Show notes
Links For The Occult Rejects
https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Occult Research Institute
https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/
Substack
https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page
Cash App
https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects
Venmo
@TheOccultRejects
Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects
Primary Source
Sahagún, Bernardino de, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex). Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, 1577. Digital Florentine Codex / Códice Florentino Digital, Getty Research Institute, 2023.
Primary source throughout this episode, especially Book 1 for Tezcatlipoca, Book 2 for festivals and sacrifice, and Book 11 for medicinal and psychoactive plants. Pasted markdown
Nahua Performance, Ritual & Manuscripts
Brylak, Agnieszka. “Some Remarks on the Teponazcuicatl of the Pre-Hispanic Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 27, no. 2 (2016).
Used for Nahua song, drumming, movement, and embodied ritual performance.
Morado Hernández, Elías Israel. “Una aproximación al Códice florentino desde la escucha.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 47, no. 127 (2025).
Explores the audible, oral, rhythmic, and performative world preserved beneath the written Florentine Codex.
Dupey García, Élodie. “Rethinking the Reverse of the Codex Cospi: Ritual Offerings to Divine Effigies in Temples.” Ancient Mesoamerica (2026).
Important to the discussion of divinatory manuscripts as ritual technologies connecting interpretation with prescribed ritual action. Pasted markdown
Tezcatlipoca, Obsidian Mirrors & John Dee
Campbell, Stuart, Elizabeth Healey, Yaroslav Kuzmin, and Michael D. Glascock. “The Mirror, the Magus and More: Reflections on John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror.” Antiquity 95, no. 384 (2021): 1547–1564.
doi: 10.15184/aqy.2021.132
Geochemical analysis connecting John Dee’s obsidian mirror with Mexican obsidian from the Pachuca source.
Getty Research Institute. “Through the Mirror.” Obsidian Mirror-Travels: Refracting Ancient Mexican Art and Archaeology.
Background on Indigenous Mexican obsidian mirrors, divination, supernatural vision, and Tezcatlipoca.
Caputo, Giovanni B. “Strange-Face-in-the-Mirror Illusion.” Perception 39, no. 7 (2010): 1007–1008.
doi: 10.1068/p6466
Experimental study showing striking facial distortions during prolonged mirror gazing under dim illumination.
Mash, Joanna, Paul M. Jenkinson, Charlotte E. Dean, and Keith R. Laws. “Strange Face Illusions: A Systematic Review and Quality Analysis.” Consciousness and Cognition 109 (2023): 103480.
doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103480
Systematic review of strange-face illusions and the methodological limits of earlier mirror-gazing research. Pasted markdown
Ololiuhqui & Ergoline Chemistry
Meira, Marilena, Eliezer Pereira da Silva, Jorge M. David, and Juceni P. David. “Review of the Genus Ipomoea: Traditional Uses, Chemistry and Biological Activities.” Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia 22, no. 3 (2012).
doi: 10.1590/S0102-695X2012005000025
Reviews morning-glory chemistry, including ergoline alkaloids such as ergine/LSA.
Steiner, Ulrike, and Eckhard Leistner. “Ergoline Alkaloids in Convolvulaceous Host Plants Originate from Epibiotic Clavicipitaceous Fungi of the Genus Periglandula.” Fungal Ecology 5, no. 3 (2012): 316–321.
doi: 10.1016/j.funeco.2011.04.004
Important for the plant–fungus symbiosis involved in ergoline production associated with Turbina corymbosa. Pasted markdown
Peyote & Mescaline
Dinis-Oliveira, Ricardo Jorge, Carolina Lança Pereira, and Diana Dias da Silva. “Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Aspects of Peyote and Mescaline: Clinical and Forensic Repercussions.” Current Molecular Pharmacology 12, no. 3 (2019): 184–194.
doi: 10.2174/1874467211666181010154139
Carstairs, Shaun D., and F. Lee Cantrell. “Peyote and Mescaline Exposures: A 12-Year Review of a Statewide Poison Center Database.” Clinical Toxicology 48, no. 4 (2010): 350–353.
doi: 10.3109/15563650903586745
These sources support the episode’s discussion of mescaline pharmacology, perceptual effects, and autonomic responses. Pasted markdown
Psilocybin & Visual Processing
Stoliker, Devon, Katrin H. Preller, Leonardo Novelli, Alan Anticevic, Gary F. Egan, Franz X. Vollenweider, Adeel Razi, et al. “Neural Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visual Imagery.” Molecular Psychiatry 30 (2025): 1259–1266. Published online 2024.
