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“Where have all the mushrooms gone, long time passing?”---Pete Seeger
In ancient times, when life was slow, and oh, so mellow, young people in strange garments could be found prowling the cowfields of North Central Florida in search of spiritual sustenance. Somewhere amidst the herd, there were mushrooms out there, mind-altering vegetables which flew you to the moon, let you play among the stars, let you see what Spring was like on Jupiter and Mars. Unless, of course, they were clever imitations filled with poison grahdoo, which let you see what Spring was like in the Alachua County Hospital emergency room. Public-spirited citizen that it was, the Subterranean Circus sold cheap little books which illustrated the difference, but it’s hard to read when you’re stoned all the time.
Magic mushrooms, as we all know, preceded the hippies, with a history going back to prehistoric times. People in the United States only began paying attention in 1955, however, when Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and her banker husband participated in an indigenous mushroom ceremony in the State of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. Enthralled by their grand awakening, the couple returned home and spent a great deal of time publicizing their experience and discussing the effects the ‘shrooms had on their bodies and their consciousness. In May, 1957, Life Magazine even published an article about their shenanigans. The article proved pivotal in introducing the rest of the world to the psilocybin phenomenon. Life was the first place the term “magic mushroom” was ever used. From such modest beginnings, an empire rose.
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| Timothy Leary's Millbrook, N.Y. residence. "He'll take you up, he'll bring you down. He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground." Then he'll make tea on the patio. |
He Flies So High, He Swoops So Low….Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary, a Psychology Professor at Harvard and a “prophetic shaman,” read the Life article and was fascinated by the Wassons’ experiences. He traveled with fellow-professor Richard Alpert, later known as Ram Dass, to Oaxaca where they investigated and were enthralled by the revolutionary potential the magic mushrooms might have for psychology and psychotherapy.
Upon their return from Mexico, Leary and Alpert established the Harvard Psilocybin Project to conduct further experiments. The British author Aldous Huxley, who had earlier written a book on mescaline called The Doors of Perception, soon joined them. Controversially, Leary and many other academics at Harvard experimented on themselves with the mushrooms, familiarized themselves with the effects they had on mind and body and began to advocate more strongly for the benefits of magic mushrooms and other psychedelics such as LSD and ayahuasca.
The HPP tested their theories empirically, famously in the Concord Prison Experiment where they gave inmates psilocybin derived from mushrooms to test whether using the drug would prevent them from reoffending once released from prison. Although a high percentage of released prisoners return to jail, only 25% of the testees were back in prison after six months, most of those for technical parole violations. In a 1960 study, 159 of the 167 subjects who had participated to the end of the trial declared the psilocybin experience had changed their lives for the better.
Young tourists from the U.S. began traveling to Oaxaca as early as 1962 in search of psilocybin bliss. Within a couple of years, hotels in the area expressed their delight by posting “NO JIPIS” signs all over their walls, a reflection on the youngsters’ predilection for bad hygiene and overfilling rooms.
In 1965, the Beatles began using psychedelics in London, speaking of their adventures as “gaining hundreds of years of experience in only 12 hours.” The secret was out and the hippies embraced it. Timothy Leary, fired by Harvard for taking magic mushrooms with his students in 1963, began popularizing mushrooms and other psychedelics to the American public. In 1967, Leary attended the “Human Be-In,” a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. urging the crowd to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” The pendulum had swung about as far to the left as it was likely to get, however, and the sentinels of straight society eyed the free-for-all with some concern and decided to put a governor on the bus.
Lucy In The Sky With Handcuffs
In the 1970s, the American establishment conducted a publicity campaign denigrating psychedelics as extremely dangerous. One dose might even lead to permanent insanity, according to the blather, which never included any evidence, Nonetheless, in the early 70s psychological and psychotherapy research using magic mushrooms and other psychedelics stalled completely. The likes of Leary, hippies and psychedelic potential were discredited and researchers who worked with psychedelics became laughingstocks. Over the course of half a decade, magic mushrooms and other psychedelics had been demoted from a medicine with the potential to cure difficult mental problems into a poison.
