of Psilocybe - Mycophilia

So, can psilocybin save you from decades of therapy(at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars)? If it can,what “profound psychological realignments” can youexpect to realize?Freud would probably say that thebest you could hope for would beto accept the “human condition,”that is, the general unhappiness of life.Other therapists would say some verydifferent things. Sandor Ferenczi mightsay that the human quest is to returnto the peaceful condition of the fetusbefore birth, before being thrust outinto the world. Other therapists, likeOtto Rank, might focus on the traumaof birth itself, well before the onset ofearly childhood issues, as the ultimatesource of our most disabling neuroses.One therapist, Stanislav Grof, thinks thatunder the influence of a mind-alteringsubstance or a trance-induced state, onecan experience profound encounterswith life before conception, prior lives,similar in a way, perhaps, to experiencingJung’s archetypes. The general consensusof those therapists not in the “Freudianschool” seems to be that the oceanicfeelings often associated with mindalteringsubstances, like psilocybin, is notso much a return to “life” in the amnioticfluid as it is the sense of connectednesswith all life, with all creatures, great andsmall, as well as all plants and all fungi.Is this sense of “oneness,” this strongfeeling of bonding with all sentient life,real or illusory, and in what sense? Canthe experience give us a window onto aworld otherwise denied us, or is it justby Gary LincoffPrefaceIn a matter of hours, mind-altering substances may induce profound psychological realignmentsthat can take decades to achieve on a therapist’s couchFrom “Hallucinogens as Medicine,” Roland Griffiths and Charles Grob,December 2010 issue of Scientific AmericanSit back, relax, take 5 mg and call me whenthe moon is in the seventh house and Jupiteraligns with Mars.a journey through the looking glass?Are metaphors inescapable here? “Ifthe doors of perception were cleansed,”would everything “appear to man as it is,infinite”?First, a few caveatsPsilocybin is a value-free, nonintegratedmolecular strategy fordeveloping cooperative individuals in thepursuit of social equality in a democraticsociety. This might sound like anoxymoron, if not outright moronic, and itis something that seems easier to disprovethan prove, but that doesn’t deter exerciseof its use or prevent belief in its efficacy.Warning: If you are having an experience lasting morethan 4 hours, consult a shaman as soon as possible, iftime has any meaning for you.Psilocybin is not to be taken aloneor with your doppelganger (if you canrecognize him or her), or with totalstrangers (assuming you know a strangerwhen you see one). Taken with friendsit can lead to intense emotional bondingbetween individuals that others mayinterpret as totally inappropriate, andthat the affected couple finds nearlyimpossible to dissolve amicably.Psilocybin is not to be taken by thoseadherents of Freudian psychologywho believe that a feeling of “oceanicwholeness” is a symptom of infantileregression, and that this is something tobe eschewed.Psilocybin is not for those unpreparedto experience phylogenetic regression;the event, not manifested in physicalterms, as shown in the film Altered States,but capable of being described as clear,concrete, and accurate memories of a lifein the body of a different species.Psilocybin is not for people who displaya rigid personality or for those who fearloss of control; or, as Lily Tomlin hassaid, “reality is a crutch for those whocan’t handle drugs.” It might be truethat there are no atheists in a foxhole,as the saying goes, but an atheist highdosingpsilocybin will be unpreparedto experience God face to face, as itwere, and consequently will most likelymisinterpret the experience.Psilocybin is not for males who planto become pregnant; nor is it for malesattempting to breast-feed a baby.Psilocybin is not for femalesexperiencing acute penis envy or SDS(Sports Distraction Syndrome).The successful use of psilocybindepends in part on one’s set and setting.If you are in the wrong place at the wrongtime, or your expectations or thosearound you are creating stress, its use insuch situations cannot be recommended.Psilocybin is not the drug of choice toget you through rush-hour traffic or acolonoscopy.People taking psilocybin while on anMAO inhibitor medication can find theexperience more intense, perhaps toointense, and longer lasting, perhaps neverending. Who knew?So, who in their right mind, you mightask, would take psilocybin? Someone outof their (left) mind? Or, if you are findingyourself on planet Earth in the HumanChristian Earth-year of 2011, and arewondering who took the wrong turn, it’stoo late to check your genome. In thiscase, it might just be better to sit back,relax, take 5 mg and call me when themoon is in the seventh house and Jupiteraligns with Mars. Or, if you are wonderinghow the best minds of our generationgot wasted by the evening news, or howpeople who have reached the biblical ageof three score years and ten, seem to bedisappearing before your very eyes, orare finding themselves with lots of bodyparts that aren’t the ones they were bornwith, or are entering the dark world ofdementia, now may not be too soon todouble the dose.SOME CASE REPORTS:1 The YouTube clip from the movieKnow Your Mushrooms is essentiallytrue, at least as it was experienced. ifI learned anything from the event, itwas that there’s more to a psilocybinexperience than set and setting, since ididn’t know or trust the people i had metwho wanted me to share this mushroomwith them, and i wasn’t in the “mood”for having a non-dreaming out of bodyexperience; in fact, i was anxious to getto the airport on time and not miss myflight home. How naïve i was (and stillam) is beyond belief. Still and all, theexperience, as described on YouTubeand in the film was quite exhilarating.Whether it was an actual out-of-bodyexperience, or only an imagined one, itwas one that was intensely experienced.It