doi: 10.1038/s41380-024-02632-3
Used for the discussion of altered visual-network connectivity and increased top-down contributions to psychedelic imagery. Pasted markdown
Datura & Anticholinergic Delirium
Vearrier, David, and Michael I. Greenberg. “Anticholinergic Delirium Following Datura stramonium Ingestion: Implications for the Internet Age.” Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock 3, no. 3 (2010): 303.
doi: 10.4103/0974-2700.66565
Used to distinguish potentially dangerous anticholinergic delirium from classical serotonergic psychedelic states. Pasted markdown
Yiauhtli / Tagetes lucida
Pérez-Ortega, G., M. E. González-Trujano, G. E. Ángeles-López, F. Brindis, H. Vibrans, and R. Reyes-Chilpa. “Tagetes lucida Cav.: Ethnobotany, Phytochemistry and Pharmacology of Its Tranquilizing Properties.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 181 (2016): 221–228.
doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2016.01.040
Supports discussion of anxiolytic and sedative-like effects while cautioning against automatically classifying yiauhtli as a powerful psychedelic. Pasted markdown
Tobacco, Pulque & Copal
Benowitz, Neal L. “Pharmacology of Nicotine: Addiction, Smoking-Induced Disease, and Therapeutics.” Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 49 (2009): 57–71.
doi: 10.1146/annurev.pharmtox.48.113006.094742
Used for nicotine’s action at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and its effects on attention, arousal, reward, and autonomic function.
Kumar, Sandeep, Patrizia Porcu, David F. Werner, Douglas B. Matthews, Jaime L. Diaz-Granados, Rebecca S. Helfand, and A. Leslie Morrow. “The Role of GABA(A) Receptors in the Acute and Chronic Effects of Ethanol: A Decade of Progress.” Psychopharmacology 205, no. 4 (2009): 529–564.
doi: 10.1007/s00213-009-1562-z
Used for ethanol’s effects on GABAergic signaling. The Florentine Codex supplies the historical evidence for picietl/tobacco, octli/pulque, and copal in ceremonial settings. Pasted markdown
Sleep Deprivation & Altered Perception
Waters, Flavie, Vivian Chiu, Amanda Atkinson, and Jan Dirk Blom. “Severe Sleep Deprivation Causes Hallucinations and a Gradual Progression Toward Psychosis With Increasing Time Awake.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 9 (2018): 303.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00303
Used for evidence that sufficiently prolonged wakefulness can produce perceptual distortions, hallucinations, and increasingly disordered cognition. This does not establish that ordinary Nahua vigils automatically produced hallucinations. Pasted markdown
Breathing, Emotion & Brain Rhythms
Ashhad, Sufyan, Kaiwen Kam, Christopher A. Del Negro, and Jack L. Feldman. “Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 45 (2022): 223–247.
doi: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-090121-014424
Used for the relationship between respiratory rhythms, emotion, cognition, brainstem regulation, and distributed neural activity. Pasted markdown
Ritual, Pain, Memory & Cultural Neuroscience
Seligman, Rebecca, and Ryan A. Brown. “Theory and Method at the Intersection of Anthropology and Cultural Neuroscience.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5, nos. 2–3 (2010): 130–137.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsp032
Provides theoretical background for examining ritual as an embodied process involving sensory stimulation, emotional arousal, pain, memory, expectation, and social meaning. Pasted markdown
Human Sacrifice & Bioarchaeology
Moreiras Reynaga, Diana K., Jean-François Millaire, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Juan A. Román Berrelleza, Leonardo López Luján, and Fred J. Longstaffe. “Residential Patterns of Mexica Human Sacrifices at Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico-Tlatelolco: Evidence from Phosphate Oxygen Isotopes.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 62 (2021): 101296.
doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101296
Oxygen-isotope evidence indicates a diverse population among sacrificial individuals, including locals, long-term residents, and non-locals, adding archaeological context to discussions of warfare, captive-taking, slavery, imperial networks, and religious sacrifice. Pasted markdown
Nahua Death & Otherworlds
Madajczak, Julia, Katarzyna Mikulska, and Roberto Martínez. “Beyond Mictlan: The Otherworlds of the Pre-Contact Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 37, no. 1 (2026): 114–130.
doi: 10.1017/S0956536126100911
A major reassessment of the traditional “Sahaguntine paradigm” of Nahua afterlife destinations. The authors argue for understanding Nahua otherworlds as relational and transformational domains rather than simply fixed locations on a supernatural map, including an important reinterpretation of the numbers eight and nine. Pasted markdown
Nahualism, Personhood & Ritual Specialists
Martínez González, Roberto. El nahualismo. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2016. Antropológica 19.
Important for nahualli traditions, transformation, distributed personhood, tonalli, and other animating or supernatural relationships.
López Austin, Alfredo. “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 7 (1967): 87–117.
Foundational for understanding the divers
Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
