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Alpert and Leary sought out to conduct research with psilocybin on prisoners in the 1960s, testing its effects on recidivism. When he returned to Harvard in 1960, he and Richard Alpert started the Harvard Psilocybin Project, promoting psychological and religious study of psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs. Inspired by the Wassons' Life article, Timothy Leary traveled to Mexico to experience psilocybin mushrooms himself. In 1956, Roger Heim identified the psychoactive mushroom the Wassons brought back from Mexico as Psilocybe, and in 1958, Albert Hofmann first identified psilocybin and psilocin as the active compounds in these mushrooms. The Wassons did much to publicize their experience, even publishing an article on their experiences in Life on May 13, 1957. Gordon Wasson became the first known European Americans to actively participate in an indigenous mushroom ceremony. In 1955, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and R. The apothecary 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." The first mention of hallucinogenic mushrooms in European medicinal literature was in the London Medical and Physical Journal in 1799: a man served Psilocybe semilanceata mushrooms he had picked for breakfast in London's Green Park to his family. Despite this history the use of teonanácatl has persisted in some remote areas. The Spanish believed the mushroom allowed the Aztecs and others to communicate with demons. Īfter the Spanish conquest, Catholic missionaries campaigned against the cultural tradition of the Aztecs, dismissing the Aztecs as idolaters, and the use of hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms, together with other pre-Christian traditions, was quickly suppressed. Bernardino de Sahagún reported the ritualistic use of teonanácatl by the Aztecs when he traveled to Central America after the expedition of Hernán Cortés. Aztecs and Mazatecs referred to psilocybin mushrooms as genius mushrooms, divinatory mushrooms, and wondrous mushrooms, when translated into English. A Psilocybe species known to the Aztecs as teōnanācatl (literally "divine mushroom": agglutinative form of teōtl (god, sacred) and nanācatl (mushroom) in Náhuatl) was reportedly served at the coronation of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II in 1502. depicting a mushroom strongly resembling Psilocybe mexicana was found in the west Mexican state of Colima in a shaft and chamber tomb. Mushroom stones and motifs have been found in Guatemala. The hallucinogenic species of the Psilocybe genus have a history of use among the native peoples of Mesoamerica for religious communion, divination, and healing, from pre-Columbian times to the present day.