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[narrator]
There's a feeling.

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The pulse of eternal knowledge.

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When you sense the oneness...

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you are with us.

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We brought life to Earth.

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You can't see us,

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but we flourish
all around you.

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Everywhere.

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In everything.

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And even inside you,

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whether you believe in us

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or not.

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From your first breath
to your last,

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in darkness
and in the light,

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we are the oldest
and youngest.

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We are the largest
and smallest.

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We are the wisdom
of a billion years.

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We are creation.

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We are resurrection,

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condemnation,
and regeneration.

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We are mushrooms.

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Mushrooms are very clandestine
and very much the trickster.

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So, they're hiding
from you all the time.

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We're in Agarikon territory
now.

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There're some big
living Snags up here.

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It's always interesting

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and exhilarating
to be in the old growth forest,

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but not always rewarding

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In accomplishing our mission

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to find a new Agarikon strain,

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but nevertheless,

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it beats being
in the office.

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Fungi are the grand molecular
decomposers of nature.

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Now, what does that mean?
Well,

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they break down wood,

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and here I'm laying
in the forest.

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I haven't peeked yet,

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but here's a piece of wood

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laying down on the ground.

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If I was laying down
on the ground and I died,

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fungi would leap up
to recycle me.

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Well, that's the way
of nature.

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Mushrooms represent rebirth,

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rejuvenation, regeneration.

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Fungi generate soil
that gives life.

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The task that we face today

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is to understand
the language of nature.

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My mission is to discover

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the language of nature
of the fungal networks

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that communicate
with the ecosystem,

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and I believe
nature is intelligent.

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The fact that we lack

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the language skills
to communicate with nature

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does not impugn the concept
that nature's intelligent.

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It speaks to our inadequacy
for communication.

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lf we don't get our act together

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and come in commonality
and understanding

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with the organisms
that sustain us today,

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not only will we destroy
those organisms,

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but we will
destroy ourselves.

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Mushroom.
It's not like a vegetable,

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and It's not like a animal,
but it's somewhere in between.

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The fungus is
its own kingdom altogether.

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There's over
1.5 million species.

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That's six times more
than plants.

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Of all those species
of fungi,

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about 20,000
produce mushrooms,

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and mushrooms come
in an incredible diversity

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of shapes and sizes
and colors and lifestyles.

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There are even bioluminescent
mushrooms.

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A lot of people are afraid
of mushrooms.

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People associate mushrooms
and fungi-- you know, mold--

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with death and decay,
which makes sense.

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You know,
there's a lot of fear

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because of fungi's role
in the cycle of life.

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They decompose
dead and dying organisms

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and move all those nutrients
back into the cycle.

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They kind of are
at the very end of stuff,

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but they're also
at the beginning.

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[Michael Pollan] Once you start
working with mushrooms,

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you get drawn in.

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A really important difference
between plants and fungi

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is that plants have evolved
to catch your eye.

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When a tomato gets red,

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it is saying,
"Hey, I'm ready. Come get me."

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The mushrooms
don't give a shit.

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They're doing their own thing,
and a lot of them are hiding.

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Every time you pick up
a mushroom,

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you are faced
with the omnivore's dilemma.

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Do I know enough
to eat this?

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Should I eat this?

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Will this kill me?

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And that's one
of the reasons why

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people are freaked out
about mushrooms, because yeah,

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there are ones
that can kill you.

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There are some that'll take out
your liver or your kidneys,

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but to be honest with you,

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there's berries in the woods
that can kill you too.

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So, it's really a matter
of knowing your mushrooms.

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There's a huge subculture
of mycophiles,

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of people who are fascinated
with mushrooms.

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They hunt mushrooms together,
and they eat mushrooms together,

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and they're sort
of bloated pleasure seekers

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with a scientific bent.

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You know,
really my kind of crowd.

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[Gary Lincoff]
This is a tricholoma.

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[Bone]
Grifola frondosa.

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[Lincoff] This is
Cortinarius [indistinct].

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[Bone]
Agaricus bisporus.

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That's a Cladonia lichen.

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[Bone] So I started attending
these festivals and forays

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and learning more and more.

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It changed the way
I saw everything.

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Mushrooms actually
were the window by which

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I came to understand nature
in a deeper way.

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[Stamets]
lf we didn't have fungi,

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we would get this buildup

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of plant matter that
would choke the Earth.

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They really are the key.

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They break down plant life
and make it usable

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for new plant life
and for animal life.

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[Bone] They are the digestive
tracts of the forest.

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One of the lifestyles of fungi
is as decomposers,

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called saprobes or rotters,
if you want.

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The yeasts and molds used

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In making beer and wine
and cheese

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are all saprobes.

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That's actually
a penicillin mold

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in Gorgonzola
and Roquefort.

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Bourbon
is fungi-fermented corn.

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But this ability
to break things down

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is a talent,
if you will,

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that can be harnessed

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to help us deal with some
of our problems like pollution.

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These rotters,

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they can break down
anything that's natural.

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That's what
they've evolved to do.

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Anything
that's hydrocarbon-based,

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so that includes stuff
like oil spills,

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pollutant problems.

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That's kind
of the truth of it.

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[Stamets] I was a part
of this experiment.

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There were four piles saturated
with diesel

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and other petroleum waste.

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One was a control pile,

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one pile was treated
with enzymes,

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one pile treated
with a bacteria,

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and our pile, we inoculated
with mushroom spores.

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The fungi absorbs the oil,

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so the fungi is producing
enzymes for oxidases

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that break
carbon-hydrogen bonds.

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These are the same bonds
that hold hydrocarbons together.

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So the fungi becomes saturated
with oil.

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And then when we returned
six weeks later,

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all the taros were removed.

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All the other piles

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were dead, dark and stinky.

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We came back to our pile.

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It was covered with hundreds
of pounds

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of oyster mushrooms.

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Some of these mushrooms
are very happy mushrooms.

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They were very large,

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by showing how much nutrition
that they could obtain.

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But something else happened,

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which was an epiphany
in my life.

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They sporulated.

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The spores attract insects.

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Birds then came,
bringing in seeds,

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and our pile became
an oasis of life.

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[Bone] Mushrooms are
the fruiting bodies of fungi.

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So the mushroom
is like the apple.

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The bulk of the organism
is growing underground

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and it's composed
of these long threads

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and these threads grow
one cell at a time

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and then they branch
and rebranch,

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growing in every direction
they can,

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even three-dimensionally.

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And that mass of threads
is called a mycelium.

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When a stick falls
onto the ground...

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you pull it up...

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and there's mycelium.

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It is virtually everywhere.

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A mycelium has more networks

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than our brain
has neural pathways,

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and works
in much the same way,

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with electrolytes,
electrical pulses.

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They're the most common species
on Earth.

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They're everywhere.

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Just to give you an idea

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of how much fungi
are in the forest,

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what you're walking through
is about 300 miles of fungi

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under every footstep
that you take.

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And that's
all over the world.

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And they form
these massive links.

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It's like a big web just growing
through the forest.

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Mycelium that can grow out
even just this big

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can have trillions,

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literally trillions,
of end branchings.

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Almost everyone knows
about the computer internet.

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The mycelium shares
the same network design.

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[PollanI]Trees are communicating,
using the mycelium as pathways.

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They're connecting
one tree to another.

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They're using the mycelium too
to feed one another.

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In other words,one tree can swap
nutrients with another tree,

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using mycelium
as the passageway.

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[Simard] So we often

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00:12:01,988 --> 00:12:04,357
think of kin recognition
as an animal behavior.

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00:12:04,524 --> 00:12:06,426
Humans, you know,
we love our babies.

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00:12:06,593 --> 00:12:07,327
We know it's our baby,

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and we're going to look
after that baby.

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Well, we never thought
that plants could do that,

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00:12:11,131 --> 00:12:12,665
but we're finding
in our research

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00:12:12,832 --> 00:12:14,968
that plants can recognize
their own kin.

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So these mother trees
recognize their kin

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through
their mycorrhizal networks.

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The mother tree

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00:12:20,106 --> 00:12:21,975
and the baby seedlings
are sending signals,

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talking to each other.

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When they're connected
together

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and carbon is moving
between plants,

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the trees are supporting
the weaker ones.

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If she Knows that there's pests around,
and that she's under danger,

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she will increase her competitive environment
towards her own babies,

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so that they regenerate
further away.

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It's a magical thing.

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And this could not happen
without the fungi.

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[Stamets] I'm not this
super-idealist tree hugger.

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00:13:03,490 --> 00:13:05,552
I do hug trees occasionally.
I do confess to that,

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00:13:05,719 --> 00:13:07,520
but I was a logger.
I cut the woods.

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Damn, we got a two-for-one
on that one.

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Cutting down these trees
and we're going to let them rot,

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but we're letting them rot
with a purpose.

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We're letting them rot
with shiitake mushrooms,

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which are delicious
and medicinal... Yes!

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September of '74,

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Paul was working as a logger

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In Darrington.

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I went up to visit him
one weekend,

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and we were out walking
in the woods,

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and I started showing him
all these mushrooms, you know?

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He says, "What are those?"

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I said,
"You're looking at mushrooms,"

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_..for the first time.

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We came around a corner and
there's this purple mushroom.

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I'd never seen one
like that before.

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00:13:49,729 --> 00:13:50,797
It was just
like this huge epiphany,

247
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like... Whoo-whoo!

248
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You know?
And that's where it began.

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He just never stopped.

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These are old red belted
polypores.

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Elegant polyporus.
It's got a furry stem.

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00:14:02,342 --> 00:14:04,611
This is a delicious
shrimp russula mushroom,

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edible and choice,

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and it grows here
in the old growth forest.

255
00:14:10,830 --> 00:14:14,788
[Pollan] It's rare in science you have
such powerful amateurs.

256
00:14:14,954 --> 00:14:16,623
The meaning of the word
"amateur" is a lover,

257
00:14:16,790 --> 00:14:18,792
and he loves his mushrooms.

258
00:14:18,958 --> 00:14:23,863
And he's proven that amateurs
can do credible, important research.

259
00:14:24,300 --> 00:14:24,964
And that used
to be the case.

260
00:14:25,131 --> 00:14:26,766
The 19th century obviously,

261
00:14:26,933 --> 00:14:28,768
you know, was full of
great amateur naturalists,

262
00:14:28,935 --> 00:14:30,270
Darwin being one of them.

263
00:14:35,141 --> 00:14:38,945
[Harman] He's handed over
to this universal consciousness.

264
00:14:39,112 --> 00:14:41,140
That's where genius
comes from.

265
00:14:42,615 --> 00:14:44,718
Every magnificent thing

266
00:14:44,884 --> 00:14:46,119
that humans have ever achieved

267
00:14:46,286 --> 00:14:47,787
comes from that place.

