DOSE:

repeated

oral

Mushrooms

BODY WEIGHT:

75 kg

My Shroomy Story

I have conducted my own research with psilocybin now for the past 40 years. I have worked both individually, with family/friends (including my parents and children), and, for a year, intensively with a small group of fellow graduate students.

I started working with the mushroom in the early 1970s, when I took a college level mycology course and discovered that active forms of Panaeolus subbalteatus grew locally. It wasn't until 1976 though, with the publication of the McKenna brothers' little cultivation book that a steady supply of Psilocybe cubensis was available to us. At that time I was a lab tech, so aseptic/sterile technique was very familiar and growing was quite easy. I also bought a Samadhi isolation tank from John Lilly and was plying the depths of the psilocybin trance in a floatation tank long before the movie 'Altered States' came out.

Once I started taking psilocybin, it began laying out a program for my development quite clearly and insistently. I was directed to read the entire collected works of C. G. Jung and slowly bought them through the Bollingen Foundation (then only $20 a volume for hardcover editions!). I was basically a back-to-nature 70s hippie freak when I started this process, growing an organic garden, canning tomatoes, and smoking about 1-2 oz. a week of top quality organically grown bud (grown outdoors; Colombian/Mexican sativa strains then).

The first thing the mushroom made clear was that for the deeper visions to be vouchsafed to me, I had to set aside the cannabis. I did so, and then perception of the soul dimension, the imaginative functions, awoke in earnest. At that point, it became clear to me that I had to return to college and pursue a degree in clinical psychology, which I dutifully undertook. I graduated from my undergrad program summa cum laude and went on to graduate school the next fall. All this, by the way, was fueled by the two strains of P. cubensis 'Amazonian' and 'Brillo Nuevo'. Life continued to get more interesting, as my daughter was born just before I finished my undergraduate career and entered graduate school.

Once in graduate school, I began to work with a small group of fellow grad students who shared my interest. In the year 1985, I conducted 5g sessions every Friday night for 52 consecutive weeks. What unfolded during that year was astounding. At the end of the year, I took a course in clinical hypnosis with a professor I hadn't seen in a couple of years. He took one look at me and said, 'I don't know what it is you're doing, but, whatever it is, keep it up! My God! What a transformation!' It was with his assistance that I obtained an APA approved internship at a high end urban Children's Hospital. My career has since consumed more of my time, and I have had less time for work with the mushroom, but even at the age of 60 years, I continue to occasionally consult with my spiritual teacher, 'Los Santos Ninos.' They help me see more deeply into the state of my clients' souls and, I have found, allow consciousness to access their inner worlds so as to better understand their suffering and facilitate their unique healing process.

In the past few years, we have been putting our attention on the species with a history of traditional usage among the Mazatecan people, primarily Psilocybe mexicana. This species has a spectrum of effects far different from the cubensis. I find them more conducive to a calm serenity, which allows a much deeper exploration of the soul dimension of the mushroom. Deeper dimensions of awareness are opening that are far more subtle and profound than anything I had ever even considered as being possible. With the presence of the mushroom, I am finding an awareness emerging that is drawn into work with my clients at depths beyond egoic awareness, but which their souls respond to, and brings forth deep self-acceptance and healing. Perception expands to depths and heights of awareness that extend far beyond what one might even think of as possible. None of this is in any way ego-based, it is a level of action beyond the individual and better described as the activity of the soul. My clients know nothing of this, it is born of my work on myself, and the presence of the spirit of the mushroom simply does its natural work.

The mushroom continues to be a source of discovery, healing, and transformation, even more so, than when I first began working with it. Working consistently and persistently with the mushroom over the past 40 years, I have gone from beginner to intermediate to advanced levels, and am amazed that it continues to be a source of inexhaustible teachings. Such a gift to humanity.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 110217
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 60
Published: Apr 5, 2017	Views: 4,110
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66), Mushrooms - P. mexicana (193), Mushrooms (39) : Various (28), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Personal Preparation (45), Retrospective / Summary (11)