Telluride is one of the most beautiful places on Earth! This is my third year attending the annual mushroom festival and again loved every minute of it. Art Goodtimes wowed me once again with his boisterous and beaming positive presence and his wonderful poetry and wisdom and showcased yet again how he is a magic mushroom in motion and one of my favorite people around! Being my third year, I am really getting to know well the people that come back each year. It’s one of the main reasons I’ve kept going, along with exploring the absolutely stunning and magical nature that’s there. I’ve met so many contacts in the mushroom world and given my wellness practice in plant teacher healing modalities like psilocybin mushrooms and San Pedro Cactus it has been wonderful to get to know others doing similar things. Whereas the first year was me running around and attending a million lectures and being overwhelmed in amazement at the content of the healing psychedelics used in trauma, addiction, end of life anxiety, stress, empathy for others and a connection more to oneself and nature, etc., the third year showcased more of an experimental phase with these plants and the healing natures they take on. There was even psychedelic mushroom tea one could buy which was a lovely addition to the overall vibe of the festival and something that hasn’t been around for years at the festival, hence showcasing the psychedelic renaissance we are entering. One should easily be able to purchase the medicinal healing plants that are talked about so highly at this festival.
There were your usual speakers there this year in Tradd Cotter of Mushroom Mountain and Peter McCoy of Radical Mycology whom specialize in cultivation and offer unique and efficient ways to grow mushrooms and use them to improve the world in cleaning up waste and garbage, improving natural environments and forests, and overall positive permaculture development. In this group of people as well were Mark Jones of Sharondale Mushroom Farms, Daniel Reyes of MycoAlliance, William Padilla Brown of Apex Growers and Kris Holstrom of TomTen Farms. I didn’t witness many of these lectures but did hear that William Padilla Brown is trying to create livable mushroom islands that people can live and thrive on. I will definitely not miss his lecture next year and will follow him online to see what this young extraordinaire is doing.
Other wonderful speakers who were also similarly permaculture focused like the ones above but had more of a saving specific endangered habitats tilt were also on large display. They were Giuliana Furci of Fungal Foundacion of Chile and Larry Evans who focused on North and South American conservation. Bob Cummings was specific to California, Elinoar Shavit to the Middle East and North America, and Daniel Winkler to the Himalayas and North America.
The journalist Don Lattin had a very engaging and entertaining talk about his experiences with mushroom medicine while he showcased his writings but the main focus for me was in two lectures that dealt with my healing modality of psilocybin mushroom medicine. These talks were by Peter Hendricks of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Dennis McKenna who needs no introduction.
Peter Hendricks has been doing research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for many years for how psilocybin treatment affects addiction. He mostly worked with the addictive substances of alcohol, cocaine, and cigarettes. It’s these drugs that mostly affect the dopamine centers of the brain that bring about the “rush” that is so addicting. Dopamine addictions are some of the harsher addictions to kick. Psilocybin on the other hand, primarily affects the serotonin receptors of the brain and is therefore not considered a truly addictive drug that people really have trouble with. The results of the psilocybin therapy for getting people off dopamine inducing addictive drugs was remarkable at an 80% success rate compared with a 25% success rate with the treatment of the current, best addiction therapy.. The psychedelic psilocybin treatment therapy was largely recorded by participants to provide a sense of unity and insight, transcendence of time and space, deeply felt positive moods, sense of sacredness, introspection and insight, ineffability, etc. People responded that the feeling of vastness of life made them feel more capable of reforming their mental approaches to their life’s problems. In regard to their addictions, people exclaimed they felt like they had wasted so much time. Overall there was a sense of “awe” felt. This promoted a positive small sense of self that enlightened people to move away from the extremes in their actions with their lives. The awe led to a sense of cooperation and pondering where one could feel the entire collective of their lives and were able to more relate to their own humanity’s place in the world. Put another way, it made people feel significant in a way where they realized their own sense of self being in direct relationship and working with everything around them.