268
00:14:55,195 --> 00:14:58,832
[Paul Stamets] I grew up in a small town
called Columbiana, Ohio.

269
00:14:58,998 --> 00:15:01,501
Very conservative,
very religious.

270
00:15:01,668 --> 00:15:04,237
And my brother John
went to Yale,

271
00:15:04,371 --> 00:15:05,972
and my brother Bill went
to Cornell.

272
00:15:06,139 --> 00:15:08,208
SO we were
an academic family.

273
00:15:09,175 --> 00:15:12,145
But I had
a severe stuttering habit

274
00:15:12,312 --> 00:15:16,820
that greatly interfered with
my ability to express myself.

275
00:15:16,249 --> 00:15:19,219
I went through six years
of speech therapy.

276
00:15:19,352 --> 00:15:21,588
I could not speak
a single sentence

277
00:15:21,755 --> 00:15:24,257
without stuttering
profusely,

278
00:15:24,424 --> 00:15:27,270
and nothing in speech therapy
could help me.

279
00:15:29,362 --> 00:15:31,765
I couldn't look at people
in their eyes.

280
00:15:31,931 --> 00:15:34,868
So all my life,
I stared at the ground.

281
00:15:35,350 --> 00:15:37,704
Anybody came up to me,
I'd stare at the ground.

282
00:15:37,871 --> 00:15:39,372
I found fossils
and mushrooms.

283
00:15:50,500 --> 00:15:52,619
[wind blowing]

284
00:15:55,155 --> 00:15:57,891
[narrator]
We are all of the stars.

285
00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:01,761
My kingdom was born
from the heavens

286
00:16:01,928 --> 00:16:04,264
four and a half billion
years ago.

287
00:16:07,100 --> 00:16:08,735
We are the pioneers.

288
00:16:10,300 --> 00:16:13,973
We climbed out of the sea
to create the fertile soil,

289
00:16:15,842 --> 00:16:19,946
and set the stage
for all of life.

290
00:16:26,286 --> 00:16:28,922
[P. Stamens] In South Africa,
in the sediments of lava,

291
00:16:29,890 --> 00:16:31,925
they have found
fungus-like organisms,

292
00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:37,970
mycelium fossils in the lava
2.4 billion years old.

293
00:16:37,263 --> 00:16:42,135
This is the oldest record
of a multicellular organism on Earth.

294
00:16:44,170 --> 00:16:48,800
This year another fossil was found
in the sediments of Brazil.

295
00:16:48,174 --> 00:16:50,677
It's 113 million years old

296
00:16:50,844 --> 00:16:52,846
and it's a perfectly shaped
mushroom.

297
00:16:55,949 --> 00:17:00,720
We divided from fungi
about 650 million years ago.

298
00:17:00,887 --> 00:17:02,222
One branch led to fungi.

299
00:17:02,389 --> 00:17:05,658
The other branch led
to animals.

300
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:11,164
We chose a path of encirculating our nutrients
in sort of a sac, the stomach.

301
00:17:11,331 --> 00:17:13,299
The mycelium
remained underground,

302
00:17:13,466 --> 00:17:16,360
externally digesting
its nutrients.

303
00:17:19,973 --> 00:17:21,908
Biodiversity surged...

304
00:17:28,348 --> 00:17:31,818
until we had these great
cataclysmic extinction events,

305
00:17:31,985 --> 00:17:34,921
and when the asteroids
impacted the Earth, bam!

306
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:37,891
Enormous amounts of debris was
jettisoned in the atmosphere.

307
00:17:38,580 --> 00:17:39,426
Sunlight was cut off.

308
00:17:41,528 --> 00:17:43,229
Plants die, animals die...

309
00:17:44,964 --> 00:17:47,434
and fungi inherited
the Earth.

310
00:17:52,405 --> 00:17:56,242
From these extinction events,
there's one lesson.

311
00:17:56,409 --> 00:18:00,246
Those organisms
that paired with fungi survived.

312
00:18:02,482 --> 00:18:04,451
We are more closely related
to fungi

313
00:18:04,617 --> 00:18:06,386
than we are
to any other kingdom.

314
00:18:07,554 --> 00:18:10,990
What this means Is that
we are descendants of mycelium.

315
00:18:11,124 --> 00:18:14,600
Mycelium is the mother
of us all.

316
00:18:22,168 --> 00:18:24,437
[Pollan] Living creatures like fungi
are intelligent

317
00:18:24,571 --> 00:18:27,941
in the sense that they respond
to their environment,

318
00:18:28,108 --> 00:18:30,410
they seek out food,
and they defend themselves.

319
00:18:30,577 --> 00:18:33,980
They solve problems,
and that's intelligence.

320
00:18:42,522 --> 00:18:45,959
[Bone] A mycelium can
theoretically live forever

321
00:18:46,126 --> 00:18:48,928
as long as it
has food to grow into,

322
00:18:49,950 --> 00:18:52,966
which is why the oldest
and largest organism on Earth

323
00:18:53,133 --> 00:18:54,467
is a fungus.

324
00:18:54,634 --> 00:18:57,837
It lives on top
of a mountain in Oregon.

325
00:18:57,971 --> 00:18:59,139
It's like thousands
of acres,

326
00:18:59,305 --> 00:19:01,307
and It's thousands
of years old.

327
00:19:05,311 --> 00:19:09,315
The mushroom is the organ
of sexual reproduction

328
00:19:09,482 --> 00:19:12,986
for the spore
of the fungus.

329
00:19:13,987 --> 00:19:16,489
Fungi don't have seeds.
They have spores.

330
00:19:17,957 --> 00:19:21,327
The spores are extremely tiny,

331
00:19:21,494 --> 00:19:26,132
little lightweight
gene-carrying systems.

332
00:19:26,232 --> 00:19:28,401
When they land on something
they can eat,

333
00:19:28,568 --> 00:19:31,204
they break down the food
that they're on,

334
00:19:31,338 --> 00:19:33,506
and then reabsorb
the nutrients

335
00:19:33,673 --> 00:19:35,141
because you need
to move on

336
00:19:35,308 --> 00:19:38,478
and find another place
where there's food.

337
00:19:42,150 --> 00:19:48,254
The mushroom releases zillions
of spores into the atmosphere.

338
00:19:48,421 --> 00:19:50,900
There's so many spore.

339
00:19:50,256 --> 00:19:52,359
I mean,
you take one breath...

340
00:19:53,693 --> 00:19:56,229
you just breathed in
ten fungal spore.

341
00:19:56,396 --> 00:20:00,660
So they are everywhere.
We've evolved with them.

342
00:20:01,935 --> 00:20:04,104
[Harman]
When you see what mushrooms do,

343
00:20:04,270 --> 00:20:07,374
it's kind of spooky
in the most wonderful way.

344
00:20:07,540 --> 00:20:09,342
I mean, they correct everything
on Earth.

345
00:20:09,509 --> 00:20:10,944
They support life,

346
00:20:11,111 --> 00:20:12,112
they convert life,

347
00:20:12,278 --> 00:20:13,546
they carry life.

348
00:20:13,713 --> 00:20:15,281
They're remarkable beings.

349
00:20:17,450 --> 00:20:20,220
If humans become extinct...

350
00:20:20,387 --> 00:20:23,230
what's the next species
that will take over the Earth?

351
00:20:24,224 --> 00:20:27,560
Maybe mycelium already are
the dominant species,

352
00:20:27,727 --> 00:20:30,430
not just because they're the most
common species on Earth.

353
00:20:30,597 --> 00:20:32,298
They're everywhere.

354
00:20:32,465 --> 00:20:34,670
I mean, you look at humans.
There's seven billion of us,

355
00:20:34,234 --> 00:20:36,136
but we're just one little
creature wandering around,

356
00:20:36,269 --> 00:20:37,570
Incredibly vulnerable,

357
00:20:37,737 --> 00:20:41,740
and don't survive easily
if we're assaulted.

358
00:20:41,241 --> 00:20:44,110
[reporter] Hurricane Harvey
has started to make landfall

359
00:20:44,277 --> 00:20:45,912
here on the Texas coast.

360
00:20:46,790 --> 00:20:48,448
More than 30,000 people
are without power,

361
00:20:48,615 --> 00:20:51,284
and things are only expected
to get worse.

362
00:20:51,451 --> 00:20:53,153
[reporter 2] Puerto Rico
has had the worst storm

363
00:20:53,319 --> 00:20:54,387
in about a century,

364
00:20:54,554 --> 00:20:56,122
and it's struggling

365
00:20:56,289 --> 00:20:57,557
to Understand the new normal

366
00:20:57,724 --> 00:20:59,559
of months ahead
without basic services.

367
00:21:00,660 --> 00:21:02,620
[man] Climate change is one

368
00:21:02,228 --> 00:21:04,464
of the biggest threats
to our present world,

369
00:21:04,631 --> 00:21:06,966
to the future of our planet.

370
00:21:13,673 --> 00:21:16,609
[Simard] CO2 is our biggest
greenhouse gas.

371
00:21:16,776 --> 00:21:18,611
As plants photosynthesize,

372
00:21:18,778 --> 00:21:22,982
they literally inhale CO2
while exhaling oxygen.

373
00:21:28,188 --> 00:21:30,357
CO2 is what plants
photosynthesize,

374
00:21:30,523 --> 00:21:33,660
and they take that carbon,
and they put it in different places.

375
00:21:33,827 --> 00:21:35,528
They put it in their leaves,
in their trunks,

376
00:21:35,695 --> 00:21:39,299
but they put 70% of it,
we're finding, below ground.

377
00:21:45,372 --> 00:21:49,275
And the root systems trade that
carbon for nutrients.

378
00:21:49,442 --> 00:21:53,480
The carbon ends up in the fungal
cell walls, where it's stored.

379
00:21:59,786 --> 00:22:02,489
This fuels
the microbial community

380
00:22:02,655 --> 00:22:04,157
and all the other parts
of the food web,

381
00:22:04,324 --> 00:22:05,525
like the mites and nematodes,

382
00:22:05,692 --> 00:22:07,494
and they start
cycling nutrients

383
00:22:07,660 --> 00:22:09,229
through
that eating process.

384
00:22:10,697 --> 00:22:12,265
So the fungi
are really important

385
00:22:12,432 --> 00:22:14,567
in stabilizing carbon
in soils.

386
00:22:14,701 --> 00:22:16,603
Once the carbon is stable,

387
00:22:16,770 --> 00:22:20,600
it can stay there stored
for thousands of years.

388
00:22:22,750 --> 00:22:23,430
We know, for example,

389
00:22:23,209 --> 00:22:25,780
that carbon can move
from plant to plant,

390
00:22:25,245 --> 00:22:29,282
and it evens out the distribution of carbon
in that system.

391
00:22:29,449 --> 00:22:31,117
They're working really hard.

