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Various cultures throughout the ages have used psychedelic fungi for shamanistic and other purposes; rock paintings in the Sahara of mushroom effigies date back to 7000 BCE. Amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric).
Mesoamerican mushroom stones of the pre-classic Mayans representing deified mushrooms date back to approximately 500 BCE, Psilocybin mushrooms were a revered tradition in native Central American cultures at the time of the European invasion, and have been in continuous use up to the present. Named teonanácatl ("flesh of the gods") in Nahuatl, they may have been employed for healing, divination and for intercession with spirits. Since the beginning of the Latin American colonial era, their use has been hidden due to persecution by the Christian church, which branded all native religious practices, especially those employing entheogenic sacraments, as "pagan".
Some scholars believe that Soma, the drink mentioned in Vedic literature, was derived from psychedelic mushrooms; R. Gordon Wasson suggests that this was amanita muscaria, which is known to have been used in Siberian shamanism. That Nordic Vikings may have used fly-agaric to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samual Ödman in 1784. Ödman based his theory on reports about the use of fly-agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. Today, it is generally considered an unproven speculation.
According to the BBC, the first documented use of psychedelic mushrooms was in the Medical and Physical Journal: In 1799, a man who had been picking mushrooms for breakfast in London's Green Park included them in his harvest, accidentally sending his entire family on a trip. The doctor who treated them later described how the youngest child "was attacked with fits of immoderate laughter, nor could the threats of his father or mother refrain him."
In 1957, amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson published an article for Life describing his experiences with psilocybin mushrooms while a guest in the rituals of the Mazatec shaman Maria Sabina in a mountain village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. His account triggered a wave of experimentation with these mushrooms which resulted in their eventual classification in the United States as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act.
The introduction of westerners into the previously secret rites was later rued by Maria Sabina: "From the moment the foreigners arrived, the 'holy children' (a Mazatec euphemism for the mushrooms, which are otherwise not named directly) lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no remedy for it."