There continues to be controversy around whether or not smoking psilocybin/psilocin containing mushrooms can produce a psychoactive effect. On the one side, are those who claim to have tried it and experienced effects. On the other are those who state that psilocybin and psilocin break down at low enough temperatures that a flame would destroy them, as well as those who have tried this method and experienced no effects. There is some hypothesis that this issue results in part from Carlos Castaneda's descriptions, in The Teachings of Don Juan, of a smoking blend used by his teacher. Castaneda describes a blend of 5 plants, including sage and dried, powdered psilocybe mushrooms...the other 3 plants are not identified. In this (probably fictional) description Casteneda blurs the line between inhaling smoke and ingesting a fine powder from the pipe. We have received several experience reports from individuals who have tried this method. Smoked Mushrooms Experience Reports See also: Smoking Amanitas

"The manipulatory technique for the fourth specific purpose utilized a smoking mixture made of dried mushrooms [psilocybe mexicana] mixed with different parts of five other plants, none of which was known to have hallucinogenic properties. The rule placed the emphasis on the act of inhaling the smoke from the mixture; the teacher thus used the word humito (little smoke) to refer to the ally contained in it. But I have called this process "ingestion-inhalation" because it was a combination of ingesting first and then of inhaling. The mushrooms, because of their softness, dried into a very fine dust which was rather difficult to burn. The other ingredients turned into shreds upon drying. These shreds were incinerated in the pipe bowl while the mushroom powder, which did not burn so easily, was drawn into the mouth and ingested. Logically, the quantity of dried mushrooms ingested was larger than the quantity of shreds burned and inhaled." -- pages 175-176, The Teachings of Don Juan.

"The process of "smoking" consisted of ingesting the fine mushroom powder, which did not incinerate, and inhaling the smoke of the other five plants that made up the mixture. Don Juan explained the profound effects that the mushrooms had on one's perceptual capacities as the "ally removing one's body."." -- 'A Separate Reality', Page 5, last paragraph, 2nd sentence.