392
00:22:31,284 --> 00:22:33,386
If we maintain the plant,

393
00:22:33,553 --> 00:22:36,560
the forest, and the natural
fungal community,

394
00:22:36,222 --> 00:22:37,557
we've got a natural engine

395
00:22:37,724 --> 00:22:39,526
that's just storing carbon
below ground.

396
00:22:39,693 --> 00:22:41,594
So it's essential.

397
00:22:41,761 --> 00:22:43,463
You know,
it's there for us, right?

398
00:22:43,630 --> 00:22:45,198
It's right
in front of us.

399
00:22:48,401 --> 00:22:51,370
[narrator]
We do more than make mushrooms.

400
00:22:52,439 --> 00:22:57,430
We have the ability to do so much more
than just breakdown matter.

401
00:22:59,612 --> 00:23:01,481
Like the fruit
of our labor,

402
00:23:01,648 --> 00:23:05,251
most of you have only scratched
the surface of our usefulness.

403
00:23:08,488 --> 00:23:11,570
We are the changers.

404
00:23:19,733 --> 00:23:22,302
[P. Stamets] I was 14 or 15 years
of age, I believe,

405
00:23:22,469 --> 00:23:24,437
when my brother John
gave me a book...

406
00:23:24,604 --> 00:23:27,607
called Altered States
of Consciousness.

407
00:23:27,774 --> 00:23:28,508
And within that book,

408
00:23:28,675 --> 00:23:29,776
Andy Weil was referenced

409
00:23:29,909 --> 00:23:31,277
on expanded consciousness,

410
00:23:31,444 --> 00:23:32,812
and I got really excited.

411
00:23:35,515 --> 00:23:38,618
I was going to charismatic
Christian revival meetings

412
00:23:38,785 --> 00:23:40,286
and seeing people
being saved,

413
00:23:40,453 --> 00:23:42,322
but it kind of was cool
from my perspective

414
00:23:42,489 --> 00:23:44,190
that they're achieving this
altered state of consciousness.

415
00:23:44,357 --> 00:23:46,760
So I thought that was part
of all the same idea here.

416
00:23:48,328 --> 00:23:50,830
I really owe credit
to Andrew Weill.

417
00:23:53,166 --> 00:23:55,268
[Andrew Weil] I think he read one
of my early books

418
00:23:55,435 --> 00:23:57,170
in which I wrote
about mushroom hunting

419
00:23:57,337 --> 00:23:59,439
and psychedelic mushrooms

420
00:23:59,606 --> 00:24:02,475
and made some reference
to medicinal mushrooms as well.

421
00:24:02,642 --> 00:24:03,510
It was like
a turning point.

422
00:24:03,677 --> 00:24:05,612
You know,
I certainly was awakened.

423
00:24:05,712 --> 00:24:08,181
Other people were thinking
about expanding consciousness.

424
00:24:09,182 --> 00:24:12,285
And so I gave this book
to my friend Ryan Snyder.

425
00:24:12,452 --> 00:24:14,621
So Ryan took it home
and a few days later,

426
00:24:14,754 --> 00:24:16,189
I said,
"Ryan, where's my book?"

427
00:24:16,356 --> 00:24:18,758
And he told me
his dad had burned it.

428
00:24:19,759 --> 00:24:23,463
I said, "Burned my book’?"

429
00:24:23,630 --> 00:24:26,533
Rather than giving it back to me
or calling my parents,

430
00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:29,669
he actually took the initiative
to burn this book.

431
00:24:31,871 --> 00:24:36,242
I owe Ryan Snyder's father
a deep debt of gratitude

432
00:24:36,409 --> 00:24:41,114
because that single act
galvanized my interest

433
00:24:41,314 --> 00:24:43,830
saying, "If this is so powerful

434
00:24:43,249 --> 00:24:45,719
to cause a person to do
such a bizarre act,

435
00:24:45,885 --> 00:24:49,556
then I should examine
what this subject's all about."

436
00:24:53,393 --> 00:24:56,396
[Charles Grob] Human existence
on this Earth goes back

437
00:24:56,529 --> 00:24:59,399
an extraordinarily long
period of time,

438
00:24:59,566 --> 00:25:03,737
most of which we have
no identifiable information.

439
00:25:03,903 --> 00:25:06,373
It's entirely plausible,

440
00:25:06,539 --> 00:25:09,209
given that the indigenous people
all around the world

441
00:25:09,376 --> 00:25:11,277
know intimately
all the plant life,

442
00:25:11,444 --> 00:25:14,247
and will know the different
combinations of plant life

443
00:25:14,414 --> 00:25:16,449
that our prehistoric
ancestors,

444
00:25:16,583 --> 00:25:21,121
they had come across the plants
that do alter consciousness.

445
00:25:22,455 --> 00:25:24,391
[Dennis McKenna]
In about two million years,

446
00:25:24,557 --> 00:25:27,394
the human cortex tripled
in size,

447
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:32,265
and the brain exploded
over a ridiculously short span

448
00:25:32,432 --> 00:25:34,434
of evolutionary time.

449
00:25:34,601 --> 00:25:37,771
Two million years is nothing
when it comes to evolution.

450
00:25:37,937 --> 00:25:39,839
What triggered that?

451
00:25:39,973 --> 00:25:41,474
[P. Stamens]
In the late 1970s,

452
00:25:41,608 --> 00:25:43,777
Terrence McKenna
and his brother Dennis McKenna

453
00:25:43,943 --> 00:25:48,148
were the first that proposed
the Stoned Ape hypothesis.

454
00:25:48,281 --> 00:25:50,517
It is Known now
that 22 primates--

455
00:25:50,684 --> 00:25:53,787
23, including us--
consume mushrooms.

456
00:25:54,854 --> 00:25:57,657
And the idea Is our ancestors,
they came out of the trees

457
00:25:57,824 --> 00:25:58,758
and went across the savannah,

458
00:25:58,925 --> 00:26:00,126
would be tracking animals

459
00:26:00,293 --> 00:26:00,927
that were pooping.

460
00:26:02,529 --> 00:26:03,530
Well, in the subtropics,

461
00:26:03,697 --> 00:26:04,798
the most common mushroom

462
00:26:04,964 --> 00:26:06,433
coming out
of those cow patties

463
00:26:06,599 --> 00:26:09,803
is Psilocybe cubensis,
a potent magic mushroom.

464
00:26:09,936 --> 00:26:11,304
[McKenna]
One thing that mushrooms

465
00:26:11,471 --> 00:26:13,340
and other psychedelics
do reliably

466
00:26:13,506 --> 00:26:15,775
is they induce
a synesthesia.

467
00:26:17,100 --> 00:26:21,181
synesthesia Is the perception
of one sensory modality

468
00:26:21,348 --> 00:26:22,215
In another,

469
00:26:22,382 --> 00:26:24,184
hearing colors, for example,

470
00:26:24,351 --> 00:26:26,353
or seeing music.

471
00:26:36,963 --> 00:26:39,399
You have these profound
experiences

472
00:26:39,566 --> 00:26:43,303
and you have to put yourself
in their place

473
00:26:43,403 --> 00:26:45,972
and imagine what the impact
of such an experience

474
00:26:46,139 --> 00:26:48,410
must have been
on an early hominid.

475
00:26:49,142 --> 00:26:50,643
These magic mushrooms open up

476
00:26:50,810 --> 00:26:52,979
the floodgates of information
you receive.

477
00:26:54,147 --> 00:26:56,549
Basically, you can think of it
as a contact fluid

478
00:26:56,683 --> 00:26:59,819
between the synapses
within the brain-- Wow!

479
00:26:59,986 --> 00:27:01,354
What a competitive
advantage,

480
00:27:01,521 --> 00:27:02,422
especially if you're working

481
00:27:02,555 --> 00:27:03,690
with a geometry of weapons,

482
00:27:03,857 --> 00:27:05,425
or having
to put together something

483
00:27:05,592 --> 00:27:07,794
that will give you a better
chance of survival.

484
00:27:08,862 --> 00:27:11,698
The fact that this happened
not once, not twice,

485
00:27:11,865 --> 00:27:14,401
but millions
upon millions of times

486
00:27:14,567 --> 00:27:15,935
over millions of years

487
00:27:16,102 --> 00:27:17,904
Is a very plausible
explanation

488
00:27:18,710 --> 00:27:21,808
for the tripling of the brain
two million years ago.

489
00:27:21,975 --> 00:27:25,412
[McKenna] It's not so simple to say that they ate
psilocybin mushrooms

490
00:27:25,578 --> 00:27:26,913
and suddenly the brain mutated.

491
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:28,748
I think it's more complex
than that,

492
00:27:28,915 --> 00:27:30,784
but I think it was a factor.

493
00:27:31,651 --> 00:27:33,386
It was like a software

494
00:27:33,553 --> 00:27:38,324
to program this neurologically
modern hardware to think,

495
00:27:38,458 --> 00:27:41,661
to have cognition,
to have language

496
00:27:41,828 --> 00:27:44,330
because language
is essentially synesthesia.

497
00:27:44,497 --> 00:27:45,932
Language
is just association

498
00:27:46,990 --> 00:27:48,101
with apparently
meaningless sound

499
00:27:48,268 --> 00:27:51,504
except that it's associated
with the complex of meaning.

500
00:27:52,572 --> 00:27:55,942
A great deal of the brain's
real estate, you might say,

501
00:27:56,109 --> 00:27:58,780
is devoted to the generation

502
00:27:58,244 --> 00:28:00,747
and/or the comprehension
of language.

503
00:28:00,914 --> 00:28:04,517
Those neural structures
are not found in our ancestors.

504
00:28:04,684 --> 00:28:07,454
That's a human trait
to have so much physiology

505
00:28:07,620 --> 00:28:10,957
devoted to generating
and understanding language,

506
00:28:11,124 --> 00:28:13,593
and that's a reflection
of evolutionary advance

507
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:15,595
that made us
what we are.

508
00:28:20,767 --> 00:28:23,670
[P. Stamens] I couldn't get these
mushrooms for the longest time.

509
00:28:23,837 --> 00:28:25,305
When I was in Ohio,

510
00:28:25,472 --> 00:28:28,341
I actually purchased
a bag of magic mushrooms,

511
00:28:28,475 --> 00:28:29,776
but I had no guide.

512
00:28:29,943 --> 00:28:33,613
I had no recommendations
for how much to consume.

513
00:28:33,780 --> 00:28:36,483
So I had a bag about this big,
so I thought,

514
00:28:36,649 --> 00:28:38,385
“Well, that's probably
one dose."

515
00:28:38,551 --> 00:28:39,853
So I consumed the bag!

516
00:28:40,820 --> 00:28:42,856
Now, for those of you
who don't know,

517
00:28:43,230 --> 00:28:44,357
this is like ten times more

518
00:28:44,524 --> 00:28:46,726
than you probably need
to consume.

