Aside from the thousands of years of medicinal and spiritual use globally on every continent and by almost every indigenous tribe and shamanic lineage?
Or the fact that they grow out of shit in abundance and are one of the most ancient and intelligent life forms on this planet?
I won't go into the many miraculous uses of mushrooms the world over and all the wonderous healing properties the myriad of strains possess- there has been sooooooo much information shared on this by the amazing Paul Stamets (see Fantastic Funghi as a start!)
And if you want more science on how psilocybin (the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms) highlights new neural pathways and helps to heal addiction, alcohol dependancy, depression and anxiety, you can find loads more info via Michael Pollen (see How to change your mind on Netfilx also).
I'm going to give you a little of my personal understanding of it...one that also upholds the divine feminine and the Spiritual- because we have a habit in the patriarchal West of pulling things apart and testing and measuring them which (although useful to a point for validation within those frameworks) can reduce their magical potential and remove their mystery....
And that is possibly the number one reason I believe in the power of psilocybin- Soma- magic mushrooms...The reconnection to THE MYSTERY... because I also believe we can't extract the compound from the plant and expect it to do the same thing. Plants have a consciousness- funghi has a consciousness- we have to re-member our animist roots and come back into the ancient knowing that EVERYTHING has a consciousness- because everything is part of the interconnected web of energetic Oneness....and so everything is Spirit in essence incarnated in its unique expression of such...with its unique vibration to gift the Universe, connected to all other unique expressions through this interconnected web....so we have to work with the Spirit of the Mushroom!
And THE MYSTERY of the Universe- the parts we can't rationalise and explain and quantify and control are the parts we get the privilege to access when we embark on a flood dose "hero's journey" (+- 5g). Because our conscious minds- that we live in most of the time are simply the 5% of us- the tip of the iceberg. And the 95%, the unconscious, well that's THE MYSTERY that we agree to 'forget' when we incarnate in this individuated form. We can't know it all- it would blow our tiny little minds- but that is where we store our intergenerational pain and patterns, our family 'curses', our past life traumas and our collective consciousness grief, and where we largely operate from, and in fact where most of the Universe is operating from...and so it's really really helpful to be given the cheat code on the computer game (aka ingesting a flood dose of psilocybin) to get to where 10000 hours of meditation would also get you!
For me, I wouldn't have even begun meditating if it wasn't for psychedelic experiences- it was the encouragement i needed to show me that "Hey- magic does exist! It IS real- and it's all around you-in fact it's all within you as well!" The antidote to the grey, quantifiable, rational, mundane world image that I had been fed in school and through my basically scientific-atheist upbringing. "There is wonder! There is the unknown!"
So yes- in those unconscious realms you may rewire old pathways and realise what is causing you pain, or release held trauma in the body/mind/spirit complex, but also simply being given direct access to the unseen realms we have been gaslit into thinking are just nonsense created by infantile ancestors, fairy tales long gone and disproved, allows us to RECLAIM THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY in our lives. I believe soooo many of us suffer from the flatness of life presented to us- we all want the genuine sparkle!
Separation is what causes pain- the idea we are separate from the divine. That is (again) the deal we make on incarnating in this miraculous body we receive with which to enjoy the sensory world and learn through individuation. Yet I believe we are to re-member our interconnectedness- to understand that we are "the Ocean in a drop" (to quote Rumi), and that as a holographic fractal of the universe, everything we experience in life is a divine mirror, reflecting us back to ourselves. In fact the Xhosa word for the magic mushrooms is "isipili" which directly translates to "mirror" (thank you Amaza for the intel). And that is the primary lesson the mushrooms teach us- THE ONENESS, the interconnection, the reflection of the all in the one and vice versa. This is a deeply feminine principle and one that we need to remember as we move from a time of expansion to contraction/consolidation (coming together) and one that is deeply needed if we are to end war and unnecessary suffering in the world today.
