The Healing of the Thunderbolt: Nahua Medicine and Psilocybe Mushroom Rituals
Abstract: This paper examines the ritual use of psilocybin mushrooms (known as teonanacatl or “the flesh of gods”) and Mexican tarragon (yauhtli, Tagetes lucida) in Nahua medicine. The selection of Nahua ritual specialists often involves experiences of being struck by lightning, as well as dreams, visions, modified states of consciousness, or persistent illness, which are seen as forms of training or initiation. The ancient Nahua/Aztec worldview provides the cultural context of Psilocybe mushroom rituals and reflects points of continuity in contemporary Nahua medicine. This paper applies an interdisciplinary research methodology, from disciplines such as historiography, iconography, and philology, to relate the information in the written sources with the images found in the codices and sculptures. A notable aspect of the Nahua use of mushrooms is divinatory, not only for diagnosing illness and determining appropriate cures, but also for resolving other problems like finding lost items or missing persons, or identifying unfaithful spouses or husbands and the actions of enemies. Psilocybe mushrooms are associated with thunderbolt and rain deities, part of a symbolic complex that I will call “the healing of the thunderbolt,” reflecting the influence of Tlaloc, the god of rain and lightning.
Introduction
The Nahua people have a profound understanding of the therapeutic properties of Psilocybe mushrooms through a tradition rooted in ancient Mesoamerican cultures. This knowledge not only reflects their cultural heritage, it also invites us to acknowledge their enduring and contemporary wisdom. The thesis of this paper is to demonstrate how the “healing of the thunderbolt” symbolic complex provides a solid framework for understanding the cultural features that ground Psilocybe mushroom rituals within a Nahua worldview. The Nahuas represent the largest Indigenous culture in Mexico. Even after the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, there remain nearly two million speakers of Nahuatl, which includes around thirty variants. A variety of historical sources from the sixteenth century, such as the works of Spanish friars like Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex, Jacinto de la Serna´s Treatise of Idolatry, Superstitions and Customs, and fray Diego Duran´s History of the Indies of New Spain, provide insight into the ritualistic and therapeutic uses of psilocybin-containing mushrooms known as teonanacatl, usually translated as “flesh of the gods” or “sacred mushrooms.” Teonanacatl is a generic term used in these sources that includes several mushroom species, such as Psilocybe aztecorum, Psilocybe mexicana, and Psilocybe caerulescens.
Psilocybin mushrooms continue to be used for healing in contemporary Nahua communities, demonstrating a cultural continuity that has persisted for centuries. However, these rituals are currently at risk of disappearing. The knowledge and cultural heritage associated with these practices are endangered due to the illegality of psilocybin mushrooms, which results in persecution by law enforcement, military authorities, the Ministry of Health, religious institutions (both Catholic and evangelical), and the general public.1 To safeguard this knowledge, it is essential to recognize the therapeutic potential of Psilocybe mushrooms in a broad context, including their physiological, spiritual, and psychological benefits.
The healing uses of Psilocybe aztecorum and Tagetes lucida (Mexican tarragon) are documented in the Florentine Codex. Most ethnographic research tends to focus on individual plants or fungi. Analyzing these two substances together is important as mushrooms are rarely studied in conjunction with other organic substances, both in their symbolic significance and in their combinatory therapeutic qualities. In addition, contemporary scientific studies often isolate the psilocybin alkaloid as solely responsible for therapeutic benefits, neglecting the significant impact of cultural context and the role of other substances used in mushrooms rituals, such as cacao (Teobroma cacao) and yauhtli (Tagetes lucida, or Mexican tarragon). The combined effects of various plants and ritual activities in the Nahua context are best understood through what I will call the thunderbolt symbolic complex, or “the healing of the thunderbolt.”
The Healing of the Thunderbolt
The thunderbolt symbolic complex is the system of metaphorical and material associations between lightning and rainstorms, their respective deities, and the mushrooms and other plants used for healing. This association involves the obvious role of rain in mushroom growth, and thus the rain deity, Tlaloc, as well. Tlaloc wields his “fire serpent” to send thunderbolts to the earth. The Nahuatl word for thunderbolt, xiuhcoatl, translates as “turquoise serpent” or “fire serpent” (from xihuitl, meaning “turquoise,” and coatl, meaning “serpent”). Contemporary Indigenous communities understand that the most potent Psilocybe mushrooms tend to grow in areas where lightning has struck—the work of Tlaloc’s xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent. Healers will use yauhtli (Tagetes lucida) to heal those struck by lightning, and these individuals struck by lightning often become healers themselves. Given this connection between mushrooms, water, rain deities, the thunderbolt, yauhtli, and healing rituals, I refer to this symbolic medicine complex as “the healing of the thunderbolt.”