519
00:28:46,860 --> 00:28:48,610
It was a warm Summer day,

520
00:28:48,228 --> 00:28:51,898
and there was a beautiful
big, big tree,

521
00:28:52,650 --> 00:28:53,660
an oak tree,

522
00:28:53,233 --> 00:28:54,434
and then I noticed

523
00:28:54,601 --> 00:28:56,102
the black clouds
on the horizon,

524
00:28:56,269 --> 00:28:58,571
and I realized
there was a storm coming.

525
00:28:58,738 --> 00:29:00,600
And I thought,
"This is great.

526
00:29:00,106 --> 00:29:01,374
There's great visual.
The storm coming."

527
00:29:01,541 --> 00:29:02,609
And I thought,

528
00:29:02,776 --> 00:29:04,770
“Fm going to climb
to the top of the tree."

529
00:29:04,244 --> 00:29:05,679
So I'm starting
to feel the effects.

530
00:29:12,185 --> 00:29:17,230
I'm getting waves
where the air becomes a liquid,

531
00:29:17,190 --> 00:29:19,250
and...

532
00:29:19,192 --> 00:29:22,796
you'd have this distortion field
go through the visual landscape.

533
00:29:22,962 --> 00:29:24,931
I've never seen that before,

534
00:29:25,980 --> 00:29:28,601
and go, "Oh wow, this is what
they were talking about."

535
00:29:28,768 --> 00:29:31,137
And I see the boiling clouds
are coming closer,

536
00:29:31,304 --> 00:29:33,406
but they're looking angry now.

537
00:29:33,540 --> 00:29:35,775
And then the lightning strikes
would go...

538
00:29:35,942 --> 00:29:38,445
[imitating lightning strikes]

539
00:29:38,578 --> 00:29:40,613
and then
all these geometrical fractals

540
00:29:40,780 --> 00:29:42,916
would emanate out
of the lightning strikes.

541
00:29:43,830 --> 00:29:43,950
And pretty soon,

542
00:29:44,117 --> 00:29:45,118
I have these overlying mosaics

543
00:29:45,285 --> 00:29:46,886
of mathematical patterns

544
00:29:47,530 --> 00:29:49,589
and geometric figures
of multiple colors

545
00:29:49,756 --> 00:29:51,825
that are swimming
in this field of vision

546
00:29:51,991 --> 00:29:54,127
that these waves
were flying through.

547
00:29:54,294 --> 00:29:57,597
I've never in my life
seen anything like that before.

548
00:29:58,965 --> 00:30:01,000
Wind's increasing
and the rains would come,

549
00:30:01,167 --> 00:30:03,503
and I became extremely scared.

550
00:30:03,670 --> 00:30:05,805
And then also I realize
I'm on the top of a hill,

551
00:30:05,972 --> 00:30:08,108
I got a lightning storm
in the tallest tree.

552
00:30:08,274 --> 00:30:09,476
Not the best place to be

553
00:30:09,642 --> 00:30:10,443
when you're going to choose

554
00:30:10,610 --> 00:30:11,578
a spiritual experience.

555
00:30:11,745 --> 00:30:13,146
And so I held onto the tree

556
00:30:13,313 --> 00:30:14,581
for dear life,

557
00:30:14,748 --> 00:30:16,820
and that tree
was my pillar,

558
00:30:16,249 --> 00:30:17,684
back into the core
of the Earth.

559
00:30:17,851 --> 00:30:20,587
And I felt secure as long
as I held onto the tree.

560
00:30:21,287 --> 00:30:23,590
Lightning strikes all around.
Thunderclaps.

561
00:30:23,757 --> 00:30:25,792
One second between the lightning strike
and a thunderclap.

562
00:30:25,959 --> 00:30:27,660
You knew it was coming
closer and closer.

563
00:30:28,828 --> 00:30:31,664
I was terrified
that I wouldn't survive,

564
00:30:32,832 --> 00:30:35,635
And through
this "terr-rific’ experience,

565
00:30:35,802 --> 00:30:37,704
terrifying and terrific
at the same time,

566
00:30:37,871 --> 00:30:38,972
I'm up in this tree
and I'm saying,

567
00:30:39,139 --> 00:30:41,410
"Well, what should I focus on?"

568
00:30:41,207 --> 00:30:42,942
I said, "Well, Stamets,
you're not stupid.

569
00:30:43,109 --> 00:30:44,944
But you stutter all the time.”

570
00:30:45,845 --> 00:30:48,982
And so I thought
I need to stop stuttering.

571
00:30:49,883 --> 00:30:52,118
And so I said to myself,
"Stop stuttering.

572
00:30:52,285 --> 00:30:54,554
Stop stuttering now."

573
00:30:54,721 --> 00:30:56,890
A little inner voice
in my head.

574
00:30:57,570 --> 00:30:59,559
"You hear me?
Stop stuttering now."

575
00:30:59,726 --> 00:31:01,610
I started saying that.

576
00:31:01,227 --> 00:31:02,829
"Stop stuttering now.
Stop stuttering now."

577
00:31:02,996 --> 00:31:05,310
Hundreds, hundreds, hundreds,
thousands of times.

578
00:31:10,870 --> 00:31:12,138
After the storm had passed,

579
00:31:12,305 --> 00:31:14,174
I came down
from the tree drenched,

580
00:31:14,341 --> 00:31:16,760
soaked to the bone,

581
00:31:16,242 --> 00:31:18,244
you know,
in love with life,

582
00:31:18,411 --> 00:31:20,580
with nature,
in love with that tree.

583
00:31:20,747 --> 00:31:22,782
That tree was so important
to me.

584
00:31:22,949 --> 00:31:24,517
And I went home,

585
00:31:24,684 --> 00:31:25,785
and I went to bed.

586
00:31:25,952 --> 00:31:27,870
I didn't see anybody.

587
00:31:27,253 --> 00:31:28,722
And the next morning
I woke up,

588
00:31:28,888 --> 00:31:31,725
and there was
a really attractive lady

589
00:31:31,891 --> 00:31:33,193
that I liked a lot,

590
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:35,280
but I could never stare at her
in the eyes,

591
00:31:35,195 --> 00:31:37,430
because I was afraid to stutter
and embarrass myself.

592
00:31:37,597 --> 00:31:40,200
So better to avoid social contact
than have social contact,

593
00:31:40,300 --> 00:31:42,235
even though
I was really attracted to her.

594
00:31:42,402 --> 00:31:43,570
And she liked me,

595
00:31:43,737 --> 00:31:44,971
but I didn't Know what to do
with it,

596
00:31:45,138 --> 00:31:46,239
with that tension.

597
00:31:46,406 --> 00:31:47,874
And so she was walking past me,

598
00:31:48,410 --> 00:31:49,142
and she looked at me,

599
00:31:49,309 --> 00:31:50,577
and she said,
"Good morning, Paul."

600
00:31:50,744 --> 00:31:51,911
And for the first time

601
00:31:52,450 --> 00:31:53,480
I looked her straight
in the eye

602
00:31:53,613 --> 00:31:55,715
and I said,
"Good morning. How are you?"

603
00:31:55,882 --> 00:31:58,585
And I stopped stuttering
in one session.

604
00:32:08,628 --> 00:32:12,132
[electronic rap playing
in the truck]

605
00:32:20,740 --> 00:32:22,942
This is the newest thing
my employees are listening to.

606
00:32:23,109 --> 00:32:25,979
My employees are my best
source of new music.

607
00:32:26,146 --> 00:32:29,820
We love loud music for the mushrooms
in the laboratories.

608
00:32:29,249 --> 00:32:32,919
It causes everyone
to be synchronized.

609
00:32:33,860 --> 00:32:35,255
We have a lot of nonverbal
Communication in laboratories.

610
00:32:35,355 --> 00:32:36,756
You're not allowed to talk.

611
00:32:36,923 --> 00:32:38,591
Your mouth spreads bacteria.

612
00:32:38,692 --> 00:32:40,930
So we try
to minimize talking.

613
00:32:40,260 --> 00:32:43,290
So a lot of it is done
by gestures and knowing.

614
00:32:43,196 --> 00:32:45,131
So, why not have it
with loud music?

615
00:32:47,967 --> 00:32:49,202
My dad was a businessman.

616
00:32:49,369 --> 00:32:51,271
I swore
I'd never become one,

617
00:32:51,438 --> 00:32:53,606
but I wanted to be
independent,

618
00:32:54,307 --> 00:32:56,676
so I created
a little mail-order business

619
00:32:56,843 --> 00:32:59,946
in order to supply myself and other people who had
like interest in mushrooms.

620
00:33:01,381 --> 00:33:02,849
When we started the business,

621
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,180
it was extremely difficult
back then,

622
00:33:05,185 --> 00:33:06,753
and we didn't have
the resources.

623
00:33:06,953 --> 00:33:08,121
We were putting
little advertisements

624
00:33:08,254 --> 00:33:10,560
In Organic Gardening magazine

625
00:33:10,223 --> 00:33:13,590
back when there was only
three television stations.

626
00:33:15,161 --> 00:33:16,196
I invented this business

627
00:33:16,363 --> 00:33:17,530
so I could buy equipment

628
00:33:17,697 --> 00:33:19,666
for my laboratory wholesale.

629
00:33:23,737 --> 00:33:26,206
Amazing to me,
we have nearly 100 employees

630
00:33:26,373 --> 00:33:29,420
and thousands
of media outlets.

631
00:33:30,877 --> 00:33:32,779
These mushrooms
were so powerful to me

632
00:33:32,912 --> 00:33:35,348
that I realized
that I wanted to study them.

633
00:33:36,282 --> 00:33:39,190
This mushroom that's Known as
reishi, or lingzhi,

634
00:33:39,185 --> 00:33:41,221
the mushroom
of immortality.

635
00:33:41,388 --> 00:33:44,224
And it's one of the most amazing
and interesting mushrooms

636
00:33:44,391 --> 00:33:45,925
that we've ever grown.

637
00:33:47,227 --> 00:33:50,964
This mushroom helps the immunity
of not only people, but bees.

638
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:05,245
Up this hill here,

639
00:34:05,378 --> 00:34:07,470
we have a quarter section
of property,

640
00:34:07,147 --> 00:34:08,715
160 acres,

641
00:34:08,815 --> 00:34:11,785
and we have a large
mycological experiment.

642
00:34:12,752 --> 00:34:14,254
We planted 33,000 trees,

643
00:34:14,421 --> 00:34:16,723
half with mycorrhizal fungi
attached to the roots,

644
00:34:16,890 --> 00:34:17,657
half without,

645
00:34:17,824 --> 00:34:20,326
and this is year nine.

646
00:34:20,460 --> 00:34:23,960
SO, we are putting into
an Excel spreadsheet,

647
00:34:23,263 --> 00:34:25,598
or have put in
1,100 trees

648
00:34:25,765 --> 00:34:28,680
to compare the treatments.