was not spiritual in any normal senseof that term, although space travel doesseem to have a spiritual component.The only sense i could make of it wassome kind of attempt on my part toescape from wherever i was, which i didthanks to the light beam that i followedout to somewhere in the vicinity of theAndromeda galaxy. Was it the acting outof a birth trauma event, an escape from aliving “womb” that was no longer a placeI felt comfortable being in? Was my outof-bodyexperience a snake-like slitheringout of my “mortal coil,” an escape fromlife rather than an escape into life? Didit in some way change my life? Since iremember it so vividly, something thathappened so long ago, it must havechanged me in some way or other.2 I was in the Amazon with agroup on a ship exploring a few of itstributaries. We passed by a pastureand pulled in to see what mushroomsmight be coming up in the cow pies.We were ecstatic to find a blue-staining,black-spored mushroom, a species ofPanaeolus, now called Copelandia. Weput a handful or two in a bowl with somefruit juice and mashed bananas. We hadno idea what its potency was. We calledthe mixture a blue banana smoothie.It wasn’t blue at all, but it tasted great.We became unusually quiet, quite oddfor a group of American eco-tourists(something we didn’t know we wereat the time). I lay in a hammock andbecame somewhat dreamy. A stormblew up out of nowhere. It suddenly gotquite dark and there was lightning andloud crashes of thunder. The ship’s crewlowered large, blue plastic sheets alongthe sides of the deck, to keep the rainfrom blowing in. I was immobilized inthe hammock, imagining myself in alifeboat. I remembered reaching underthe hammock and feeling all the holesbetween the interconnected strands ofrope. Everything around me had becomedeep blue. Lightning would light up thescene and the blue plastic sheets floodedthe deck with its color. I was panicky. Itried to talk but couldn’t; words wouldn’tcome out of my mouth. I was overboardin a lifeboat full of holes. I was drowning.I was scared beyond belief. I must havepassed out because the next thing Iknew it was morning, the sun was out,the blue sheets had been raised, and Ihad not drowned in a leaky lifeboat. Theexperience, as horrific as it seemed atthe time, has become a mere cocktailcircuit anecdote. Many questions remainunanswered. For example, was thisexperience a pre-natal one, a sense ofbeing mute and helpless in the womb atthe very moment of being pushed outinto the world? What, if anything, is tobe made of such an experience? Why isit such an indelible memory for me whenso little else from that trip down theAmazon can be recalled?3 We were in Hobart, Tasmania. Wehad gathered in a motel room one night.We ate a number of mushrooms we hadfound earlier that day. We spent hourssitting around mostly responding towhat anyone else was saying. It seemedto get progressively colder. One personwrapped herself in blankets that wereon the bed. Another clutched a warmradiator, and hugged it like it was asentient being. Not much happened. Itwas very late and we realized we werevery hungry. We went out in search of anopen restaurant. Everything was closedexcept for a Chinese restaurant, whichwas practically empty. We sat arounda large table. After too long an intervalsomeone came out of the kitchen andasked us what we wanted. We ordered.The food took forever to arrive. We askedfor chopsticks. The dishes of food wereplaced on a large Lazy Susan. We had tomove it around to bring whatever dish ofChinese food we wanted to sit in front ofus so we could take some for ourselves.That’s when we knew the experiencewasn’t over. The Lazy Susan startedmoving. The problem was it wouldn’tstop. Someone was always moving it. Ifyou tried to grab some food with yourchopsticks while the dish passed byyou, you would inevitably fail. The LazySusan seemed to move faster and faster.Nobody was able to take any food off it.The few people in the restaurant noticedour dilemma and watched us. Theypulled up chairs around our table andsat there silently observing us. Peoplewalking by the restaurant saw somethinghappening inside and came in and joinedthe group watching us. Every now andthen the Lazy Susan slowed sufficientlyso that we could get something outof one of the dishes of food, even if itwasn’t something that we really wantedto eat. We were convulsed in laughterthe whole time, incapable of controllingour movements or communicatingwith one another. We were not gettingdinner, as it were, but we were having agreat time. Eventually, chairs were putup on tables, and the restaurant gaveevery sign of closing for the night. Welurched out into the street, still laughing,still hungry, still wondering whetherthis was the way things worked in thesouthern hemisphere. Across the streettwo kids were walking along as a groupapproached them. One of the kids in thegroup took off and ran full out at thetwo kids and tackled one of them. Weassumed we were watching a mugging.But all we heard was laughter, and thekids involved got up and hugged andtalked like this was the appropriate wayof greeting someone in Tasmania. Wethought they must have been high onsomething or other, or they were living intoo close proximity to a large variety ofmarsupials, whatever that means. Whatsense, if any, could be made out of thisgroup experience? Why, after a couple ofdecades, do I still feel connected to thepeople who just happened to be in thatplace at that time?4 We were in Telluride, in a condoone night, about a dozen or so of us,taking mushrooms the way some peoplemight have a drink or a smoke, a formof relaxation after a long, busy day.Someone said it was the night of thefull moon. She went outside to watchit. After some time another person saidshe wanted to see it, too. She got up andwent to the door. Unfortunately, therefrigerator was so placed that she hadto pass it on her way to the door. Shemistook the door of the refrigerator forthe condo door, opened it, noticed the20 FUNGI Volume 4:3 Summer 2011 FUNGI Volume 4:3 Summer 2011 21