Mushrooms, Copal and Liberation by Cecilia Williams
Looking back, that night was destined to be a powerful one. It was November 2, right in the middle of Scorpio season. It was the Day of the Dead, and we had pictures of our deceased loved ones and ofrendas across the living room. The veil was thin. Out there in the cosmos, warrior Mars was opposing lord Pluto. Powerful energies lingered in the air.
My husband Zac and I were preparing a mushroom "ceremony" at home with two friends, Ollie and Dan. We had taken mushrooms on two previous occasions with them, and Ollie had a very bad experience the first time. Nevertheless, he decided to join us in this ceremony and do what they call the "heroic dose", which is taking 6g of mushrooms with the intention of dissolving the ego, resetting your mind and coming out of the experience with a new sense of self. From what I’ve read, this is normally done by people who have deep wounds they want to heal: problems with substance or alcohol abuse, childhood trauma, PTSD, etc. Ollie had mentioned to Zac on a few occasions that he knew something had happened to him, but he didn’t know what it was, so he was hoping the mushrooms could provide some answers. It has to be said that he is a person who drinks a lot and has anger issues.
Zac decorated the living room beautifully with lots of candles and cleansed all downstairs with sage. He also curated a playlist specially for the night. It was about 8 p.m. when he separated the portions that each of us wanted to take. We felt nervous but ready. Then, just when we were about to eat them, I felt a strong urge to do what Maria Sabina (the Mazatec shaman) used to do: she never took mushrooms without blessing them first with copal. Zac had bought copal a few months back, and there were some bits left in the drawer, so I said, 'Let's bless the mushrooms and ask them what we want out of this experience tonight.' Everyone agreed. As I was passing the bag of mushrooms over the smoke of copal, without thinking or practising what I was going to say, these words came out: "Protect us, guide us and show us what you need us to see."
We took the mushrooms and within 20 minutes, Ollie started to look very uncomfortable and began to behave very strangely. He went into the conservatory and sat there alone, swearing and shouting what sounded like painful memories. I didn’t feel affected or distracted, but it was impossible to ignore him. Zac and Dan started feeling unsettled but managed to remain calm. After a while, I decided to go into the conservatory to close the windows (as I didn't want the neighbours to hear the shouting) and I told Ollie to go into the living room. I said this casually, pretending he wasn't acting weird, so I didn't make him feel more uncomfortable than he already was. What happened next is one of the most bizarre and surreal experiences of my life. When he turned around to look at me, he had transformed into an owl. He had the face of an owl, the feathers, the beak, everything! He was an owl. The only part of him that remained human was his eyes; every other part of his body had been taken by this owl. I thought: OK.. we are now shape shifting, we are now entering shamanic territory. Everything was happening so fast that there was no time to process anything, but as much as the situation felt weird, it wasn’t scary at any point. Ollie eventually made it to the living room, but the atmosphere had completely changed. I sensed there was another presence in the room. Based on my knowledge of the tarot, the owl represents an old, rigid, disciplined and strict man, so my thought was: someone with this energy has entered the room (through Ollie).
What followed felt like the movie "The Shining". Ollie stared at the big mirror we have in the living room and started having a conversation with his reflection, but a different voice came out of him. He was fighting with the repressed memories stored in his subconscious; he was spitting at the mirror and getting increasingly angry. He became aggressive towards Zac to the point that Zac had to go upstairs to avoid having a physical fight with him. Dan hid under the table because he got so scared about what was happening. I stayed on the floor in child's yoga pose and didn't feel scared at any point. I felt I was contained within a circle of light. I remember thinking, “nothing can touch me here”. After a few minutes of random swearing, Ollie started reliving how he was abused as a child. I listened to him and just stayed on the floor without lifting my head. His words built like a little movie inside my head of what had happened to him. I felt I had a duty. I felt I had to stay with him because he couldn’t deal with all this on his own. At points, I felt sick and tried to throw up, but nothing was coming out, so I just managed to make a burping noise. He started shouting at me: “Come on then, be sick then! Come on, be sick!”. I didn't take offence because I knew it wasn't Ollie talking. In the end, I managed to throw up a little bit, and when I did, I had the strong conviction that I wasn't throwing up for myself; I was throwing up on his behalf because he couldn't get all this out on his own. I sat on the floor for a few minutes just trying to process what was happening. I opened my eyes for the first time after what felt like ages and saw him standing in the middle of the living room, looking absolutely exhausted. I said to him, "Give me your hand”, but he didn't. He was too far gone into the depths of his mind. He then pulled his trousers and pants down, and while staring into space, he said: "You like doing things to me, don't you?" At this point, I heard a voice inside my head that said: "Your job is done”. I got up from the floor, turned the heating off, the lights off and went upstairs. When I came into the bedroom, Zac was feeling rather unwell, and he kept repeating, “I feel really bad.” I think we were all feeling Ollie’s pain physically. I told Zac what had happened downstairs with Ollie, and as much as he couldn’t believe it at first, he told me there was a time when Ollie was little, when he used to spend a lot of time with his grandfather. As soon as he said that I knew the presence that had been in the living room with us was his grandfather’s. He was the owl. But it was so much to process, and we were too tired to try to unravel it. I said to Zac, “Ollie won’t remember anything tomorrow”. Zac said, “We will tell him, he needs to know”.
The next morning, we all got up about 9am. Ollie was back to normal: teeth and hair brushed, pyjamas on, asking if he could have a cup of tea. We asked him how he felt about the events of the night before, and he just said: “It was horrible, and I don’t want to do mushrooms ever again”. We asked him if he remembered anything, and he replied that he didn't. He then asked: “What was I saying? What was I doing”? So, I told him. He put his head in his hands and screamed: “Noooo! Noooo!”. We hugged him while he started to cry and tried to comfort him and encourage him to get help and talk to a therapist about the experience, but he said he didn’t want to talk about it ever again.
That evening, I pulled some cards from The Wild Unknown Tarot (which only has animal images) to try to get a better understanding of the whole thing. The first card I pulled was the King of Swords, which in this deck is an owl. I didn’t want to confuse myself with pulling what I unconsciously wanted to see, so I booked a virtual reading with my tarot teacher in Mexico, who is also a shaman. I told her what happened, and after a long session, she concluded that Ollie’s grandfather still had control over him. His grandfather was in the living room that night, mocking us and getting aggressive, trying to discourage us from being there for Ollie. My job was to witness his liberation. There is no secret anymore; we know what he did, so he can no longer keep hold of Ollie.
Even if Ollie doesn’t find closure in this lifetime, the door has been opened, the secret has been exposed, and the path has been revealed. None of us will ever forget that night.
Cecilia is a tarot reader, plant medicine advocate, astrology enthusiast, book lover and aspiring writer. Born and raised in Mexico City, she has been living in England for almost 20 years. She is currently working on a book about her journey through depression, learning how to heal and finding peace through ancient wisdom.