There is no single Nahua word for “healer;” there are more than forty names, and teciutlazqueh (“the one who throws the hail”) is one name for healers who use mushroom rituals. Nowadays, they refer to themselves as graniceros or tiemperos in Spanish—“weather workers” in English. In the Nahua worldview, the distinctions between medicine, religion, and magic are not rigid. Illnesses are believed to have natural causes, which can also be linked to certain deities or sacred entities. Some diseases are thought to arise from sorcery or an imbalance between the spiritual and material worlds, particularly following the introduction of Galen's doctrine of the humors and divine design to the Americas.2 As a complement, Nahua healing practices involve spells and prayers that connect to spiritual life. The Nahuatl terms for physicians are ticitl and tepahtiani. The word tepahtiani is derived from pahtli, meaning medicine, and translates to “the one who cures people.” Fray Alonso de Molina translates ticitl as both “physician” and “diviner”.3
One of the primary functions of Psilocybe mushrooms is to assist in the diagnostic process. Many diseases are believed to have a divine origin or to be associated with sacred entities. Historian of Aztec culture Alfredo López Austin emphasizes the significance of certain plants for diagnosing illnesses: “The knowledge of the origin [of disease] was not always easy, and among the means recorded in the Nahua communities is the journey made by the healer, utilizing a drug, to celestial and subterranean regions, to indicate the precise cause of the ailment”.4 In other words, some plants and fungi establish communication between the ticitl and the sacred entities.
According to the historical sources, there is another type of healer, the paini, which translates to “the messenger.” The paini is viewed as a traveler who seeks the secrets of the supernatural world, often aided by ingesting plants and fungi with psychedelic properties, such as ololiuhqui (Rivea corymbosa), peyote (Lophophora williamsii), tlitlitzin (Ipomoea violacea), and teonanacatl (Psilocybe aztecorum).
While under the influence of these plants, the healer communicates with their personifications. For instance, the tlitlitzin may present as a little black man, while reverent elders embody the peyote and ololiuhqui. In some cases, particularly after the Spanish conquest, these entities may also include Christ and the angels. These personifications provide insights into various problems, such as the origin and causes of patients’ illnesses, the location of stolen items, or the whereabouts of a woman who has abandoned her husband.5 Religion, magic, and empirical knowledge of medicinal plants were simultaneously present in the rituals of Nahua healers.
The contribution of different healing techniques varies with each practitioner’s attitudes, experiences, and preferences, as well as their specialties. Some healers relied primarily on religion and magic, while others, known as herbalists, utilized plants as common medicinal remedies. Psychoactive plants played a dual role in Nahua medicine: they were used by those who primarily healed through religion and magic, as well as by herbalists who practiced on the basis of empirical knowledge.6 Due to colonization and acculturation, many of these practitioners came to be referred to as “brujos” (witch doctors or sorcerers), a term that now carries connotations of evil rather than healing. This stigmatization of Nahua healers has contributed to the endangerment of their cultural heritage, leading to the discretion and secrecy with which Indigenous elders have preserved this knowledge for centuries, away from the scrutiny of outsiders. Since the time of Spanish colonization, the Nahua medical system has integrated various cultural traits from Western medicine and Catholic doctrine.
Selection of Healers
In contemporary Nahua communities, tiemperos and graniceros—“weather workers” and “hail controllers”—are ritual specialists endowed with the gift of healing and the ability to conduct rituals related to various atmospheric phenomena, such as rain and lightning.7 While they are all revered for their knowledge and healing abilities, the methods for selecting and training these specialists can differ significantly by region. Some of the best-known procedures that indicate the selection of a healer include:
- Being struck by lightning
- Receiving the gift of healing through dreams
- Suffering from an unusual or prolonged illness that triggers this healing ability
- Gaining knowledge through transmission from one generation to another or from parents to children
The graniceros can be considered the heirs of the teciuhtlazque (those who throw the hail) and ahuaque (the owners of water). The mushrooms are used to gather insight into the causes of illness. They are employed only in special cases, particularly regarding a sickness that the community cannot resolve. Graniceros are given mushrooms for healing purposes.8 The healing gift is connected to dreams, so the interplay between dream activity and the modified states of consciousness produced by psilocybin mushrooms enhances the clairvoyance of tiemperos and graniceros during the selection process and the healing rituals. Sacred beings choose the healer through dreams or a prolonged, unusual illness.
