization for using "might is right" in their own dealings. If that is the driving force behind Nature, we reason, then it is certainly all right for mankind to continue murdering each other. "Evolutionary theory" was, and is, a warrior's delight.
Survival of the "fittest" may also be understood to mean that a species must "fit" into its environment in order to survive. We would hope the people will take to this translation.

Probably the worst legacy left us by the ones who would interpret Darwin's work, was that this whole of creation was some sort of giant accident that didn't require some sort of plan. Nature is no accident.

Darwin was a very religious man and never intended that we should take survival of the fittest as the only driving force behind the development of our species. Again, the establishment's "makers of moral policy" used what part of it they wanted in order to support their own actions.


Compared To What?Back to Top

Most of us would say, "Sure, there are some bad people in our culture, but everyone I know is kind and gentle." Yeah, we are some of the sweetest people you'd ever want to meet. COMPARED TO WHAT? After all, this is a society that makes routine attempts at genocide, whose animal sacrifice is so mass produced that it is sold on the street by television clowns, whose mushroom shaped cloud hangs over us all, whose children practice killing each other in their very first games, whose technology has spread a killer fog over all living things, whose billions of tax dollars are joyfully spent poisoning our biosphere, whose symbol for love is an ARROW THROUGH THE HEART! COMPARED TO WHAT? Come on, this society is as bloodthirsty as any in the past, but we have put up a front of goodness and compassion to fool ourselves into thinking that we are kind and gentle. We pay our taxes like good citizens, while our government sponsored "hit men" spread out through the world plundering the Land and its people. Compared to what? It only looks good from the inside.
When you consider the brains that homo-sapien is supposed to have, isn't there something fishy about him systematically destroying the very foundation of his existence?


IlluminatiBack to Top

You may have run across references to a Global conspiracy that has supposedly been going on for centuries involving the Illuminati and other secret societies. They have been accused of plotting the overthrow of various governments and generally upsetting the cause of democracy around the world. The story goes that they have infiltrated the Masonic lodges and the major governments of the world and will soon have us all in chains. The detractors of the theory say that how could human beings that can't agree on anything without being threatened or coerced, keep up a secret society that spans centuries and continents? It is hard to imagine, although the same could be said about religion in general. They have always tried to bring about a "new world order". Their conspiracy has also spanned continents and eons. What gives them their consistency?

Of course, the answer is that the conspiracy is not controlled by human beings at all. It is done through human beings by our friends the sacred fungi. It only takes a glance at the symbolism and ritual surrounding the Masons and the various incarnations of the Illuminati to see that they are steeped in mushroom lore. A close inspection of their rites and stated objectives identifies them as an on going manifestation of the ancient mushroom cults.

It is no accident that these symbols are also the symbols of our own United States of America, from the pyramid on the dollar to the capital Dome, we are the modern manifestation of ancient mushroom civilizations like the Sumerians and Egyptians. The conspiracy is not to overthrow governments, the conspiracy is government itself.

It is important to note that we aren't going to "blame" anyone for this situation. This symbiotic relationship is not the "fault" of any religious group or ancient cult or evil magician, nor can we punish plants or wallow in our own guilt; this is all part of the HUMAN CONDITION.


The Poisoned AppleBack to Top

"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."
There is no doubt what the story of the Garden of Eden was meant to convey. Our fall from grace occurred when we got involved with Amanita muscaria mushroom. This fungus is the source of our knowledge of good and evil. The Garden has never been the same.
According to that legend, it was Eve that found it first. In another version, a centuries-long drought killed off all of the trees and forced some of the primates to take to the ground for survival. One of the first food sources that they would have encountered, looking so much like a ripe tree fruit, would have been the Amanita muscaria.
No matter which myth you prefer, from that time we have been under the influence of an alien intelligence. We moderns have confused our idea of a Universal, all creative God, with the beliefs of a people who worshipped an hallucinogenic fungus more than 2,000 ago. The god we have been so fond of praying to, killing for and otherwise worshipping, is not the Supreme Creator of all of the Universe, but a lowly fungus using the same scam as the Wizard of Oz; hiding behind a veil, directing people through fear, intimidation and hallucination. The only purpose for civilization is to build and finance a migration fleet for carrying our "humble mushroom teachers" to the Stars.


God's LawBack to Top

Now, this may seem like a pretty hard rap to swallow, but the evidence is mounting. Once you begin to read the histories of the world remembering who is handing out the rap, it is easy to see the consistency from religion to religion. The history of science shows the same continuity of purpose and direction running through centuries of weapons and monuments whose stated purpose is to achieve a superior hereafter among the Stars.
The Creator of the Universe would not have commanded his followers to murder. They would not be told to torture their enemies and eat them. From the order to be fruitful and multiply, to the call to the heavens, each of god's decrees is more for the benefit of these fungus creatures than for ourselves or our Mother Earth. The results of having followed "God's Law", to take dominion, are that we will soon have no other choice but to abandon this fair Planet before She dies, or just scratches Her back.
From my point of view, my personal encounters with the sacred mushrooms is all of the proof I need to believe this rap at the gut level. You probably don't have that advantage. Oh well.

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©2005 jim cranford