Once the hippie uprising had been quelled by time, disappointment and inertia, the mushroom pendulum began to slowly swing back. In 1996, research into the potential of psychedelic medicine began again in the United States. Despite being criminalized for ordinary consumption, magic mushrooms became available to scientists for research and their various benefits soon became obvious. Very recently, psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in magic mushrooms was proven effective in treating depression by creating a hyper-connected brain.
By boosting connectivity between different areas of the brain, the psychedelic may help people with depression break out of rigid, negative patterns of thinking, according to recent studies. Clinical trials have suggested that psilocybin may be an effective treatment for depression when carefully administered under the supervision of mental health professionals. In a new study published April 11 in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers probed exactly how the psychedelic works to improve depressive symptoms. The team collected brain scans from about 60 patients who had participated in clinical trials for psilocybin therapy and the scans revealed distinct changes in the patients’ brain wiring which emerged after they took the drug.
“We see connectivity between various brain systems increasing dramatically,” says first author Richard Daws of Imperial College, London. While healthy individuals with high levels of well-being and cognitive function tend to have highly connected brains, “we sort of see the opposite of that---a brain characterized by segregation in people with depression. This undermines the brain’s ability to dynamically switch between different mental states and patterns of thinking.”
How Does It Work, Mister Wizard?
In the London study, the psilocybin group received two 25-milligram doses of the psychedelic, spaced three weeks apart. They also took sugar pills throughout the trial. The Escitalopram (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) group received two 1-milligram doses of psilocybin spaced similarly and also took daily Escitalopram pills throughout the trial. The Escitalopram group showed no significant changes in brain connectivity after treatment but those who took psilocybin showed marked increases in brain network integration. Notably, patients in the psilocybin group experienced “significantly greater” improvements in their depressive symptoms than those who took Escitalopram. “It’s obvious that psilocybin’s antidepressant effect works via a different mechanism than the conventional antidepressants work,” according to Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College at the time of the study.
In the United States, we have a blight of mentally damaged people wandering the streets alone. Whenever there’s a random shooting, there’s a good chance one of the fogbound has drifted into the Twilight Zone, snatched up an easily-accessible weapon and taken out his angst on a subway car full of helpless victims. Traditional remedies used over and over have failed these people. Maybe it’s time to get serious about The Psychedelic Alternative. We have nothing to lose but our slaughtered. “Here’s your bowl of mushrooms, Mr. Backflow. Put on this Pink Floyd tape and call me tomorrow.” What’s the worst that could happen?
Disa & Data
1. The scientific name for the magic mushroom, Psilocybe cubensis, translates to “bald head,” which befits its appearance. Conversely, you could call your balding friends “Psil” or “Psilo.”
2. Humans have been tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms for over 7000 years. More recently, the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mexico and Guatemala were big fans. A typical trip leads the user to a transitory condition called the waking dream state.
3. Experts on the subject contend than one single trip on magic mushrooms may have lasting and positive effects on the user’s personality. A typical result is greater open-mindedness. The shrooms have also helped cure nicotine addiction, anxiety, OCD, headaches and PTSD.
4. Though magic mushrooms could be psychologically addictive, they are not physically addictive. There is no evidence they cause serious health issues, though using them in conjunction with alcohol or other drugs is pushing your luck.
5. A study at Johns-Hopkins University revealed that test subjects taking magic mushrooms had “the most spiritual experience of their lives.”
6. Mental effects: Distorted sense of time, place and reality. Euphoria. Hallucinations, visual or auditory. Increased introspection. Possible nervousness or paranoia. Flashbacks.
7. Physical effects: Dilated pupils. Drowsiness. Increased heart rate, blood pressure and temperature. Less coordination. Occasional muscle weakness and yawning.
8. The effects of psilocybin typically wear off in 6-12 hours, though subjects can experience long-term changes in personality, usually positive. the average half-life of psilocybin ranges from an hour to two. It generally takes five to six half-lives to be eliminated from your system. The typical urine drug screening for employment does not test for psilocybin. Like many other drugs, magic mushrooms can be detected in hair follicles for up to 90 days. Is that Psilo I see smiling?
That’s all, folks….