In the healing and recovery process for individuals struck by lightning, the “chosen one” often remains unconscious and in poor health due to the electric shock. During this time, ritual specialists perform cleaning rituals, known as limpias, to aid in their recovery. The healing involves using hen´s eggs and aromatic plants such as Tagetes lucida, which are rubbed over the person’s body to capture and gather the “air” left behind by the lightning.9
The process of selecting healers involves passing down healing knowledge from one generation to the next. Today, both tiemperos and graniceros still exist, but they lack prestige and recognition within their communities due to the impacts of colonialism mentioned above. The ability to heal comes with a serious commitment that not everyone is prepared to embrace, and fewer young people are showing interest in acquiring this knowledge. As a result, the selection of tiemperos and graniceros has become more challenging.
Healing Rituals: Diagnosis and Divination
Recent ethnographic research by Benitez Corona emphasizes that cultural uses of psilocybin mushrooms are tied to a ritual-therapeutic system. This system is practiced annually, particularly from June to October, and focuses on healing the psychic and spiritual ailments of the Nahua communities located near the Popocatepetl volcano.10 In these communities, the harvesting of sacred mushrooms begins after the rituals for rain, which are conducted on May 3rd, the Day of the Holy Cross. The dates for harvesting are closely associated with specific religious and agricultural celebrations. In some nearby communities, such as San Marcos Huecahuaxco, harvesting takes place on June 24th, St. John's Day, and on October 18th, St. Luke's Day.
These therapeutic and ritual ceremonies are conducted in sacred locations such as caves, rivers, and springs, as well as within volcanoes, mountains, and forests that are part of the sacred landscape. They are closely connected to the water and agricultural cycles, which are vital to the survival of the farming population in these areas. Knowledge of weather patterns is crucial for their livelihoods. These “temples” are natural sites regarded as thresholds to the spiritual world, serving as essential places for connecting to sacred deities, ancestors, and deceased graniceros.11 Ritual ceremonies provide insight into the Nahua worldview regarding the extension of the concept of the person, due to the fact that the sacred landscape is considered not only alive but also part of the healing process.
Before entering these temples, a ritual is performed to protect children and the weak from evil spirits known as malos aires. Bulnes describes the cleansing ritual as follows: “To clean the temple, the air is whipped with sticks of quince’s wood (membrillo), or the space is cleaned with burning copal (incense) and holy water before a ceremony. It is common to light cigarettes and place them in the shape of a cross. It is believed that the scents of these cigarettes, along with flowers such as the pericon (yauhtli) and the flower used during the Day of the Dead rituals (cempoalxochitl) help drive away the Devil and evil spirits.”12 Other healing rituals are conducted in the homes of the graniceros.
In Nahua medicine, sacred mushrooms are believed to help cure certain “cold” diseases of the Galenic system, such as gout, colds, and “airs” (considered to be evil spirits). As a result, mushrooms are categorized as a hot medicine. Several plants, such as peyote, yauhtli (Tagetes lucida), ololiuhqui (Ipomoea corymbosa), and daturas, are also understood as hot medicines. This cultural feature can be found in historical sources from the sixteenth century as well as contemporary Nahua communities. All these plants have been used for diagnostic purposes, divination, and to establish communication with ancestors and sacred beings.
The ethnographic research conducted by Hernández Lucas & Loera Chávez (2008) highlights the case of Don Lucas, a granicero in the area, who inherited his knowledge of mushrooms from his father. He explains that these mushrooms “awaken the mind” and teach him that they serve to connect him with supernatural forces.13 Before collecting the mushrooms, the ritual specialist bows as a sign of respect and establishes a dialogue with them.
In Amatlán de los Reyes, Veracruz, mushrooms are referred to as tlakatsin, meaning “little men,” which underscores the personhood attributed to these sacred beings, implying that they are akin to children with whom one communicates.14 The mushrooms enable contact with sacred entities, in this case, the tlaloques, who are responsible for rain—the vital source for crops. However, these rains can also cause destructive floods, which is why the tlaloques are treated with great respect.
