that the Greeks substituted an alternative fungal term 
that was a homonym of ‘mystery’? Youcan hear the pun, 
see the gesture, ‘Mum’s the word,’ with the index finger 
over the mouth. . .. We must remember, in consider- 
ing this problem, that in antiquity the ecology of Greece 
and the Greek isles was different from now. Deforesta- 
tion and the goats had not wrought the havoc of the in- 
tervening centuries. They had not left the mountains 
naked to the sun. On the wooded isles and in the forests 
of the mainland, there must have been a wealth of 
mushrooms. 
Let us consider possibilities other than the mushroom. 
In the Mazatec country the Indians, when there are no 
mushrooms, have recourse to alternatives. Thanks to the 
brilliant work of Dr. Albert Hofmann of Sandoz, the 
Swiss pharmaceutical firm, we are now sorting out and 
identifying a whole series of indoles that have remarkable 
psychotropic properties. As you all know, he has isolated 
the active agents in some of our Mexican mushrooms, 
psilocybin and psilocin, two tryptamine derivatives and 
members of the indole family of substances. He has de- 
fined their molecular structure. The magic indoles are 
present in other plants used widely among the Indians 
of Mexico. With Dr. Hofmann’s permission, I am able 
to announce to you tonight that, only in July of this 
year, he has isolated and identified three of the active 
agents in ololiuqui, the famous seeds, subject of many 
studies, that have long been used in Mexico for their 
psychotropic properties.* In the Mazatec country the 
seeds of ololiuqui are one of the alternatives used when 
the sacred mushrooms are not available. Imagine our 
surprise, when we began looking for these seeds in quan- 
tity last year, to discover that the Zapotec Indians, em- 
* The Chemistry of Natural Products, paper read by Dr. Hofmann, 
Aug. 18, 1960, in the I.U.P.A.C. Symposium, Melbourne. 
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