649
00:34:28,234 --> 00:34:29,436
I came into a chunk of change

650
00:34:29,602 --> 00:34:32,305
from licensing one
of my patents,

651
00:34:32,472 --> 00:34:35,742
and so when the political
climate of the USA changed

652
00:34:35,909 --> 00:34:37,444
to be adverse
to environmentalists,

653
00:34:37,610 --> 00:34:39,112
we bought land in Canada.

654
00:34:43,183 --> 00:34:44,284
[Pollan] I think the fact

655
00:34:44,451 --> 00:34:46,853
that he didn't come up on
a conventional academic pathway

656
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:48,121
Is part of the reason
he's as willing

657
00:34:48,288 --> 00:34:50,323
to really explore ideas
that...

658
00:34:50,457 --> 00:34:51,991
are not
on anyone else's radar.

659
00:34:54,127 --> 00:34:57,300
[P. Stamens] I'm really honored
that I discovered a few things

660
00:34:57,197 --> 00:34:58,965
that no one else
had yet discovered.

661
00:34:59,132 --> 00:35:02,869
So, I have now five patents
on entomopathogenic fungi.

662
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:04,871
These are fungi
that infect insects,

663
00:35:05,380 --> 00:35:07,774
and in particular,
termites.

664
00:35:07,941 --> 00:35:09,976
The biggest problem in
the commercialization

665
00:35:10,143 --> 00:35:12,450
of biopesticides
from fungi

666
00:35:12,178 --> 00:35:14,280
has been the spore
repellency property.

667
00:35:14,447 --> 00:35:17,183
The insects avoid the spores
of these fungi.

668
00:35:17,350 --> 00:35:18,952
In fact,
SO concerned are termites

669
00:35:19,119 --> 00:35:20,887
that if a worker goes out
and encounters this fungus,

670
00:35:21,540 --> 00:35:23,223
when the worker returns back
to the nest,

671
00:35:23,390 --> 00:35:25,191
guards,
they'll capture that worker

672
00:35:25,358 --> 00:35:26,860
that's infected
with these spores,

673
00:35:27,270 --> 00:35:28,395
take the worker
to a graveyard,

674
00:35:28,561 --> 00:35:31,464
and they cut off
the worker's head,

675
00:35:31,631 --> 00:35:33,800
and then the two guards
commit suicide.

676
00:35:33,900 --> 00:35:35,368
They're trying to protect
the queen and the nest

677
00:35:35,535 --> 00:35:37,103
and the colony
from infection.

678
00:35:37,270 --> 00:35:38,371
And I discovered something

679
00:35:38,538 --> 00:35:40,840
that no one else
had ever reported

680
00:35:41,700 --> 00:35:42,375
in the scientific literature.

681
00:35:42,542 --> 00:35:45,245
I found a biological switch
that delayed sporulation,

682
00:35:45,412 --> 00:35:48,114
and then the insects
were not repelled.

683
00:35:48,281 --> 00:35:50,216
But they were
super attracted,

684
00:35:50,383 --> 00:35:53,420
which means one finds the fungus
now, and others follow,

685
00:35:53,586 --> 00:35:55,355
and it ends up
being a Trojan horse.

686
00:35:55,455 --> 00:35:58,358
The same fungi now are taken
past the guards,

687
00:35:58,525 --> 00:35:59,793
given to the queen,

688
00:35:59,959 --> 00:36:01,428
the queen feeds it
to the brood.

689
00:36:01,594 --> 00:36:04,397
The whole colony becomes mummified
with this mycelium,

690
00:36:04,564 --> 00:36:09,135
and, whoosh! The whole colony
is infected and dies.

691
00:36:09,302 --> 00:36:11,271
And then the spore repellency
properties

692
00:36:11,404 --> 00:36:13,873
protects your house
from subsequent invasions.

693
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,109
This is a huge discovery.

694
00:36:16,276 --> 00:36:17,944
And then I tried it
with carpenter ants,

695
00:36:18,780 --> 00:36:20,213
with fire ants,
fungus gnats,

696
00:36:20,380 --> 00:36:21,548
and then mosquitoes,

697
00:36:21,715 --> 00:36:23,383
and now werre working
with bed bugs,

698
00:36:23,550 --> 00:36:26,119
and we've had successes
across the board.

699
00:36:31,458 --> 00:36:34,561
The entire ecosystem
is infused with fungi.

700
00:36:35,995 --> 00:36:40,166
So, I see these deep reservoirs
of the ecology all around us.

701
00:36:48,241 --> 00:36:50,143
[narrator]
In a world of invention,

702
00:36:50,310 --> 00:36:52,112
the answer
to our greatest problems

703
00:36:52,245 --> 00:36:55,615
may be hiding right
under our feet.

704
00:36:56,983 --> 00:36:58,318
[Bone] There are mushrooms

705
00:36:58,485 --> 00:37:00,854
that have been used
in Western medicine.

706
00:37:01,210 --> 00:37:02,822
Penicillin, for example,

707
00:37:02,989 --> 00:37:05,392
is a really effective
antibiotic.

708
00:37:06,459 --> 00:37:08,862
Before it was synthesized,
during the Civil War,

709
00:37:09,290 --> 00:37:11,231
when a soldier
would get wounded,

710
00:37:11,398 --> 00:37:14,200
they would slap a piece
of moldy bread on his wound

711
00:37:14,367 --> 00:37:17,871
to benefit from
those antibiotic properties,

712
00:37:18,380 --> 00:37:19,472
so he wouldnt get
an infection.

713
00:37:21,641 --> 00:37:25,478
[P. Stamens] Alexander Fleming
discovered penicillin in 1927.

714
00:37:25,578 --> 00:37:26,513
The problem was that

715
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:27,914
they couldn't find strains

716
00:37:28,810 --> 00:37:29,182
that could be
commercialized,

717
00:37:29,349 --> 00:37:31,151
that could produce enough
of it

718
00:37:31,317 --> 00:37:32,552
in a commercially
economic fashion.

719
00:37:33,653 --> 00:37:35,210
We fast forward,

720
00:37:35,188 --> 00:37:36,990
and in 1942,

721
00:37:37,157 --> 00:37:39,926
a group of researchers
in Chicago went shopping,

722
00:37:40,930 --> 00:37:42,462
and a lab assistant found
a cantaloupe that was rotting

723
00:37:42,629 --> 00:37:44,597
with a beautiful
golden mold,

724
00:37:46,966 --> 00:37:48,535
and from that strain,

725
00:37:48,702 --> 00:37:52,205
we got the first hyper-producing
strain of penicillium.

726
00:37:54,374 --> 00:37:55,975
Penicillin literally saved

727
00:37:56,142 --> 00:37:58,878
tens of thousands
of soldiers’ lives.

728
00:37:58,978 --> 00:38:00,313
The Brits had this,

729
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,615
but the Germans
and the Japanese did not.

730
00:38:05,850 --> 00:38:07,870
It's been suggested
that the discovery

731
00:38:07,253 --> 00:38:09,122
of this hyper-producing strain
of penicillin

732
00:38:09,289 --> 00:38:12,920
was a significant influence
in winning World War Il.

733
00:38:12,258 --> 00:38:15,595
Alexander Fleming then received
the Nobel Prize in 1945,

734
00:38:15,729 --> 00:38:18,164
in recognition
of the huge impact

735
00:38:18,331 --> 00:38:20,467
that penicillin had
on human health.

736
00:38:28,475 --> 00:38:31,444
[Bone] Here's how medicinal
mushrooms are thought to work:

737
00:38:32,479 --> 00:38:36,249
A fungus will produce
all kinds of enzymes--

738
00:38:36,416 --> 00:38:38,184
it's like
a chemical warfare--

739
00:38:38,351 --> 00:38:41,154
in order to fight off
competition for food,

740
00:38:41,321 --> 00:38:43,323
like other microbes,

741
00:38:43,490 --> 00:38:47,270
other fungi,
bacteria, virus.

742
00:38:47,193 --> 00:38:50,196
That's what makes
antibiotics work.

743
00:38:50,363 --> 00:38:52,866
Chemicals that are produced
by fungus,

744
00:38:53,330 --> 00:38:55,468
like the one
that penicillin is made from,

745
00:38:55,635 --> 00:38:56,970
the fungus produces it

746
00:38:57,137 --> 00:38:59,205
to kill bacteria
that are competition,

747
00:38:59,372 --> 00:39:03,900
and when we take penicillin,
it kills our bacteria.

748
00:39:04,177 --> 00:39:06,146
[Weil] There's a long tradition
of using mushrooms

749
00:39:06,312 --> 00:39:08,348
as medicines in East Asia,

750
00:39:08,515 --> 00:39:11,151
especially in Korea,
China, and Japan.

751
00:39:11,317 --> 00:39:13,653
They appear
to be able to enhance

752
00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:17,624
and protect the body's innate
defensive mechanisms.

753
00:39:17,791 --> 00:39:20,126
The uses for them fill niches

754
00:39:20,293 --> 00:39:23,329
for which we really don't have anything
in Western pharmacology.

755
00:39:23,496 --> 00:39:25,365
In Western medicine,
all of our effort

756
00:39:25,532 --> 00:39:28,100
is on identifying
agents of disease

757
00:39:28,168 --> 00:39:29,302
and eliminating them.

758
00:39:29,469 --> 00:39:30,337
That has its place,

759
00:39:30,503 --> 00:39:31,571
but we do almost nothing

760
00:39:31,738 --> 00:39:33,273
about supporting the good.

761
00:39:38,110 --> 00:39:40,513
[P. Stamets]
Shamans would treat patients

762
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:42,349
and the diseases
were thought to be

763
00:39:42,515 --> 00:39:45,285
elements
of the spirit world.

764
00:39:45,452 --> 00:39:47,954
Well, physicians today
treat infections,

765
00:39:48,121 --> 00:39:50,190
and their spirits
are bacteria,

766
00:39:50,357 --> 00:39:52,359
or a pathogenic,
or viruses.

767
00:39:52,525 --> 00:39:54,694
So, whether the shamans
called them spirits

768
00:39:54,861 --> 00:39:58,310
or whether the scientists
call them microbes,

769
00:39:58,198 --> 00:39:59,966
with the invention
of microscopes

770
00:40:00,133 --> 00:40:02,602
we get to see the microscopic
universe and landscape

771
00:40:02,769 --> 00:40:06,606
that we thunder upon
with every footstep.

772
00:40:06,773 --> 00:40:08,975
The fact
that these fungal networks

773
00:40:09,109 --> 00:40:10,310
are seemingly invisible,

774
00:40:10,477 --> 00:40:11,478
but then represent themselves

775
00:40:11,644 --> 00:40:13,460
In a big flourishing mushroom

776
00:40:13,213 --> 00:40:14,447
In a matter of a few days,

777
00:40:14,614 --> 00:40:17,417
give us a window
into the invisible landscape

778
00:40:17,584 --> 00:40:18,985
underneath our feet.