Contemporary Nahua Medicine
Ethnographic research conducted in Necaxa, Puebla, offers valuable insights into the Nahuatl terms for healers and sacred mushrooms, the rituals performed, and the effects of these substances on those who consume them.15 In this region, the Nahuatl names for healers and ritual specialists include: 1) tapahtiqueh, which is a variation of the ancient tepahtiani (the one who cures people); and 2) tlamatque (the one who knows). The typical ailments treated by these ritual specialists include loss of the soul, evil spirits of the wind, illness caused by witchcraft, and ailments resulting from foreign objects introduced into the body. These ritual specialists possess the ability to communicate with spirits using sacred mushrooms.
The mycologist Gastón Guzman confirmed that the Nahua healers in the region still utilize mushrooms to alter consciousness, practice medical divination, and communicate with the spirits of nature and the souls of the deceased. These mushrooms, referred to as teotlaquilnanacatl (hidden sacred mushrooms, or mushrooms of the sacred writing), consist of four different species from the Psilocybe genus: Psilocybe mexicana Heim, Psilocybe caerulescens F. nigripes Heim, Psilocybe zapotecorum Heim, and Psilocybe cubensis.16
The term Teonanacatl emphasizes the sacred nature of Psilocybe mushrooms, which are regarded as deities themselves and serve as a means to connect with more-than-human beings, such as the inhabitants of Tlalocan. Nahua healer Bernardo Cruz explains that in the Nahuatl language spoken in the community of Xolotla, there are two words for mushrooms that end with the reverential suffix tzitzi, an indicator of respect. The most common word is teonanacatzitzi, which can be translated as “respectable divine mushrooms,” suggesting continuity with sixteenth-century historical sources. This region is located near the Necaxa River, where Gastón Guzman recorded the word teotlaquilnanacatl, similar to the one found in historical sources.17 The other word is tlapetlacatzitzi, which indicates a relationship to the lightning gods or spirits, as tlapetlani means “to flash.” This word illustrates the relationship between divine fungi and rain deities through lightning and thunderbolts shared by diverse Nahua communities. In Xolotla, the word tlapetlacatzitzi refers more specifically to the divine fungi as active male beings.18 The reverential suffix tzitzi intends to highlight the personhood and respect for Psilocybe mushrooms.
The healing rituals are held in small groups. The ethnologist Guy Stresser-Pean describes the ritual and its preparation as follows: “It is recommended to do it in a closed house and preferably at night or in the late afternoon to avoid external noises; the participants should be ‘clean,’ that is, clean and pure. For this, they should have abstained from sexual intercourse for one or more days. They should also have taken a steam or cold-water bath”.19 The nighttime ritual and avoidance of noise are constants in Nahua communities, as are the preparation phase of sexual abstinence and the steam bath traditionally known as temazcal, which has played an essential role in Nahua medicine since pre-Hispanic times.
The ritual is performed in silence and with great respect and includes offerings of flowers, candles, incense, aguardiente (cane alcohol), and food. The healer addresses the mushrooms and then speaks to the sick person or the person consulting him. Under the effect of the mushrooms, the patient often feels endowed with an astonishing clairvoyance. They have the impression of knowing and seeing things happening far away. If they are ill, the source of their illness is revealed, which could be a sin or transgression. In cases of bewitchment, the patient discovers who did it. The patient can also distinguish between true and false friends. The ceremony always ends with a general ritual cleansing. Special herbs are passed over each participant’s body and shaken ceremonially, and then they are thrown into the waters of a nearby river.20 Silence is a significant feature to avoid unexpected disturbance and to ensure the efficacy of the healing ritual.
Information provided by the Nahua scholar Luis Reyes García, through ethnographic research and oral history in Amatlán de los Reyes, Veracruz, illustrates that cultural features in contemporary Nahua communities have continuities with historical sources, showing that psychoactive mushrooms’ ritual, therapeutic, and divinatory uses did not disappear.21 Instead, particular cultural features persist through time among the Nahua people. A notable example is the following translation of an edited text provided in Nahuatl by a 70-year-old woman, a daughter of an empirical midwife, presented below for analysis.
