For this article, discussing the history of psilocybin mushrooms, I interviewed Nate Macanian, founder of the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Society and Jordan G., co-founder and CEO of Blue Sunday, a psilocybin microdose distribution company.
Nate Macanian
“I’m a mindfulness meditation teacher, writer, plant medicine guide, and builder of intentional communities. As a wellness programming specialist, I’ve hosted interactive classes and retreats for world-class companies such as Google, Twitter, Palantir, Wix, Kraft Heinz, and the Omega Institute. Since 2016, I’ve also created content for some groovy meditation apps, including Calm, Wellness Coach, Simple Habit, and WAVE. I founded the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Society. As its current President, I lead a community of over 200 students who share a passion and curiosity for psychedelic culture, research, and policy. In October 2019, I began facilitating psilocybin truffle retreats at Synthesis, the foremost legal psychedelic retreat center in the world (in the Netherlands).” Nate is presently stationed in Oregon, working at the forefront of the United State’s initial trial run of a legal psilocybin market and helping to draft policy.
Jordan G.
Jordan is the co-founder and CEO of Blue Sunday, a psilocybin microdose capsule and honey distribution company. Jordan works with individuals, groups, companies, and underground facilitators, all looking for a safe and reliable microdose psilocybin product. Jordan has spent nearly a decade traveling the globe most days of the year, sourcing different psilocybin mushrooms to test out and provide next. Jordan is operating in a gray market at this moment, but is staying up to date with federal changes and remains connected to those he needs to in order to do this work legally when it is possible.
If you have paid attention in recent years to the study of food or the study of psychology, you have likely heard about the so-called “psychedelic renaissance” that has emerged, infiltrating and transforming numerous industries and countless lives. Michael Pollan, who began his career studying and writing about pretty normative plants and foods, known for The Omnivore’s Dilemma, among many, has now written two sensational books about, and including his personal experiences with, plants/consumables that can alter consciousness, including psychedelics; How to Change Your Mind and This is Your Mind on Plants, with the former having been turned into a chart-topping Netflix series of the same name. On the mushroom-centric side of things, Louie Schwartzberg’s documentary Fantastic Fungi, also available on Netflix, has assisted in sparking this movement of not only approving of, but also in coming forward publicly with and sharing stories of psychedelics. This documentary also made waves in helping to popularize the use of medicinal, functional, and everyday mushrooms in the West, for foods, supplemental reasons, and health concerns. In 2020, Netflix released Have a Good Trip, a documentary style collection of celebrity and expert stories and interviews surrounding psychedelic drug use. Mushrooms have been proposed as an alternative to plastic, a solution to clean up oil spills, and self-taught mushroom expert Paul Stamets has even worked with Cordyceps mushrooms in order to utilize them to kill infestations of harmful pests, including termites and carpenter ants. Vegans and vegetarians alike enjoy mushrooms as a meat-like replacement in entrées and burgers. Perhaps the culmination of this psychedelic renaissance can be in part credited to the pandemic; giving curious individuals more time and freedom to explore their consciousness, and the compounds that can alter it, in addition to more time to watch documentaries on streaming services that they otherwise might not have had time for. Similarly, other cultural aspects of the sixties, besides psychedelic use, have been felt and seen in the United States specifically: ranging from social movements and political turmoil to fashion, interiors, and lifestyle choices. Fashion designer and daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney, Stella McCartney, has been using mushroom based vegan leather in her collections for purses, shoes, and clothing, in addition to printing huge mushrooms on her items, and also collaborating with experts and CEOs in the mushroom industry. Mushroom culture, psychedelic and otherwise, aligns with the values and preferences of the younger generations, and is also familiar enough for older generations to accept. Some factors driving the latest mushroom obsession include that they are environmentally conscious and budget friendly alternatives to meat, plastic, leather and pesticides, in addition to being mental health alternatives outside of Big Pharma.
