Stephanie Pappas, a contributor for LiveScience.com, recently caught our attention with her list of “11 Odd Facts about ‘Magic’ Mushrooms,” i.e. mushrooms that contain the psychoactive ingredient psilocybin.
We’re providing you with some teasers from the article that should send you scurrying to www.livescience.com for more information. Don’t hesitate to do so: you really need to read her entire article in order to get the full force of these claims. We’re thinking that the material may just give you another way of looking at our fungal world!
1. Mushrooms hyper connect the brain – “Psilocybin actually boost the brain’s connectivity … while under the influence of the drug, the brain synchronizes activity among areas that would not normally be connected.”
2. They slow it down – “Slowing down the activity in areas such as the thalamus may allow information to travel more freely throughout the brain…”
3. Magic mushrooms go way back – 9,000 year old rock art in the Sahara may depict hallucinogenic mushrooms.
4. Magic mushrooms explain Santa … maybe – Here’s where it gets a little quirky but really timely, considering that Christmas is just around the corner. Sierra College anthropologist John Rush is reported to have “said that Siberian shamans used to bring gifts of hallucinogenic mushrooms to households each winter. Reindeer were the spirit animals of these shaman, and ingesting mushrooms might just convince a hallucinating tribe member that those animals could fly. Plus, Santa's red-and-white suit looks suspiciously like the colors of the mushroom species Amanita muscaria, which grows — wait for it — under evergreen trees.”
Yes, there is a striking similarity
between these amanita and Santa's suit, but ...
5. 'Shrooms may change people for good – “A 2011 study found that after one dose of psilocybin, people became more open to new experiences for at least 14 months, a shockingly stable change. People with open personalities are more creative and more appreciative of art, and they value novelty and emotion.”
6. Mushrooms kill fear – “Another strange side effect of magic mushrooms: They destroy fear.”
7. They make their own wind – Typically mushrooms need wind to disperse their spores. However, when mushrooms grow in a sheltered area, protected from any air movements, they may create their own wind in order to aid spore disbursement.
8. Many mushrooms – “At least 144 species of mushrooms contain the psychoactive ingredient psilocybin …”
9. Experimenting with 'shrooms – Although the DEA considers psilocybin a Schedule I substance with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, “recently, researchers have begun to experiment with psilocybin as a potential treatment for depression, anxiety and other mental disorders.”
10. The counterculture cultivator – Terence McKenna, a writer and ethno botanist, and his brother published Psilocybin: Magic Mushrooms Grower’s Guide in 1976, detailing the cultivating of psilocybin mushrooms for those who prefer to grow their own.
11. Animals feel the effects – Contributor Pappas reveals that “Siberian mystics would sometimes drink the urine from deer that had ingested mushrooms in order to get a hallucinogenic experience for religious rituals.”
MadAboutMushrooms Disclaimer: We found Pappas’ article very interesting, but cannot confirm any of the assertions she makes in it, and urge caution on the part of our readers. We certainly do not encourage anyone to consume mushrooms containing psilocybin or any other hallucinogenic substances, and have not done so ourselves. We do not consider them to be safe or edible, and do not advocate their consumption.