“9. And the person who takes them well and sincerely begins to see many little men like children. He begins to talk with them and these little men tell him everything because Tlalocan is where they are from; so it is the earth that answers because we are standing on it, hence it knows everything. The earth is watching us and it answers.”22
According to the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, Tlalocan is a resting place for those who die from diseases associated with the rain deity—gout, hydropsy, boils, sores—or from drowning or lightning. These little men, known as tlaloques, are responsible for rain. These cultural features connect them with the healing of the thunderbolt symbolic complex. This narrative corroborates from the outset the continuity with information from historical sources that mushrooms are a source of knowledge, not a series of hallucinations. In this sense, the ritual use of mushrooms allows communication with ancestors and sacred entities to gain knowledge. Grounded in ethnographic work in contemporary Nahua communities, Luis Reyes García specifies, “These inhabitants of Tlalocan who come to the aid of the narcotized are dead, unbaptized children who are now xokoyomeh (beams of light) of blue color who live with the Father and Mother of this mystical place, the entrance of which is in the caves.”23 In the expression “unbaptized children,” we find a Catholic influence on Nahua practices and cosmology. Within the Nahua worldview, these inhabitants of Tlalocan support the healing of specific illnesses related to them, such as gout and the consequences of being struck by lightning.
Tlaloques are held in great respect in sources like The Codex Borgia, a mantic pre-Colonial source from the Mixteca-Puebla region. The tops of the plates 27 and 28 depict cloudy or sunny skies, and at the center is a depiction of ten tlaloques, each one with the Tlaloc mask bearing serpent fangs, and each wears the costume of a different Nahua deity. Regarding the Healing of the Thunderbolt symbolic complex, in the Nahua worldview, Psilocybe mushrooms allow communication with sacred entities, especially the tlaloques, servants of the deity Tlaloc, God of Rain. Tlaloques are depicted in pictorial manuscript codices and mentioned in oral histories as “Honorable Little Men.” During the healing ritual, the mushrooms:
“13. If you are sick they will tell you how to get better and who will cure you. Along with curing they will also give you a massage.
14. If something inside of you hurts, then with their little hands they will massage you. You feel as though “they settled your stomach.” Your stomach and innards will make noise while they are extracting the sickness from you.
15. And if not, you will see that they will open up your stomach. They will pass over you repeatedly, extracting the sickness from you.
16. Women used to take them very often, but not anymore, now they are afraid to.”24
The active participation of the mushrooms in the healing process is clear. The role of mushrooms is not limited to the diagnosis and telling the patient how to get relief; they also participate through massage and extraction of the illness, specifically through the stomach and guts. However, the mushrooms are not working alone; this healing process occurs with the support and guidance of the ritual specialist in collaboration with sacred entities, in this case, the tlaloques.
Conclusions
This essay has examined some of the most significant elements of Nahua medicine, specifically mushroom healing rituals associated with lightning and the divinities of water and fertility through the symbolic complex I call the “healing of the thunderbolt.” This ancient association can be verified through the names given to mushrooms and other related concepts in contemporary Nahua communities: tlapetlacatzitzi, a word for mushroom, the root of which could be translated as “lightning”; or xokoyomeh, the rays of light who are the children who died without baptism and became inhabitants of Tlalocan. All these names are related to the rain divinities. Yauhtli has also played a continuous role in this symbolic complex in curing those struck by lightning, specifically ritual specialists.
As for the training of ritual specialists, the information provided by historical sources, ethnographic literature, and fieldwork by Spanish friars demonstrates the existence of specialists known as ticitl, tepahtiani, paini, and teciuhtlazque in the sixteenth century, who belonged to professional or specialized organizations of physicians, sometimes sponsored by the rulers. They are survived today in contemporary Nahua communities as tiemperos and graniceros, the inheritors of teciuhtlazque. These ritual specialists have been given the gift of healing and the ability to conduct rituals related to various atmospheric phenomena, such as rain and lightning.
The “healing of the thunderbolt” symbolic complex is not exclusively found among the Nahua people. It is a cultural feature shared by other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Zapotec and Mazatec peoples. Each one has specific features that require further analysis. Such analysis should develop a comparative study to identify common features as part of the hard nucleus of Mesoamerican cultures. This connection between Psilocybe mushrooms and rain deities would be useful to achieve a better understanding of healing rituals, spirituality, diagnosis, divination, and the etiology of some diseases within Nahua medicine.
