In the Bible there are many references to a spiritual food sent down from heaven by God, called manna.
The first reference is in Exodus as the children of Israel are fleeing from Egypt and following Moses into the wilderness. After six weeks of wandering, they complain that they are tired and hungry. What happens next is extraordinary:
“Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no (16:4). And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground (16:14). And when the children of Israel saw if, they said one to another It is manna: for they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.”
In this passage, manna easily fits the description of psilocybe mushrooms. Firstly, they are small and round, and since they sprout so rapidly they would seem to appear overnight, as if out of the sky. They also sprout in tiny pin heads which branch out in all directions and bear a resemblance to hoar frost.
Note that manna does not just fall from heaven, but instead it is described as coming with the frost and dew, during the wet seasons. These are the precise weather conditions for mushrooms to thrive. And finally, manna is described as a bread, similar to the literal Aztec name for psilocybe mushrooms, “flesh of the gods.”
It is also interesting to note that Moses says that manna comes directly from Heaven to test them on whether or not they will walk in God’s law. Here is evidence that manna was endowed with unusual spiritual powers, like those of magic mushrooms. However, manna does not automatically confer spiritual power.
Instead, it serves as a test. Magic mushrooms would provide visionary experiences that would certainly test all who ingested them.
There are many more references to manna in the Bible and one can see that they went to great lengths to preserve their knowledge about identifying manna, using it and baking it into cakes.