The participants in the study likened their experience to feeling like they were tapping into the mindset to that which is gained by saints and sages after years of training. For months, and even a year after the study, most of them still said that the experience was one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives. Long term effects included improved mood, altruism, mindfulness, capability of positive value shifts, and enhanced spirituality. The researcher Peter summed up the experiences in his own words and compared it to the “Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. “What the main character Scrooge went through was a psychedelic mentality. It represented a quantum change in how he approached life brought on by a PEAK experience.” Scrooge and the participants went through what Peter described as a “chaos theory that changed the linear path of their lives that ultimately led to a re-organization.” Peter then went on to describe how the more modern Maslov Hierarchy of Needs has been reorganized in a way that supports magic mushroom psilocybin psychedelic therapy. Self-actualization used to be at the top of the pyramid but it has now been replaced by self-transcendence. In psilocybin therapy, self-transcendence has been seen to be achieved through the PEAK experiences brought on by the psychedelic experience. It puts a priority at becoming better and catering to something bigger than the individual and how we can relate better to others. For Scrooge and most of the participants in the study they fell away from the attachment of the illusion of their existing selves and emotionally processed in a way that led to authentic, positive change.
Dennis McKenna followed with the keynote lecture of the festival on Saturday evening which was especially special because it was after the parade and dancing and most people were relaxed and in an elevated state of consciousness. McKenna was originally influence by the writings of Carlos Castenada in Don Juan (on my new book list!). His lecture was riveting and gave me great motivation for continuing to pursue my psychedelic, mind manifestation healing practice. His lecture included the explanation of “true” psychedelics vs others. Psychedelic means “mind manifesting” and McKenna explained that “true” psychedelics are serotonergic which means they work on the serotonin receptors in the brain. These psychedelics include dmt, mescaline, and psilocybin. Other psychedelics mimic the serotonergic effects. Salvia D which can be found in head shops (a member of the mint family) and cannabis do not contain alkaloids and nitrogen which makes them rare. Clinical studies also show that Salvia D hits one receptor site in the brain in an extreme way unlike any other psychedelic, which I found to be interesting. McKenna emphasized that when people take on prescription SSRIs they are blocking their serotonin uptake which is how many psychedelics work on your brain. MDMA for example uses up much of your bodies serotonin stores. In order to regenerate this, it is important to eat high tryptophan foods which include meats, many cheeses, pumpkin seeds and other seeds, nuts, among many other foods. McKenna emphasized about psychedelics in general and how they are used to study the consciousness and the mind/brain relationship and clinical studies have shown no bounds for positive healing with things like addiction, trauma, depression, stress, etc. To see these studies and do any of your own research, clinicaltrials.gov is a site dedicated to the clinical trials of whatever is going on. One would only have to type in “psilocybin” to see trials related to that substance. And much like Peter stressed above, Dennis claimed that psilocybin disrupts the “normal” fundamental processes in the brain. To provide another example with the psychedelic Ayahuasca, the initial rough experience when interacting with the substance has helped most people move their lifestyle in a positive direction, especially when it’s used with people suffering from drug and alcohol addictions or other life limiting, controlling traumas.
Other useful information McKenna ended with was looking into the ingredient in the psychedelic Ayahuasca called harmine (simple B-carboline) as it is showing to be one of the major influences creating the positive effects of that plant (I myself have since ordered a supplement to try out). Iquitos, Peru is home to an unbounded amount of untouched medicine potential as many of the indigenous plants there have not been experimented with by western societies. Toe Negro for example is a plant that grows there that is said to have a three-day high and comes with a direct conversation with the plant, but also can come with being blinded for three days as well. Ha! Intriguing! Other such plants include an acacia plant species that has lots of dmt in it that is found in Southeastern Australia and is called wattles. More known plants like Kava have also been experimented with to have a mellowing effect, be a social lubricant, anti-seizure, muscle relaxant, and help with adhd. Kraytum is also a wonderful plant for treatment of opiate addiction as it hits the opiate receptors but is NOT an opiate. Kanna or Kougoed is a plant responsible for mood elevating, euphoria, appetite suppressant, alcohol addiction, and a sedative. The ingredient being thought responsible for that is called Zembrin and is also what is making my new supplement list to experiment with. Other hardly known psychedelics also include a plant called Drunken Horse Grass and certain fish and insects. It boggles the mind at what psychedelics we have yet to come into contact with and how those will go about changing our brains and humanity overall. We are seeing the current surge of psychedelics take hold again in western society after about an unwarranted 50 year hiatus, political, demonized lockdown on them. There is no way we won’t dramatically change as a species from being more in contact with these plants and substances. It is a heavily transitional era for humankind.
The Avid Fan 
This sounds amazing! Just wished I lived even remotely close to this!