The Wonders of Fungi

[Yupo]

Here is an interesting TED Talk on fungi and their importance in our world.

 

[Voyageur]

Here is an interesting TED Talk on fungi and their importance in our world.

Was going to start a thread on this, so thanks for getting one going.

From this thread Psychedelics being pushed today from multiple vectors, @rraven brings up the speaker in the above talk with Stamets:

Fungi ,psychedelic or not , can save the plant
if you have time watch ''fantastic fungi'' with Paul Stamets on netflix

Thus, looking outside the "psychedelic" side, as was said, this film is indeed worth the watch - again, outside the subject matter of the Psychedelic thread.

One can see how fungi can do so much, from absorbing petroleum to treating the body as medicine.

Here is their website and short film clip, however it is also on Netflix - Fantastic Fungi:

Dr. Susan Simard (UBC) also looks to this world in terms of our forests, tree species interconnectedness, and of course the medium in which they grow in a world of fungi/microbial interactions. The interconnectedness include not only fungi, but all of it; water, chemicals carbon... - a world of information in which microbial interactions carry the messages.

Here is one of her article on SOTT.net and talk:

Our interconnected forests: "A mother tree may be connected to hundreds of other trees"​

A separate article is here:

'Mother Trees' are intelligent: They learn and remember

Few researchers have had the pop culture impact of Suzanne Simard. The University of British Columbia ecologist was the model for Patricia Westerford, a controversial tree scientist in Richard Powers's 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The...

www.sott.net

 

[Voyageur]

Thus, looking outside the "psychedelic" side, as was said, this film is indeed worth the watch - again, outside the subject matter of the Psychedelic thread.

Thought to add something more - a caution, as today (read the headlines and stories) the 'psychedelic' aspect of mushrooms/fungi seems to be making a resurgence, and this is present in the above Stamets film, with many references to past promotors that needs to be navigated carefully (IMO), least one might get the wrong idea.

So, I'll leave this quote from an early C's session, and it should be enough to help balance natural aspects vs what some may be 'keen' to use fungi for. There may be fungi (psychedelic producing) benefits for some people, with some mental health problems, as studies can show (read the above thread for those questions), and conversely, a person can be negatively opened up by their recreational use, yet this is not the intent of this thread.

Q: (L) Carlos Casteneda writes about the peyote {fungi} beings called "Mescalitos." This being supposedly is part of the peyote plant, a sort of being from the plant. Is this true?

A: No.

Q: (L) What beings does one encounter when one eats a bunch of peyote?

A: Hallucination.

Q: (L) Why are these hallucinations so consistent?

A: Because those that do have that expectation. If you ate enough peyote you would encounter Santa Claus if that was your expectation. (Much laughter)

 

[rrraven]

Q: (L) Carlos Casteneda writes about the peyote {fungi} beings called "Mescalitos." This being supposedly is part of the peyote plant, a sort of being from the plant. Is this true?

peyote is not a fungi ...it is a cactus
traditional only eaten under strict supervision of a qualified shaman (road man) to guide ,
assisted by a water man and a fire man , both not tripping and responsible for keeping the fire going ( and none of the trippers messing with it ) and to have water available so no one walks off in search for it

 

[Voyageur]

peyote is not a fungi ...it is a cactus

Yes, and right to point that out, it is indeed just that. The psychoactive ingredients are different - "50 psychoactive alkaloids" in peyote vs. "indolealkylamine and tryptamine"in mushrooms (of the psychoactive type).

What binds them in the body is both their abilities to produce hallucinations.

Of the mushroom variety, here it adds:

Psilocin is a high-affinity agonist at serotonin 5-HT2A receptors, which are especially prominent in the prefrontal cortex. It increases cortical activity secondary to down-stream postsynaptic glutamate effects. It is also active at 5-HT1A, 5-HT1D, and 5-HT2C receptors, although these are thought to play a lesser role in its effects. In the presence of the 5-HT2A antagonist ketanserin, the changes in mental state that psilocybin typically causes do not occur.258 Although psilocybin has no affinity for dopamine D2 receptors, a PET study using the D2 receptor ligand raclopride showed that psilocybin increases dopamine transmission in the striatum, probably through secondary increases in dopamine.259,260 Some psilocybin-containing mushrooms contain phenylethylamine, which may contribute to sympathomimetic effects.