779
00:40:35,602 --> 00:40:37,337
Fungal networks
have defended themselves

780
00:40:37,470 --> 00:40:40,507
against vectors of disease
for millions of years.

781
00:40:40,674 --> 00:40:44,110
Viral pandemics
occur periodically.

782
00:40:46,846 --> 00:40:49,150
two percent
of the world population died.

783
00:40:49,182 --> 00:40:51,117
Millions upon millions
of people.

784
00:40:52,952 --> 00:40:56,523
I think everyone is aware
of the threat of bioterrorism,

785
00:40:56,690 --> 00:40:58,725
but few people
may know that

786
00:40:58,858 --> 00:41:01,270
Europeans were actively
involved,

787
00:41:01,194 --> 00:41:02,696
consciously
or unconsciously,

788
00:41:02,862 --> 00:41:04,831
in bioterrorism
against indigenous peoples,

789
00:41:04,998 --> 00:41:08,168
especially in the New World,
in Meso-America.

790
00:41:08,334 --> 00:41:09,869
They brought in diseases,

791
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:11,204
and when you're extremely sick,

792
00:41:11,371 --> 00:41:13,640
you can't fight off an invader.

793
00:41:14,841 --> 00:41:16,776
It's an irony of history
that now,

794
00:41:16,943 --> 00:41:18,578
the US government
is interested

795
00:41:18,745 --> 00:41:21,681
in protecting people
from viral pandemics.

796
00:41:21,848 --> 00:41:23,883
[man] Paul Stamets cultured
numerous strains

797
00:41:24,500 --> 00:41:26,186
in his lab,
and prepared natural extract.

798
00:41:26,286 --> 00:41:28,210
He then submitted samples

799
00:41:28,188 --> 00:41:31,725
to the Defense Department's
BioShield program for testing.

800
00:41:31,891 --> 00:41:32,792
[P. Stamets] And Ironically,

801
00:41:32,959 --> 00:41:34,940
I have a debt of gratitude

802
00:41:34,260 --> 00:41:36,763
to Dick Cheney
and George W. Bush.

803
00:41:36,930 --> 00:41:39,599
It is vital that our nation
discuss and address the threat

804
00:41:39,733 --> 00:41:41,601
of pandemic flu now.

805
00:41:41,768 --> 00:41:43,103
[P. Stamets]
Their funding of that research

806
00:41:43,269 --> 00:41:44,938
led to some
very novel discoveries,

807
00:41:45,105 --> 00:41:47,207
to which
we're still elaborating today.

808
00:41:48,742 --> 00:41:50,143
And what we know about these
mycelium networks

809
00:41:50,310 --> 00:41:52,278
is they're learning membranes.

810
00:41:52,445 --> 00:41:55,148
They are self-learning
and network-based organisms

811
00:41:55,315 --> 00:41:58,840
that can share
and store knowledge.

812
00:41:58,251 --> 00:42:00,220
The mycelium
is vaccinating itself

813
00:42:00,387 --> 00:42:02,989
against pathogens
in the ecosystem.

814
00:42:03,123 --> 00:42:04,657
We can capitalize on this

815
00:42:04,791 --> 00:42:06,826
because many
of the same bacterial pathogens

816
00:42:06,993 --> 00:42:10,663
that infect fungi,
also can infect animals.

817
00:42:10,830 --> 00:42:11,965
We have found novel molecules

818
00:42:12,132 --> 00:42:14,234
highly active
against pox viruses,

819
00:42:14,401 --> 00:42:15,735
novel molecules highly active

820
00:42:15,902 --> 00:42:18,304
against HPV,
the human papillomavirus.

821
00:42:19,439 --> 00:42:21,808
Many scientists are trying
to come up

822
00:42:21,975 --> 00:42:25,110
with the next antibiotic,
the next penicillin,

823
00:42:25,178 --> 00:42:27,414
but we have barely tapped
into the fungal genome,

824
00:42:27,580 --> 00:42:30,250
especially the mushroom form
of fungi.

825
00:42:32,185 --> 00:42:35,422
Think of it: our old-growth forests
that contain these ancient fungi

826
00:42:35,588 --> 00:42:37,657
are deep reservoirs

827
00:42:37,824 --> 00:42:40,927
of potential compounds
that can fight pandemic viruses.

828
00:42:41,940 --> 00:42:45,131
We should save the old-growth forest
as a matter of national defense.

829
00:42:55,442 --> 00:42:56,376
[Weil] I recommend mushrooms

830
00:42:56,543 --> 00:42:58,111
and mushroom products
frequently to patients

831
00:42:58,278 --> 00:43:00,447
and I teach other doctors
about their uses.

832
00:43:01,948 --> 00:43:05,285
Mushrooms have molecules
not found elsewhere in nature.

833
00:43:05,452 --> 00:43:07,954
There're some that have
totally unusual properties

834
00:43:08,540 --> 00:43:09,956
like Lion's Mane mushroom.

835
00:43:11,224 --> 00:43:12,859
[P. Stamets]
The Lion's Mane mushroom

836
00:43:13,260 --> 00:43:16,620
is a globular cascading
icicle-formed mushroom.

837
00:43:16,229 --> 00:43:18,131
Tastes like lobster
or shrimp when you cook it,

838
00:43:18,298 --> 00:43:21,301
but a researcher in Japan
by the name of Kara-Jishi

839
00:43:21,401 --> 00:43:23,903
discovered in around 1993,

840
00:43:24,700 --> 00:43:26,706
and I don't have the foggiest
idea how you discover this,

841
00:43:26,873 --> 00:43:31,344
but he discovered that this mushroom
stimulates nerves to regrow

842
00:43:31,478 --> 00:43:35,515
and he postulated it could be an effective
treatment against Alzheimer's.

843
00:43:36,783 --> 00:43:38,284
[Weil] Since we don't have
anything for Alzheimer's

844
00:43:38,451 --> 00:43:41,721
and since this Is nontoxic,
we should test it.

845
00:43:41,888 --> 00:43:44,190
Mushrooms are
completely unusual organisms

846
00:43:44,357 --> 00:43:46,590
and they're ignored
by so many people

847
00:43:46,226 --> 00:43:48,194
and yet
they're a vital interface

848
00:43:48,361 --> 00:43:50,196
between all forms
of life.

849
00:43:57,604 --> 00:43:59,406
[P. Stamets] At the University
of Southern Florida,

850
00:43:59,572 --> 00:44:01,975
a very interesting study
came out.

851
00:44:02,142 --> 00:44:04,310
Mice were trained to have
a conditioned fear response

852
00:44:04,477 --> 00:44:07,247
and so when there's a sound
that is associated with a pain,

853
00:44:07,380 --> 00:44:08,415
later on when they just heard
the sound,

854
00:44:08,581 --> 00:44:09,983
they cowered in fear.

855
00:44:12,452 --> 00:44:14,821
When they treated the mice
with psilocybin,

856
00:44:14,988 --> 00:44:17,570
the compound
of magic mushrooms,

857
00:44:17,223 --> 00:44:19,392
the mice dissociated
that link.

858
00:44:19,559 --> 00:44:22,829
The mice overcame
the fear-conditioned response.

859
00:44:22,996 --> 00:44:24,497
[Sanchez-Ramos]
We started with very low doses

860
00:44:24,664 --> 00:44:27,333
to as high a dose
as one milligram per kilogram.

861
00:44:27,500 --> 00:44:29,690
Now what was interesting,

862
00:44:29,235 --> 00:44:31,104
if you look
at double-labeled cells,

863
00:44:31,271 --> 00:44:32,972
in other words,
the birth of new neurons,

864
00:44:33,139 --> 00:44:36,343
we saw an increase
in neurogenesis.

865
00:44:36,509 --> 00:44:39,179
Neurogenesis literally means
"neuro" for nerves

866
00:44:39,346 --> 00:44:42,115
and "genesis,"
rebirth or beginning of.

867
00:44:42,282 --> 00:44:43,983
The regrowing of neurons.

868
00:44:46,953 --> 00:44:48,421
They were not using the same

869
00:44:48,588 --> 00:44:50,824
neurological pathways
they have in the past.

870
00:44:50,990 --> 00:44:52,492
This is really exciting

871
00:44:52,659 --> 00:44:56,296
because It means that the brain
has a plasticity about it,

872
00:44:56,463 --> 00:44:58,832
is able to heal,
is able to grow.

873
00:44:58,998 --> 00:45:01,000
It just needs
the right compounds

874
00:45:01,167 --> 00:45:03,970
to help it develop new
neurological pathways.

875
00:45:05,372 --> 00:45:06,840
We're all getting older.

876
00:45:07,700 --> 00:45:08,975
We'll all suffer some degree
of dementia.

877
00:45:13,513 --> 00:45:15,448
What compounds can we take

878
00:45:15,615 --> 00:45:18,518
that enhances and preserves
neurogenesis?

879
00:45:22,989 --> 00:45:24,524
I Know many, many people

880
00:45:24,691 --> 00:45:27,560
who would not dare take
a psilocybin mushroom trip,

881
00:45:27,727 --> 00:45:31,164
but the concept of them taking
one 50th of a dose,

882
00:45:31,331 --> 00:45:34,167
something like that,
and it causes neurogenesis

883
00:45:34,334 --> 00:45:37,700
that might make them smarter
or in a better mood or happier?

884
00:45:37,237 --> 00:45:39,239
That's a whole different
subject.

885
00:45:43,209 --> 00:45:46,579
[narrator] We are on a never-ending
search for partners,

886
00:45:48,248 --> 00:45:50,850
life-affirming relationships,

887
00:45:53,319 --> 00:45:55,221
or at the very least,

888
00:45:55,388 --> 00:45:58,258
nourishment for the next leg
of our journey.

889
00:45:59,592 --> 00:46:03,563
We have flourished side by side
with your species

890
00:46:03,730 --> 00:46:07,600
symbiotically
for centuries.

891
00:46:10,503 --> 00:46:12,205
[Harman]
Many shamanic cultures

892
00:46:12,372 --> 00:46:14,341
relied on mushrooms

893
00:46:14,507 --> 00:46:16,943
for their transcendental
experiences.

894
00:46:17,110 --> 00:46:20,246
This is pre-religion
all over the world.

895
00:46:21,548 --> 00:46:23,950
It was all about
the individual's connection

896
00:46:24,117 --> 00:46:25,452
to the spiritual world,

897
00:46:25,618 --> 00:46:29,589
or the mystery that is
our context for living.

898
00:46:33,259 --> 00:46:35,962
These are ancient artifacts
from the Mayan culture.

899
00:46:36,129 --> 00:46:38,231
These are called
mushroom stones.

