PSILOCYBIN: PANACEA OF THE FUTURE BY JUAN CAMILO RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍNEZ

Psilocybe cubensis var. ALBINO PENIS ENVY Photo courtesy of Donnie Lewis

Dedicated to Donnie Lewis in the United States of America and Mao Niñoazul in Mexico.

"Roger Heim, Of Paris, our mentor in all matters mycological, has devoted himself to the classification and study of mushrooms and, in 1956, he joined us in the field. He identified them as Basidiomycetes and, with the aid of his young assistant Roger Cailleux, he succeded in cultivating almost all of the fourteen species of Mexican hallucinogenic agarics in the Laboratoire de Cryptogramie in Paris, at first in sterile, artificial media, later in compost hosthouses, thus freeing us of our dependence on Mexico for our supply of raw material. In the Sandoz laboratories of Basel, Switzerland, with material supplied from Paris, a research team headed by Albert Hofmann and including Heim, A. Brack, and H. Kobel succeeded in large-scale culture of Ps. mexicana, in sterile conditions on artificial media, isolating two distinctive substances. They called one of them psilocybin and the other psilocin and they reduced psilocybin to a pure white crystaline powder, arrived at its moleculare structure, and synthesized this compound in full (o-pho-phoryl-4-hidroxy-N-dymethyl-tryptamine)."

- THE HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS OF MEXICO: AN ADVENTURE IN ETHNOMYCOLOGICAL EXPLORATION
R. Gordon Wasson

I. A LITTLE INTRODUCCION TO THIS ARTICLE

It was around my 25 years when in a visit to the Bogota library the book by R. Gordon Wasson by the name The Woundrous Mushroom got to my hands... I had quitted University some years ago and my parents where worried what I was going to do in my life. After a drug habit on using cocaine and whatever felt in my hands like inhalating heroin and doing street drugs imported from foreign land like GBH found on the electronic music raves, I´ve learned because of the book that there where entheogens and not only drugs. And If I had some mushroom experiences on Villa de Leyva before they could not be compared to the latter ones I had after reading the Wasson´s book. A strange relation in my VIlla de Leyva trips had inspired me the idea that colombian indigenous tribes could also had used Psilocybe mushrooms like in Mexico; the central theme around Wasson´s book. At that point started my research around the subject. I´ve learned that the Muiscas had words for fermented brews (Fapqua) and also for some mycosis. They had medical uses for lichens. The word in Muysccubun (The Muisca indigenous tribe language) for the mushroom is Hua. In the first part of SOMA AND THE MUISCAS: THE COLOMBIAN MUSHROOM MYSTERIES I talk around this and another subjects. This was the amateur article that with time became an academic article and inspired the famous THE HALLUCINOGENIC FUNGI OF COLOMBIA: A NEW PERSPECTIVE with John W. Allen. After reading Wassons book and my latter trips to Villa de Leyva eating the wild Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms my cocaine habit wore off as all hard drugs interests... I felt cured in that way of my life and I have never tryed cocaine again. I expose this experience also at this moment to point out how Psilocybin can help for addictions... Ive heard a cure of LSD was given to the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Anyway Psilocybin containing mushrooms can be helpful in may ways but risky if not used responsible but I won´t dare to judge recreational use anyway but I will give the reason to the Indigenous tribes and their ancient practices around the sacred mushrooms. This can be consulted on the Gastón Guzmán paper referenced at the end of this article along with all the lectures of interest mentioned on the present document. I always tripped to VIlla de Leyva and that was how I learned from Psilocybe mushrooms, but with the years I got the chance to taste the laboratory ones that now everyone cultivates in their homes and had generated a whole culture around spores and genetic varieties... Ive also had the fortune to taste different species from the Psilocybe genus: That would include Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe zapotecorum and Psilocybe hoogshagenii found in Colombia. And even some other  mushrooms like Gymnopilus and Panaeolus that  are suspected to produce Psilocybin but belong to a different genus than Psilocybe.

Picture from the FUNGI MAGAZINE Volume 4- No. 3: Summer 2011 showing the Psilocybin and Psilocin molecular structures from the article: PSILOCYBE 101: A PRIMER ON MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND RELATED LITTLE BROWN MUSHROOMS by Britt A. Bunyard 

Psilocybe has been very important in my life and that is why I want to dedicate to it some words.

Picture of the Psilocybin structure taken from the article THE HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS OF MEXICO: AN ADVENTURE IN ETHNOMYCOLOGICAL EXPLORATION by R. Gordon Wasson.

II. PSILOCYBIN AND PSILOCIN

Britt A Bunyard on the PSILOCYBE 101: A PRIMER ON MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND RELATED LITTLE BROWN MUSHROOMS article featured in FUNGI MAGAZINE Volume 4- No. 3 Summer 2012, writes that after the ingestion of the mushrooms: "Psilocybin is rapidly turned into Psilocin inside the body. Both resemble the neurotransmiter serotonin, structurally, and as a result bind with serotonin receptors in the brain. Just how psilocin works in the brain is ´poorly understood but it is known that the serotonin receptors where it binds in the cerebral cortex are involved with the perception of pain and anxiety."

The definition and explanation that Britt gives us is very clever and clarifies what is happening inside the body and our brains when Psilocybin is introduced.

Scientific studies and papers had shown since the beggining to the last released in actual times that the Psilocybin compound  has many benefits. The Scientific community has recognized its medical values and how it can help people that suffers depression, OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder), among other illness to cure them and help them have a better life-style. 