Originally, psilocybin mushrooms, and the experiences that can come with consuming them, first made headlines in the United States in the May 13, 1957 issue of Life Magazine, in banker R. Gordon Wasson’s photo essay, “Seeking The Magic Mushroom”. In his article, Wasson describes his experience taking psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico in 1955 as part of a Mazatec ceremony. While Wasson promised not to name the shaman who guided him through this journey, he eventually did give up María Sabina’s identity, in a book he later wrote. This resulted in initial fame and an influx of American curiosity in psilocybin and increased tourism to the area. Eventually, the notoriety took a more negative turn, leading to attention from the Mexican government, and eventually María Sabina’s complete ostracization from the community to which she had dedicated her life’s work. Her choice to share this traditional and ceremonial method of healing, which had been kept under wraps for so long, with Americans was unfortunately deemed unforgivable in her community after it turned out the way it did. She lived out the rest of her life in poverty, dying in 1985 at 91 years old. The excitement around and use of psilocybin mushrooms was shut down, along with that of other psychedelics, by President Richard Nixon in 1971, following the controversial sixties, where psilocybin and LSD use were relatively commonplace, to the point where they were eventually deemed problematic enough to be banned. Underground communities remained in operation these past five or so decades, but there wasn’t much movement on the legal front until very recently. At this point, however, limited legalization leads to limitations in many aspects of the industry, leading to emergence of a significant gray market, trends via word of mouth, and social media based businesses.
Other mushroom-forward trends that have made significant headway during these past few years are biohacking (a focus on implementing evidence-based wellness/health practices) and a shift away from Westernized medicine. Many people have personally had or seen someone else have some sort of negative experience with Western medicine here in the United States. We can also view the incredible death toll of drug addiction/the opiate epidemic, taking more than 107,000 lives last year, and the complete failure that is the substance misuse treatment industry in the United States, with a less than ten percent success rate. Not only are psilocybin and other mushrooms thought to be able to assist in addiction/PTSD/depression treatment, but they fit in perfectly with the model of harm reduction, which is becoming more significantly considered as of late. There has been a serious shift towards incorporating more Eastern, holistic, and ancient practices into lifestyle and diet in order to replace what might have been a daily prescription from a psychiatrist or other type of doctor. Nate Macanian, a Psychedelic Facilitator whom I interviewed for this piece, spent time working at Synthesis in Amsterdam, the first legal psilocybin mushroom retreat center. He reflected on the center’s prioritization of a combination of Eastern and Western practices; “They've kind of got this Dutch efficiency, and also this open hearted hospitality at the retreat center. Synthesis hires really skilled facilitators, who taught me a lot…They are people who've been doing this for sometimes decades, most of them are licensed therapists, who also have training in more Eastern varieties of practice and mysticism. The lead facilitator, who I worked with in my first retreat, was actually a former Buddhist monk... They have an amazing balance of heartfulness and wisdom, with scientific empiricism. That's why they call it Synthesis; because they're really blending Eastern and Western wisdom in a beautiful way.” Mushrooms for mental health, legal and otherwise, have found support in the biohacking and wellness communities for this reason, as they can appeal to both Eastern-loving yoga students and meditators, and also scientific evidence-focused biohackers and athletes. Mushrooms are literally growing outside (or inside) and most people have eaten at least some sort of mushroom before. For this reason, they are more easily trusted and quickly deemed “safe” by anyone who might be hyperconscious about what goes into their body. Psilocybin mushrooms, in addition to functional mushrooms such as Lion’s Mane, Reishi, and Cordyceps, are being used by millions of people to help alleviate symptoms of depression, anxiety, ADHD, insomnia and other conditions. Busy moms are using them for an energy boost to avoid becoming reliant on caffeine or other addictive stimulants. Countless studies and publications are coming out alongside this surge in recreational use, and psilocybin legalization has been moved forward in a couple of states now, Oregon and Colorado, and is decriminalized in over a dozen other states. For many people with “average” health, psilocybin mushrooms and functional mushrooms do not pose the risk of many side effects. There also usually is not an intention of daily use indefinitely: oftentimes people take medium to high level doses of psilocybin mushrooms once a month or every few months, or follow a certain “protocol” of days on and off while microdosing psilocybin or other types of mushrooms. Jordan, the other interviewee in this piece, works producing gray market psilocybin capsules and honey for microdosing, which is a whole movement itself - people microdose for everything from ADHD to depression, social anxiety, and productivity levels. For these reasons, the impact taking mushrooms on occasion has on someone is more limited compared to possibly compounding side effects one might experience after taking an antidepressant every single day for years. There are countless factors that have pushed the media and academia to this focal point at the same time, and hopefully the industry will continue to grow and expand positively in the coming years.