900
00:46:38,331 --> 00:46:39,833
This may be
the largest collection

901
00:46:39,966 --> 00:46:41,801
of mushroom stones
in the world.

902
00:46:41,968 --> 00:46:44,337
The Mayan culture
was very mycophillic

903
00:46:44,504 --> 00:46:47,307
and they revered mushroom stones
for divination,

904
00:46:47,474 --> 00:46:49,576
for spirituality.

905
00:46:49,743 --> 00:46:52,412
Also to be able
to predict incoming armies,

906
00:46:52,512 --> 00:46:54,280
and how to strategize
against them.

907
00:47:03,490 --> 00:47:08,280
A great ethnomycologist
by the name of R. Gordon Wasson

908
00:47:08,194 --> 00:47:10,363
came up with the phrase
mycophilia,

909
00:47:10,530 --> 00:47:12,932
the love of mushrooms
that the Mayans shared.

910
00:47:13,990 --> 00:47:14,968
Mycophobia
is a classically--

911
00:47:15,101 --> 00:47:17,300
the English
had a fear of mushrooms

912
00:47:17,170 --> 00:47:18,972
because they're enigmatic.

913
00:47:19,139 --> 00:47:21,174
You know, these mushrooms
can get you high,

914
00:47:21,341 --> 00:47:23,843
they can heal you, they can feed you,
they can kill you.

915
00:47:24,100 --> 00:47:27,347
And so that which is so powerful
is naturally feared.

916
00:47:27,514 --> 00:47:29,482
[Nicholas Cozzi] Wasson was
an amateur mycologist,

917
00:47:29,649 --> 00:47:31,985
a person
who studies mushrooms

918
00:47:32,152 --> 00:47:38,992
and was invited to participate
in a ceremony by a curandera,

919
00:47:39,159 --> 00:47:41,561
Maria Sabina in 1955.

920
00:47:42,562 --> 00:47:44,964
He took these mushrooms

921
00:47:45,650 --> 00:47:48,680
and had
a psychedelic experience...

922
00:47:50,303 --> 00:47:52,505
[P. Stamets] And when R. Gordon Wasson
came out with this research

923
00:47:52,672 --> 00:47:55,508
that was published
in Life magazine in 1957...

924
00:47:58,780 --> 00:48:01,881
that was basically a field guide
to psilocybin mushrooms

925
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,517
delivered
to tens of millions of Americans

926
00:48:04,684 --> 00:48:07,721
on their doorstep,
during the peak of the Cold War.

927
00:48:08,655 --> 00:48:11,591
This then was quickly noticed
by academics at Harvard

928
00:48:11,725 --> 00:48:16,296
and other lvy League schools
and then the cognoscenti,

929
00:48:16,496 --> 00:48:22,635
including Timothy Leary,
Ram Dass, and Dr. Andrew Weil.

930
00:48:22,802 --> 00:48:25,105
Why do mushrooms
produce molecules

931
00:48:25,271 --> 00:48:28,141
that fit receptors
in the human brain and body?

932
00:48:28,308 --> 00:48:30,276
What does that say?
What does that mean?

933
00:48:30,443 --> 00:48:33,460
I mean, does that mean that we're supposed to be
using these things?

934
00:48:34,470 --> 00:48:37,500
Psychedelics during
the '50s and '60s

935
00:48:37,217 --> 00:48:39,386
were the cutting edge
of psychiatric research.

936
00:48:39,552 --> 00:48:41,321
There were remarkable studies

937
00:48:41,488 --> 00:48:44,424
with very, very promising
findings.

938
00:48:46,159 --> 00:48:49,996
[Ross] Psychedelics became part
of research in psychiatry for 30 years.

939
00:48:50,163 --> 00:48:51,970
and there were several

940
00:48:51,264 --> 00:48:53,500
very interesting indications
that they were researched.

941
00:48:53,666 --> 00:48:55,969
The best data was actually
for alcoholism.

942
00:48:56,803 --> 00:48:59,506
[Grob] We found that having
a mystical experience

943
00:48:59,673 --> 00:49:01,274
during the course
of one session

944
00:49:01,441 --> 00:49:04,477
was the strongest predictor
of positive outcome,

945
00:49:04,644 --> 00:49:08,682
meaning maintaining sobriety
over the long follow-up period.

946
00:49:08,848 --> 00:49:10,583
It was very impressive.

947
00:49:11,751 --> 00:49:13,353
[Pollan]
Some of these drugs,

948
00:49:13,486 --> 00:49:15,655
they had "escaped the lab,”
as the phrase goes.

949
00:49:17,257 --> 00:49:19,292
Millions of people
were using them

950
00:49:19,459 --> 00:49:21,940
and you have to realize

951
00:49:21,261 --> 00:49:24,431
that this was a radical force
unleashed in the West.

952
00:49:31,538 --> 00:49:34,474
[Timothy Leary] The kids who take psychedelics
aren't going to fight your wars.

953
00:49:34,641 --> 00:49:36,676
They're not going to join
your corporations,

954
00:49:36,810 --> 00:49:38,478
they wont buy it.

955
00:49:38,645 --> 00:49:41,448
[Bill Richards] A lot was going on
back in the '6Os.

956
00:49:41,614 --> 00:49:44,984
It was a time
of rapid cultural change.

957
00:49:45,151 --> 00:49:48,210
There was irrational fears

958
00:49:48,188 --> 00:49:51,691
about too much cultural change
too fast.

959
00:49:51,825 --> 00:49:54,394
President Nixon
called Timothy Leary

960
00:49:54,561 --> 00:49:56,796
the most dangerous man
in America.

961
00:49:56,896 --> 00:49:59,666
We must wage what I have called
total war

962
00:49:59,833 --> 00:50:03,360
against public enemy number one
in the United States,

963
00:50:03,203 --> 00:50:04,738
the problem
with dangerous drugs.

964
00:50:07,741 --> 00:50:09,676
When everyone says
"shrooms" to me,

965
00:50:09,843 --> 00:50:11,644
it invokes this whole idea

966
00:50:11,811 --> 00:50:14,381
of using psilocybin mushrooms
as a party drug,

967
00:50:14,547 --> 00:50:17,784
They are so much more important
than just getting high.

968
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,426
The movement to marginalize
the major psychedelics

969
00:50:26,593 --> 00:50:28,595
is incredibly complex.

970
00:50:28,762 --> 00:50:31,598
I mean, it plugged into
a counterculture movement,

971
00:50:31,765 --> 00:50:36,690
an anti-war movement,
an anti-establishment movement.

972
00:50:37,470 --> 00:50:40,774
There are many, many forces
that were at play.

973
00:50:48,381 --> 00:50:50,216
[Richards]
Somehow the fuse blew

974
00:50:50,383 --> 00:50:52,485
and one of the victims was

975
00:50:52,652 --> 00:50:56,489
the medical research
with psychedelics.

976
00:50:56,656 --> 00:51:01,494
There was a very irrational
and anti-scientific climate

977
00:51:01,661 --> 00:51:04,597
that was fueled even
in government pamphlets,

978
00:51:04,764 --> 00:51:07,300
really had
distorted information

979
00:51:07,467 --> 00:51:10,370
that was not scientifically
accurate.

980
00:51:12,205 --> 00:51:14,741
It was a bad trip,
instant insanity.

981
00:51:17,277 --> 00:51:19,779
[Ross] The research came
to a halt in 1970.

982
00:51:19,946 --> 00:51:21,614
War was declared on drugs.

983
00:51:21,781 --> 00:51:23,650
The Controlled Substances Act
was passed

984
00:51:23,817 --> 00:51:25,685
and the research essentially
was erased

985
00:51:25,852 --> 00:51:27,854
from being taught
in psychiatry.

986
00:51:28,955 --> 00:51:32,425
[Richards] I think I may have the dubious
distinction of being the last

987
00:51:32,592 --> 00:51:36,329
to give psilocybin
to a cancer patient

988
00:51:36,496 --> 00:51:38,498
at the Maryland
Psychiatric Research Center.

989
00:51:39,966 --> 00:51:42,936
And then the research
became completely dormant.

990
00:51:47,874 --> 00:51:50,643
In our evolution
as a species,

991
00:51:50,810 --> 00:51:52,846
we're at a point
of coming to terms

992
00:51:53,130 --> 00:51:55,648
with a major paradigm change.

993
00:51:56,783 --> 00:52:01,221
A change in how we view
what we call reality.

994
00:52:05,291 --> 00:52:09,629
And that always evokes
tension and fears.

995
00:52:11,564 --> 00:52:16,803
The culture wants to cling
to the old view of the universe.

996
00:52:22,409 --> 00:52:24,678
[P. Stamets] You realize
that you've been limited all this time

997
00:52:24,844 --> 00:52:26,579
with your perspective
of reality.

998
00:52:26,746 --> 00:52:31,317
Had reality been known to you
at this level early on,

999
00:52:31,484 --> 00:52:33,887
how much more evolved
would we be as beings?

1000
00:52:35,488 --> 00:52:37,390
A lot of people would be afraid
of that.

1001
00:52:41,940 --> 00:52:43,663
This is very dangerous
territory.

1002
00:52:43,830 --> 00:52:46,733
People want to give up the responsibility of
being able to understand

1003
00:52:47,667 --> 00:52:49,903
and because they can't understand,
then they have faith.

1004
00:52:50,700 --> 00:52:52,500
and they put their faith
in other people

1005
00:52:52,172 --> 00:52:53,406
who say
they can understand.

1006
00:52:53,573 --> 00:52:56,343
And I think it's a situation

1007
00:52:56,509 --> 00:52:59,279
that is ripe
for a predatory relationship.

1008
00:53:08,588 --> 00:53:10,757
[Bob Jesse] Anyone who's had one
of those experiences

1009
00:53:10,924 --> 00:53:12,892
in a country where
it's not legal to have them

1010
00:53:13,590 --> 00:53:14,794
is stuck in this position

1011
00:53:14,961 --> 00:53:17,297
where something
really precious...

1012
00:53:17,464 --> 00:53:20,800
and really giving
a great gift to you

1013
00:53:20,967 --> 00:53:23,636
is not understood
by the culture at large

1014
00:53:23,803 --> 00:53:26,873
and furthermore, puts you or
other people or/and other people

1015
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:28,608
at risk of prosecution.

1016
00:53:30,677 --> 00:53:32,450
And one response to that

1017
00:53:32,212 --> 00:53:34,447
is to get angry,

1018
00:53:34,581 --> 00:53:36,490
and to want to fight that.

1019
00:53:36,216 --> 00:53:38,351
And another response to it
is to say,

1020
00:53:38,518 --> 00:53:41,354
We've just got to explain
to people what's going on here.

1021
00:53:41,521 --> 00:53:42,956
And when people understand it,

1022
00:53:43,123 --> 00:53:46,526
then there will be accommodation
and respect.

