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A cold Saturday evening, a group of volunteers was standing at the door of a strongly graffiti artist in downtown San Francisco and welcomed visitors to a “plant” ceremony which had promised, healing bodies and souls.
Despite the end of the hour, it was certainly not a party. You could say by the gongs and incense and calm. It was, said the organizers, an opportunity for “intentional transformation”. Once inside, the participants were guided towards a space on the ground of a weakly lit studio and presented a small piece of “Magic Mycelium” – also known as the magic mushroom.
The possession of this substance is not legal in San Francisco – but you would not know the number of ceremonies that take place in the city. In the net district, an organization called The Living Church announces “Breathing to the mushroom church”. Throughout the city, the Church of Ambrosia drew attention last year for having offered magic mushrooms as part of the sacrament. The founder Dave Hodges told the site new SF Gate that his congregation had increased to more than 115,000.
Throughout America, the interest in the properties of psilocybin, the psychedelic component of magic mushrooms, has reached a record. According to a study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in April, more than 2% of adults said they had taken mushrooms by 2023 – more than the number that admits to using cocaine.
Proselytiers include the co-founder of Openai, Sam Altman, who described his experiences as “totally incredible” and Peter Thiel, who supported the psychedelic biopharmaceutical start-up to the life of life. Elon Musk denied a recent report that he consumes many drugs, including mushrooms. However, last year, he told an interviewer that he had taken ketamine – an anesthesia with psychedelic characteristics – “once every two weeks or something like that”.
The most vocal psychedelic supporters say that their objective is to heal, not to be amazed. They assert the hallucinations that psilocybin produces a calm anxiety and draws from a feeling of lasting peace. Author Michael Pollan, who co -founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP), wrote once he can relieve “existential distress”.
Clinical trials show that psilocybin increases brain entropy (a measure of the complexity of brain activity), disturbing existing models. In other words, this can help you think in different ways. (You can see why it could be popular with people in the technological sector who have been proud of new ideas.)
During the San Francisco factory ceremony, the group spent four hours lengthening without speaking. Then we described by seeing visions of a jungle. Another said that she had seen her grandmother. Most looked cheerful, if a little spaced, while they were laying through the doors and returned home.
As the public interest in mushrooms develops, legal barriers are relaxed. In April, Colorado delivered its first license to a healing center of Denver Psilocybine. Oregon and Colorado voted to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin (although a number of cities in Oregon then chose to ban it.) Oakland in California decriminalized the medication.
The history of California’s experimentation could suggest that the whole state would adopt a positive approach to fungi. The smell of weeds is much more widespread than cigarette smoke (the Californians really hate, really cigarettes). But in 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom opposed a proposal for the decriminalization of hallucinogens concerning concerns about the lack of directives. At the end of last year, the Church of Ambrosia announced that it would close its center in San Francisco: the city’s planning service had accused it of security violations.
Pollan thinks that the way to federal approval is clinical and non -recreational. A study by the BCSP revealed that six out of 10 voters support regulated therapeutic access to psychedelics, in particular for those with terminal (80%), veterans (69%) and depression (67%). Legalization activists must still convince legislators that magic mushrooms are better used for support than spacing.
Elaine.moore@ft.com
