by Carl de Borhegyi

Above is a Late Classic  (600-900 C.E.) Maya Vase K7289 painting from the Justin Kerr Data Base, that depicts a ruler or priest involved in a mushroom ritual of underworld jaguar transformation. The ruler is depicted holding a ceremonial bar from which emerges the divine vision serpent (bearded dragon) known to scholars as the Och Chan.  A deity wearing the ears of a deer and blowing upon a conch shell emerges from the jaws of the vision serpent. The ruler or priest wears a mushroom inspired ceremonial cloak and the headdress of the underworld jaguar. 

 Quoting ethno-archaeologist Peter T. Furst:

"It is tempting to suggest that the Olmecs might have been instrumental in the spread  of mushroom cults throughout Mesoamerica, as they seem to have been of other significant aspects of early Mexican civilization......" It is in fact a common phenomenon of South American shamanism  (reflected also in Mesoamerica) that shamans are closely identified with the jaguar, to the point where the jaguar is almost nowhere regarded as simply an animal, albeit an especially powerful one, but as supernatural, frequently as the avatar of living or deceased shamans, containing their souls and doing good or evil in accordance with the disposition of their human form" (Furst 1976, pp. 48, 79)."

 While I may be the first to call attention to this encoded mushroom imagery, these images can be viewed and studied with ease on such internet sites as Justin Kerr's Maya Vase Data Base and F.A.M.S.I. ( Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc).