Psilocybe maluti: Researchers Document Traditional Psilocybin Use Among Basotho Healers in Southern Africa

Gauri Khanna
6 minutes ago
3 min read

A study by the University of California, Davis and Johns Hopkins University has found evidence of traditional psilocybin mushroom use in Lesotho and South Africa, expanding the known geography of such practices beyond the Americas.
Basotho traditional healers use the mushroom Psilocybe maluti in small doses within herbal brews and snuffs, for purposes including healer initiation, treating addiction and depression, and magical protection.
The findings challenge widely held assumptions about the global uniformity of traditional psychedelic use, suggesting that Indigenous practices outside the Americas have been underexplored.

A Fungus Hidden in Plain Sight

For decades, scholarly understanding of traditional psilocybin use has rested almost entirely on observations from the Americas. Mesoamerican and Amazonian groups provided the foundational ethnographic record, and researchers drew broad conclusions from this limited sample. A new preprint study, led by researchers from the University of California, Davis and Johns Hopkins University, challenges this narrow picture by documenting psilocybin mushroom use among Basotho traditional healers and non-healers in Lesotho and South Africa.

The mushroom at the centre of the study is Psilocybe maluti, a species described only in 2024 by Cullen Taylor Clark a local mycologist. It grows on bovine dung in the highland grasslands of Lesotho and South Africa and is visually distinct from Psilocybe cubensis, the species most associated with global psychedelic culture. The researchers confirmed its identity in interviews by asking participants whether the mushroom grows on cow dung and turns dark upon handling, a characteristic caused by psilocybin oxidising to psilocin. Of 26 healers interviewed, 15 independently identified the mushroom and could accurately describe its properties. Six of eight non-healers, mostly adolescent cattle herders, were similarly familiar with it.

Four Uses, One Mushroom

The study identified four categories of use: initiation, healing, recreation, and magical protection. These differ notably from the patterns documented in the Americas, where large ritual doses administered by specialist practitioners to community members are the prevailing model. Basotho use involves small doses, often combined with other psychoactive plants, and does not assign P. maluti any singular ceremonial prominence.

The most structured use occurs during healer initiation. Five healers independently reported incorporating P. maluti into a herbal brew called sethoto, consumed by initiates to intensify dreams and visions and strengthen their perceived connection to ancestral spirits. One healer gave a detailed account of the preparation process, explaining that he learned the recipe from his grandmother, who was reportedly initiated using the same brew around 1955, before the mid-twentieth-century popularisation of psychedelics in Western culture. The brew is also prepared as a snuff in some traditions.

Seven healers reported using the mushroom for healing. Applications ranged from powdering it for wound treatment to preparing infusions for patients described as experiencing depression, addiction, or breathing difficulties. Two healers described creating snuffs specifically to treat methamphetamine addiction, administering them twice daily over a week. One healer was careful to note that P. maluti should not be used for conditions such as epilepsy or brain injuries, suggesting an established, if informal, clinical boundary within Basotho practice. These findings sit alongside growing research interest in psilocybin's therapeutic potential more broadly.

Recreational use was reported by five participants, primarily among herd-boys who consumed powdered mushroom as a snuff. Reported effects included enhanced colours, increased energy, and visual phenomena. Five participants also described using the mushroom as a protective charm, applying it to the skin or bathing with it to ward off curses or lightning.

Questions of Antiquity and Implication

The researchers note three lines of evidence suggesting that P. maluti use predates Western psychedelic influence. The mushroom's visual dissimilarity to P. cubensis makes casual adoption from tourist culture implausible. Reports from individuals in their mid-to-late sixties place recreational use in the 1970s. And ethnographic evidence of psychoactive plant use in the region, including rock art associated with trance states and archaeological traces of Boophone disticha dating back 60,000 years, suggests a deep tradition of pharmacological knowledge.

The study's authors acknowledge limitations, including small sample sizes, self-reported data, and the absence of pre-colonial written records. They also note that the combination of psilocybin with alkaloids from B. disticha warrants further pharmacological investigation, an area increasingly relevant as research into psilocybin's effects on mood and mental health continues to expand.

Most significantly, the findings suggest that traditional psychedelic practices across cultures are more varied and geographically widespread than the existing academic record implies, and that documenting them, before cultural knowledge is lost, may matter beyond anthropology alone.