One aspect of mushrooms that both interviewees touched on is the notion of interconnectedness and dependence. Nate, whose experience is in a professional and academic capacity, when asked to reflect on his first psilocybin mushroom experience as a sophomore in college in the forest in Michigan, shared, “The entire Fungal Kingdom has really captured me in the central role it plays in connecting the biospheres, the ecosystems, and connecting humans… sort of serving as the earthly representative of interconnectedness. I think that's the role that mushrooms play in general, and psilocybin mushrooms make that interconnectedness really apparent to humans, through awareness through this, you know, psychedelic experience”. He goes on to share, “Mushrooms have so much to offer humans in terms of health and wisdom; they have so much to offer the earth in terms of the way they recycle nutrients, and provide a foundation for dead matter to compost into new life. Every organism on Earth in some way is dependent on mushrooms”. Jordan, from his perspective on the other side of things - the recreational and at-home market - shares similar sentiments, “I think my job allows me to, to really get a deeper, more complex understanding of the human experience… I think I'm super lucky to have the connections that I do have to be able to source all these crazy mushrooms. To be able to spread them out and see what comes from them. I think that's more important and more substantial than any experience that I've had with mushrooms or any revelations that I've had on mushrooms… As a whole, seeing everybody else's experiences and compiling that into a deeper understanding of the human experiences - it’s more profound”. Overall, the shared understanding seems to be that regardless of what personal benefit or experience one might have, there is also a ‘bigger picture’ feeling that comes with using mushrooms. As Nate touched on, mushrooms and fungi are directly involved in composting and breaking down almost all living things. In addition to this, the fungi network of mycelium lives within the soil and is connecting and facilitating communication between plants, along with assisting in the transportation of nutrients. Once you begin to see how significant mushrooms are in the life cycle of just about everything on our planet, it becomes difficult to ignore. Nate and Jordan both seem to suggest that psilocybin use and functional mushroom use, whether as a high dose psilocybin journey, microdosing experiences, or taking Lion’s Mane every morning, can, for many, really shed light on that sense of interconnectedness and wholeness.