In his wonderful book "Food of the Gods", Terrance McKenna (the grandfather of Western psilocybin use) makes a compelling argument for how magic mushrooms could have been the cause for the sudden increase in brain mass of primordial apes, bringing us to standing, complex homo sapiens with the arts, spirituality and philosophy in a very short space of time. He also presents a lot of evidence to show that the early peoples of the world (focusing on evidence found at Göbekli Tepe) were working with mushroom cults- worshipping the Goddess- and the cow (out of whose poo the mushrooms grow). These communities were highly developed and interconnected with Spirit and the Arts. The book goes on to show how the decline of mushroom use and the increase of other intoxicants such as alcohol took people away form their direct connection to SPIRIT (placing gatekeepers with agendas between us and 'god') as the more patriarchal cults superceded the matriarchal interconnectedness. I believe it is now time for us to rebalance towards this matriarchal INTERCONNECTEDNESS.
The mycelial network is the interconnectedness of all the mushroom filaments beneath the forest floor- it is the network that connects them to each other and to all the other plants in the forest by which they can share minerals, nutrients and vital information. This refashions our understanding of nature as being competitive and reframes it as collaborative- this is the big shift we need to make as humanity and one that the mushroom spirt can teach us so deeply. As an uninterrupted interconnected network of consciousness, there is such a wealth of knowledge to be learned from this deeply ancient magical mushroom consciousness. And I believe it is this highly active interconnected network of consciousness that allows the mushrooms to be able to adapt so skilfully to each individual woking with the psilocybin to give them exactly what they need and to use the right 'language' to 'speak' to them.
In his book "Humankind" Rutger Bregman argues that we are in fact collaborative beings- that is how we evolved beyond the neanderthals (who were much stronger and cleverer individually yet lacked the capacity to share knowledge), but that we've been fed this competitive narrative in order to divide and rule us...
I could go on for hours (i already have a little!) and I'm sure i'll share more about the mushroom magic on here again sometime. But the last thing I wanted to add about the reason I believe in their magic and power is their PLAYFULLNESS! I write in another post about the need for play and fun in our healing/spiritual journeys, so I won't go into the why here...just to say that the sense of humour the mushrooms have- the cosmic jokes they crack and the cheeky edge they bring to our consciousness I believe is priceless when facing our "demons" and darkness (essentially just the parts of ourselves that have been kept in the shadows- not bad or evil- simply unknown and unexplored and therefore sometimes a little tricky to integrate and face). The lighter and more playful we can be with ourselves is the greater enjoyment we will find in life, and the mushrooms remind us of this whilst not avoiding facing everything we need to look at!
I'm struggling to end this article! There is SOOOOO much I could say!
"Know Thyself" is the main tenant of the Hermetic Principles and I believe that all psychedelic experiences carried out in the right set and setting will catapult you on the path to self-knowledge in so many ways- through an integrated body/spirt/mind approach- it really is magic medexine! With the LONGEST history of success rates and no sustainability issues!
So for now I leave you with this- sitting in the MYSTERY is a human necessity we have forgotten, and accessing our INTERCONNECTEDNESS in how we will evolve as a species, and laughing at ourselves keeps us humble, flexible and our ego's in check!
As we move out of the patriarchal age of needing daddy-god-doctors with top down diagnoses who will fix us or save us from ourselves, and evolve as a species into self-healing wisdom seekers, becoming increasingly aware of our body-instruments capacity to adapt and learn itself more, this intelligent medexine is an immense ally. However we need to remember there is no silver bullet- no quick fix- this is not a drug to cure us, but a tool to understand and ascend with.
If we do not integrate what we have learned (bring into integrity in our lives), if we do not listen, if we do not allow the MYSTERY to remain the MYSTERY and continue to wonder at it, and if we do not understand that until we are all OK no one will be OK as we are ALL ONE reflecting itself back, then the magic will be wasted and the power will be weakened.
This is a sacred tool and we must never loose sight of the honour it is to consume it...
(I feel an article on the importance of ceremony is brewing!)
Love Always
Tārā Love