Osiris González Romero
Osiris Sinuhé González Romero (CSWR Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-2025) earned his PhD at Leiden University, in the Faculty of Archaeology – Heritage of Indigenous Peoples. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral researcher on cognitive liberty and psychedelic humanities at the University of Saskatchewan. He is an affiliate researcher within the Philosophy and Psychedelics Exeter Research Group, and also collaborates as a member of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. In 2015 he was awarded the Coimbra Group Scholarship for Young Professors and Researchers from Latin American Universities. He is a founding member of Via Synapsis, an academic society focused on the organization of the University Congress of Psychoactive Substances that has been annually since 2014 by the National University of Mexico (UNAM), Faculty of Philosophy. His research interests include philosophy of psychedelics, history of medicine, indigenous knowledge, heritage studies, decolonial theory, political philosophy, and aesthetics. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Psychedelic liberty and other essays.
Footnotes
1 Juan Bulnes Petrowitsch, “Tradición de los Graniceros de la Sierra Nevada de México,” in El poder del saber: especialistas rituales de México y Guatemala, 1. ed, ed. Patricia Gallardo Arias and François Lartigue, (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2015. Serie Antropológica 23), 112. [Return to Section]
2 Germán Viveros, Hipocratismo en México: siglos XVI al XVIII (Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2007). [Return to Section]
3 Fray Alonso de Molina. Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana (Editorial Porrúa, 2008), 113. [Return to Section]
4 Alfredo López Austin, Textos de medicina náhuatl, 3. ed, Serie de cultura náhuatl Monografias 19 (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1993), 34. [Return to Section]
5 Alfredo López Austin, “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 7 (December 1967): 102. [Return to Section]
6 José Antonio Flores Farfán and Jan G. R. Elferink, The Aztec Mind: Nahuatl Ethnobotany, Mental Health, and Psychoactive Drug among Ancient Mexicans (LINCOM GmbH, 2015), 30. [Return to Section]
7 Julio Glockner, La mirada interior: plantas sagradas del mundo amerindio, Primera edición (Debate, 2016). [Return to Section]
8 Joseph Sorrentino, “Mexico’s Graniceros Use Magic Mushrooms to Speak to the Divine,” Mexico News Daily, May 9, 2023, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/magic-mushrooms-mexicos-shamans/. [Return to Section]
9 Bulnes Petrowitsch, “Tradición de los Graniceros de la Sierra Nevada de México,” 110. [Return to Section]
10 Víctor Alfonso Benitez Corona, “Notas etnográficas sobre el uso de psilocibios en el volcán Popocatépetl,” Elementos 131 (2023): 41. [Return to Section]
11 Allende Los Volcanes: Iztaccíhuatl y Popocatépetl. Sueño y Ritual En El Culto a La Montaña, directed by Margarita Loera Chávez y Peniche et al., 2005, Documentary, 58:42.[Return to Section]
12 Bulnes Petrowitsch, “Tradición de los Graniceros de la Sierra Nevada de México,” 118. [Return to Section]
13 Ramses Hernández Lucas, Margarita Loera Chávez, and Margarita Peniche, El Hongo sagrado del Popocatépetl (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia- Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2008), 112. [Return to Section]
14 Luis Reyes Garcia, “An Account Concerning the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms,” in The Sacred Mushrooms of Mexico: Assorted Texts, ed. Brian P Akers (University Press of America, 2007), 27. [Return to Section]
15 Guy Stresser-Péan, El sol-dios y Cristo: La cristianización de los indios en México vista desde la Sierra de Puebla (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011). [Return to Section]
16 Stresser-Péan, El sol-dios y Cristo, 360-362. [Return to Section]
17 Gastón Guzmán, “Las relaciones de los hongos sagrados con el hombre a través del tiempo,” Anales de Antropología 50, no. 1 (2015): 134–47. [Return to Section]
18 Stresser-Péan, El sol-dios y Cristo, 368. [Return to Section]
19 Stresser-Péan, El sol-dios y Cristo, 369, translation mine. [Return to Section]
20 Stresser-Péan, El sol-dios y Cristo, 370. [Return to Section]
21 Reyes Garcia, “An Account Concerning the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms.”25-28.[Return to Section]
22 Reyes Garcia, “An Account Concerning the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms,” 28. [Return to Section]
23 Reyes Garcia, “An Account Concerning the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms.”26. [Return to Section]
24 Reyes Garcia, “An Account Concerning the Hallucinogenic Mushrooms,” 28. [Return to Section]
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Suggested Citation
Romero, Osiris González. “The Healing of the Thunderbolt: Nahua Medicine and Psilocybe Mushroom Rituals .” In Psychedelic Intersections: 2025 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026. © License: CC BY-NC. https://doi.org/10.70423/0004.14