Jordan, who has spent years traveling, sourcing psilocybin mushrooms from different continents and cities, shared some perspective on the culture that can be seen in Thailand, sharing “You go to, for example, Thailand, and you go down to the south, so the beaches, and the attitude there is more recreational. It's more like, "Oh, do you want a mushroom shake or ‘happy’ shake", and they basically just make a fruit smoothie and throw a handful of psilocybin mushrooms inside of it”. He also spoke about his experience in Oaxaca, Mexico, where psilocybin mushrooms have been traditionally used for centuries and where María Sabina, the woman credited with spreading psilocybin mushroom use to the West, comes from. He says, “You go outside into the mountains, for example, like in Oaxaca, and drive down the street and you go, I think they call them, to the temazcales where they’re these clay huts; basically just a heated dome that you go into either prior or during your mushroom trip, to kind of cleanse you and sweat everything out that's gonna block you or going in there while you're having this experience and it just heightens it. People sell mushrooms anywhere you go, there are mushrooms painted on the walls. It's very sacred there - it's where María Sabina grew up. And so the attitude there is very ritualized, it's very spiritual, it's very sacred”. These types of experiences, whether it be drinking a ‘happy shake’ on the beaches of Thailand or taking mushrooms and sweating in a temazcal in the mountains of Mexico, are going to have a specific impact and very different pros and cons, compared to where Nate worked, in a luxury retreat in The Netherlands staffed with therapists, doctors, chefs, and body healers. Those leaning into this retreat and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy model will have the option of a comforting and healing experience, heavily prioritizing the psychedelic community’s ideals of “set and setting”, which constitute having a proper and healthy mindset, cleared by a professional, before you consume a psychedelic, and also being in a comfortable and safe environment, with tools at hand and experts assisting. Nate reflected on one experience he witnessed while facilitating a psilocybin truffle retreat in Amsterdam: “I remember one instance, where a participant was having a rough experience during the ceremony. Her breath was kind of short and tight, she was fidgeting, and my co facilitator, went and just sat next to her. Without even saying a word, the facilitator put her hands on her heart, and started taking really deep breaths. I noticed that almost through osmosis, the client, who was really struggling, started picking up on that. They started deepening their breath. You could tell their whole nervous system started to calm down, kind of get back into flow”. A main benefit of using psilocybin mushrooms in a retreat setting and medicalized context as opposed to in a country with an informal and recreational psilocybin culture is what Nate highlights here: having assistance on hand if someone begins to struggle. A barrier to psilocybin use for some can be the feeling of fear that comes with doing something illegal, unknown, and possibly outside of their social or cultural “norms”. Many will never stumble across information for psychedelic retreats in other countries, or may never even want to, or financially be able to, attend these retreats in the first place. For that reason, the legalization and implementation of these sort of retreats, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in general, which come equipped with experts, doctors, and therapists alike, are important and crucial components of this industry. Trying these compounds can be a really big deal, and it is important, from an accessibility standpoint, to have a regulated option and ‘safe space’ for those who may be a little scared but still interested in having the experience.
At the end of the day, psilocybin mushrooms are, of course, a food. They hold the same comforting, unifying, and healing qualities of food and the surrounding traditions and rituals found in so many cultures and households. Nate, an Iranian American who grew up in a Jewish household, spoke about the tradition of gathering together for Friday night dinners for Shabbat, and what food meant to him and his family: “Shabbat is the holy day of rest. The tradition is to meet with friends and family and gather… Food was the channel for hospitality. When we would gather to eat, that's where we would all kind of drop in together, open up our hearts, share what's going on, and care for each other. If you ever walk into a Persian person's house, the first thing they 're going to do is offer you a cup of tea, some fruits and nuts, ask if you're hungry… Food is really the way that this culture communicates love. Growing up, food really took on that symbol of comfort and community”. Jordan, a lifelong vegetarian, shared similar sentiments, of love and connection, within his childhood memories of food and cooking: “Growing up, cooking was big. My mom was a vegetarian and so I was born and raised vegetarian. I always had the option to eat meat, but it never interested me…still doesn't. But yeah, we ate a lot of home cooked meals; there weren't a lot of vegan or vegetarian restaurants for us to go to, so we cooked everything. My mom cooked meat for my dad, and she cooked vegetarian for us. I have always been very health centered and conscious of my eating, I would say”. With such strong, loving, and connection-filled childhood food memories, it is not surprising that both Nate and Jordan fell into careers where they are bringing people together, and helping them heal, through food as medicine. Circling back to the themes of interconnectedness and a ‘bigger picture’, the reach of these communities and networks, all stemming from psilocybin mushrooms, is astounding. Mushrooms work together, with nature and each other, in a beautifully interconnected and complementary way. These recurring qualities, of connecting over food, healing using food, finding comfort and meaning through food, and depending on one another, are seen in mushrooms themselves, in the communities that have been using them for centuries, and in those who dedicate their life’s work, past and present, to making them more accessible to everyone.