They were used as medicines by our ancestors and now modernity has rediscovered his value and the internation medical community has recognized it as useful and with real benefits for the humankind

Its uses in psychedelic therapy self-induced experiments keeps getting popular in my country  Colombia but this use it´s also extending all around the world since some years ago. Mushroom kits now are sold on the Internet everywhere in the planet and the mushroom harvesting culture has a great reception and the spore trading and home cultivation has increased in every side of Earth. Like the spores the Mushroom Culture is expanding. That is something very positive. 

And time keeps passing and the spores keep floating all around...

Psilocybe cubensis var. YETI Photo courtesy of Mao Niñoazul

Psilocybe cubensis var. YETI Photo courtesy of Mao Niñoazul

III. THE PSILOCYBIN AND ME

 Many people thinks I eat Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms all the time and that is not true. While I had constant access to the sacred mushroom these days before the times that harvesting them indoors was not popular in my country we used to travel and gather them in the cow dung in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. Gathering them every 2 or 3 years was more than enough for me. 

I was plenty with this travels and never had the need to harvest them at my home and I must confess I had never been interested in that and I´m a person that lacks patience. Patience is a quality I admire in people that dedicates themselves to mushroom harvesting. A big applause to them. But would be nice to learn the process of course.

Because of my work as an ethnomycologist I get access constantly to lab harvested mushrooms that I enjoy with pleasure but I can say the wild ones collected in the cow dung are still my favourite.

In a personal way I can say Psilocybin puts you in front of your most irrational and biggest fear and you have to face it. And it works. You win. Psilocybin is very effective if used on the right context to aliviate a trauma. The dose must be strong. It will not be an easy psychedelic therapy session for the patient but will be very effective. The patient will save years and lots of money that he used to invest on pharmaceuticals that wont work and useless appointments with the psychiatrist,and psychologists that wont go to anything.

I like to smoke marihuana. I enjoy it a lot. I find it´s a pleasure but I was not using it on the proper way.

I used to smoke it all days, all day, all night, every week, every month, without stopping.

After a session of  Psilocybe cubensis var. Golden Teacher mushrooms the addiction was magically gone. 

I still enjoy smoking pot one or two times at a week and its ok with me.

And the change in my smoking habits decreased in a positive way. 

It´s a personal experiencie I want to share around its eftectivenes against addictions in people. 

Regarding my trips in Nature under the effects of psilocybin I can say they really connect you in deep and intimate ways with God or whatever you like to call it. Mother Nature gets alive like a flowing river blue goddess surrounding your soul with wisdom. 

In small doses I can walk hours and more hours without getting tired in my hikes around Villa de Leyva. 

On very little small doses they can have the effects of an aphrodisiac  but in hight doses the most atheistic and agnostics of you all can have the most terrible religious-mystical positive life changing experience of your life.

But its really personal. Timothy Leary and his colleagues talked in his books around the importance of Set & Setting and adding up the dose I think they are the crucial points to take care about before taking a psychedelic journey. 

I must confess I enjoy microdoses to do mushroom hunts and foraging but its something you don´t get to do all the time... I just remember some nice experiences.

I never weigh them, I count them.

Psilocybe cubensis collected in Villa de Leyva, Colombia getting ready to be prepared in a chocolate liquid preparation with panela. Photo: Juan Camilo Rodríguez Martínez

IV. A  HOT CHOCOLATE PSILOCYBE RECIPE

In Colombia we have this tradition to drink hot chocolate. It´s a hot drink. I've integrated the Psilocybe mushrooms to it. This is the recipe for one person. You will need the following.

1 One chocolate tablet special for hot drink
12 Psilocybe cubensis fresh mushrooms

A little of Panela
A Pot.

You put in the pot a  cup of water and a cup of milk. You introduce in the liquid mix the chocolate tablet. You introduce the Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms one by one in to the mix. You put the pot in the stove to boil over low hit and start shaking the wooden molinillo shown in the picture. It´s a  colombian tradition that I want to share. When the mix boils you turn the stove off and retire the pot but be carefull because it must be very hot. Let it cool down a bit and then just simply enjoy and have a nice sweet delightful hot drinkg and a trip. If you are looking for strong sensations I recommend you double the dose to 24 mushrooms but for me is enough with 12 to have a mellow soft nice psychedelic experience. Enjoy. It´s for one person only this recipe.

V. A FEW WORDS TO END THIS ARTICLE

I remember an episode of the TV Anime series called COWBOW BEBOP. The episode its around pyschedelic mushrooms and the main characters get involved with this magical beings surrounding themselves in funny strange situations that wore of after the effects of the mushroom dissolve. The mushrooms are now known everywhere and are a trend. Everybody wants to learn to harvest Psilocybe cubensis. Collectives are arising everywhere and genetics keep increasing as also the numerous varieties of species that are available for people interested in this awesome and fantastic psychedelic harvesting mushroom culture.

I find this personally amazing. This article do not pretends to be a scientific one. It´s just one more contribution around the Psilocybe literature touching some curious point from my personal view. I see Psychedelic Therapy in its all as the panacea of the future  and with the entheogens used as sacred medicines in a proper way there is hope that a new Eleusis will start again.

R. Gordon Wasson in his office.with a mushroom-stone at his side.

Recommended Bibliography:

EL USO TRADICIONAL DE LOS HONGOS SAGRADOS: PASADO Y PRESENTE
by Gastón Guzman

FUNGI MAGAZINE VOLUME 4 - NO.3: SUMMER 2011  ARTICLE: PSILOCYBE 101: A PRIMER ON MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND RELATED LITTLE BROWN MUSHROOMS
 by Britt A. Bundyard 

 THE HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS OF MEXICO: AN ADVENTURE IN ETHNOMYCOLOGICAL EXPLORATION 
by R. Gordon Wasson