Road Trip: Huaulta: The Mushroom Cult by Ralph Trout has only one map direction, 'Go south'. The left and right turns across deserts and jungles led to a mysterious, isolated village in the southern Sierra Madre Mountains, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. 1970's America was captivated by the combination of the spirit for adventure and a quest for new experiences. Ralph, with a few friends in an old VW van, rambled south of the border. Visiting intriguing ruins of great pre-Columbian civilizations, a thread of coincidences led the troupe to the remote village of Huautla. Far into the mountains, Ralph met an old weathered Indian woman: a sacerdosita who could channel the true magic of ancient Mexico and unknowingly evolved the modern culture of the world.Hongos ─ psilocybin mushrooms ─ opened a gateway of self-discovery at the Mazatec Indian mountain village. The Aztecs referred to the mind-expanding psychedelic fungi as 'flesh of the gods' and consumed them with chocolate and honey. The Mazatec tribe of the southern Sierra Madres in Oaxaca considered these special mushrooms medicine merely for curing illnesses. They ate the mushrooms only when something was not quite right ─ physically, mentally, or morally and never for pleasure or recreation. In such an isolated area, well into the mid-twentieth century, the mushrooms were medicine.María Sabina, the oldest tribal woman trained to expand consciousness, led Ralph on a once-in-a-lifetime journey that would alter him positively all his long life. When she was seven, her father's family inducted her into the mushroom curative culture. María became an expert at diagnosing and treating problems of the mind and body. When Gordon Wasson approached in 1955 and wrote a definitive article, Seeking the Magic Mushroom for Life Magazine, María had already been practicing for fifty years!Ralph and friends encountered more than expected and witnessed incredible experiences of ancient cultures and self-discovery. Maria became Ralph's most experienced magic mushroom guide when she was 79. Ralph still tightly grasps the truths of those surprising lessons taught on the unique geometric plain beyond the hongos' orange dimensional portal.