1023
00:53:48,895 --> 00:53:50,797
There are a number of elders
living in the Bay Area

1024
00:53:50,964 --> 00:53:52,665
who've devoted some part
of their career

1025
00:53:52,832 --> 00:53:55,335
in psychology
or religious studies

1026
00:53:55,502 --> 00:53:56,836
who ended up being invited

1027
00:53:57,300 --> 00:53:59,973
to a small invitational
conference at Esalen

1028
00:54:00,140 --> 00:54:03,760
called the Pacific Symposium
on Psychedelic Drugs.

1029
00:54:03,243 --> 00:54:05,512
As we went around the room
making introductions,

1030
00:54:05,679 --> 00:54:06,980
most of the people who were
clinicians

1031
00:54:07,113 --> 00:54:08,848
were excitedly talking about

1032
00:54:09,150 --> 00:54:10,884
what kind of clinical trial
they would run

1033
00:54:11,510 --> 00:54:12,852
If they could use one
of these substances

1034
00:54:13,190 --> 00:54:14,354
to treat PTSD...

1035
00:54:14,521 --> 00:54:16,356
or to treat
depression.

1036
00:54:17,524 --> 00:54:19,826
[Richards] We wrote
the best design we could.

1037
00:54:19,993 --> 00:54:23,830
We submitted it to the FDA
and they approved it.

1038
00:54:23,997 --> 00:54:25,665
This was 1999,

1039
00:54:25,832 --> 00:54:29,869
and it reactivated
psychedelic research

1040
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:34,674
after basically a 22-year
dormancy in the United States.

1041
00:54:35,642 --> 00:54:37,844
It's like
a Rip Van Winkle effect.

1042
00:54:37,977 --> 00:54:41,681
You know,
it's waking up 20 years later.

1043
00:54:41,848 --> 00:54:43,550
The methodologies,

1044
00:54:43,717 --> 00:54:47,200
the questions that we can ask
on so many different levels.

1045
00:54:51,991 --> 00:54:54,894
[Tony Head] I had been diagnosed
with prostate cancer.

1046
00:54:55,610 --> 00:54:58,865
My diagnosis was so bad
that...

1047
00:54:59,766 --> 00:55:04,437
You know, they weren't giving me
any chance whatsoever.

1048
00:55:05,605 --> 00:55:08,742
[Judith Goedeke] My diagnosis
was kidney cancer.

1049
00:55:08,908 --> 00:55:13,913
Finding out that you may want
to get your affairs in order.

1050
00:55:15,150 --> 00:55:17,170
[Head] I first found out
about the study

1051
00:55:17,117 --> 00:55:19,552
when my oncologist gave me
a pamphlet.

1052
00:55:19,686 --> 00:55:21,121
He said, "Here's something that

1053
00:55:21,287 --> 00:55:23,390
might be able to help you
with the anxiety."

1054
00:55:24,791 --> 00:55:27,930
And I was accepted
into the study.

1055
00:55:27,227 --> 00:55:28,628
The most important thing

1056
00:55:28,762 --> 00:55:31,731
is to remember
that you're always safe.

1057
00:55:32,632 --> 00:55:36,736
And a recommendation is
that whatever is coming up,

1058
00:55:36,903 --> 00:55:37,971
that you allow it,

1059
00:55:38,138 --> 00:55:40,400
that you don't have to like it,

1060
00:55:40,173 --> 00:55:42,420
but you say okay,

1061
00:55:42,175 --> 00:55:43,943
rather than trying
to run away from it.

1062
00:55:44,944 --> 00:55:47,647
Once a volunteer is enrolled
in the study,

1063
00:55:47,814 --> 00:55:49,883
they're with us
for the preparation,

1064
00:55:50,500 --> 00:55:51,484
the psilocybin sessions

1065
00:55:51,651 --> 00:55:53,920
and the integration follow-ups
after.

1066
00:55:54,921 --> 00:55:59,793
I have been a guide for
around 350 psilocybin sessions

1067
00:55:59,959 --> 00:56:01,361
and then about a thousand

1068
00:56:01,561 --> 00:56:03,830
of the preparatory
and integration meetings.

1069
00:56:03,997 --> 00:56:05,131
Alright.

1070
00:56:06,666 --> 00:56:08,134
Okay, lift your head up.

1071
00:56:08,301 --> 00:56:10,870
It's really just about
experiencing what comes up

1072
00:56:11,370 --> 00:56:13,506
as the psilocybin takes effect.

1073
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:35,562
[Head] In the intense part
of this journey,

1074
00:56:35,729 --> 00:56:38,732
this world and things
that matter to most people,

1075
00:56:38,865 --> 00:56:40,400
family and all that,

1076
00:56:40,533 --> 00:56:43,200
that wasn't even
what it was about.

1077
00:56:43,169 --> 00:56:45,505
They say anything mystical
can't be explained.

1078
00:56:45,638 --> 00:56:47,140
It's something like that.

1079
00:56:47,240 --> 00:56:52,479
It's a feeling
of such immense power

1080
00:56:52,645 --> 00:56:54,414
that you can't even imagine.

1081
00:56:55,181 --> 00:56:57,550
I've never felt
anything like it before.

1082
00:57:00,553 --> 00:57:04,691
It was about being in a place
of infinite space

1083
00:57:04,858 --> 00:57:07,594
and just being there.

1084
00:57:12,899 --> 00:57:15,535
[Griffiths] There's a
experience of positive mood,

1085
00:57:15,702 --> 00:57:18,438
sometimes openheartedness,
love,

1086
00:57:18,605 --> 00:57:20,507
a transcendence
of time and space,

1087
00:57:20,674 --> 00:57:23,910
and then finally,
it's thought to be ineffable.

1088
00:57:25,612 --> 00:57:28,615
People say, "I can't describe
that experience."

1089
00:57:34,120 --> 00:57:36,723
[Goedeke] In my mind I said,
"Okay, hold it.

1090
00:57:36,890 --> 00:57:39,250
If I give myself over to you...

1091
00:57:40,260 --> 00:57:41,528
can you promise me

1092
00:57:41,695 --> 00:57:46,533
that I will be in at least
as strong a shape

1093
00:57:46,700 --> 00:57:48,268
as when I entered this room?"

1094
00:57:49,302 --> 00:57:52,739
And I felt a voice
that I needed to heed.

1095
00:57:54,708 --> 00:57:59,813
"Do you think I would
disrespect my own handiwork?"

1096
00:58:02,248 --> 00:58:04,818
This is the voice
from on high saying,

1097
00:58:04,984 --> 00:58:07,887
"Do you think I would
disrespect my child?"

1098
00:58:08,922 --> 00:58:12,920
And I felt so beautiful.

1099
00:58:13,593 --> 00:58:17,831
I felt
like I have never felt before.

1100
00:58:17,997 --> 00:58:20,330
My sense of being loved,

1101
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:25,839
of being worthy of love,
of being cared for,

1102
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:30,100
of being important
to someone.

1103
00:58:33,980 --> 00:58:35,281
It's huge.

1104
00:58:40,530 --> 00:58:43,123
You're going into it,
you're doing beautifully.

1105
00:58:59,973 --> 00:59:02,809
[Griffiths] One-third
of individuals in the study

1106
00:59:02,976 --> 00:59:05,145
said it's the single most

1107
00:59:05,311 --> 00:59:07,981
spiritually significant
experience of their lives.

1108
00:59:08,848 --> 00:59:11,170
About 70% say

1109
00:59:11,184 --> 00:59:16,189
it's among the five most personally meaningful
experiences of their lives.

1110
00:59:16,356 --> 00:59:19,559
Then you say,
"Well, so what does that mean?"

1111
00:59:19,726 --> 00:59:22,529
You know?
And initially I thought,

1112
00:59:22,696 --> 00:59:26,566
I wonder if they don't have
pretty dull lives.

1113
00:59:26,733 --> 00:59:29,102
But no,
people would say,

1114
00:59:29,269 --> 00:59:33,673
you know, when my firstborn came
into this world,

1115
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:35,208
Il never forget that.

1116
00:59:35,375 --> 00:59:38,178
And life has never
been the same since.

1117
00:59:38,345 --> 00:59:42,682
Or my father passed away.
That was deeply moving to me.

1118
00:59:42,849 --> 00:59:44,551
I'm different now
in the world.

1119
00:59:44,718 --> 00:59:46,786
They say, you know,
it's kind of like that.

1120
00:59:49,889 --> 00:59:52,692
[Head] The most glorious part
was that

1121
00:59:52,859 --> 00:59:57,263
it made me feel more comfortable
with living,

1122
00:59:57,397 --> 01:00:00,660
you know,
because, uh...

1123
01:00:00,233 --> 01:00:02,902
you're not afraid of dying.

1124
01:00:04,971 --> 01:00:07,874
[Griffiths] Frankly,
I'm just a laboratory scientist

1125
01:00:08,410 --> 01:00:10,777
and I wasn't prepared for that.

1126
01:00:10,944 --> 01:00:12,278
[Richards] From the memory

1127
01:00:12,445 --> 01:00:14,748
of the transcendental state
of consciousness,

1128
01:00:14,914 --> 01:00:19,219
many people report less anxiety,
less depression,

1129
01:00:19,386 --> 01:00:22,222
less preoccupation
with pain,

1130
01:00:22,389 --> 01:00:25,625
closer interpersonal
relationships,

1131
01:00:25,759 --> 01:00:27,794
and perhaps most impressive,

1132
01:00:27,961 --> 01:00:31,331
they claim to have a loss
of the fear of death.

1133
01:00:32,265 --> 01:00:34,300
It recalibrates
how they see death.

1134
01:00:35,435 --> 01:00:39,105
[Anthony Bossis] It's been amazing hearing them
talk about this idea of love.

1135
01:00:40,306 --> 01:00:41,408
Many of them spoke about

1136
01:00:41,574 --> 01:00:43,410
how nature itself
is something like

1137
01:00:43,576 --> 01:00:45,311
this substance called love.

1138
01:00:46,913 --> 01:00:48,782
And having touched that,

1139
01:00:48,948 --> 01:00:51,451
They've recalibrated and
reshaped how they die differently.

1140
01:00:59,159 --> 01:01:01,194
[Jesse] The Johns Hopkins
psilocybin research team

1141
01:01:01,361 --> 01:01:04,698
has completed or has underway
a total of nine studies

1142
01:01:04,864 --> 01:01:07,133
and it got
the world's attention.

1143
01:01:11,504 --> 01:01:14,441
When we finally released the
results of our first experiment

1144
01:01:14,607 --> 01:01:16,843
In a peer-reviewed
scientific journal,

1145
01:01:17,100 --> 01:01:18,778
it was very gratifying to see

1146
01:01:18,945 --> 01:01:21,381
how the daily press responded
to it.

1147
01:01:21,548 --> 01:01:23,490
A little bit of health news
for you.

1148
01:01:23,216 --> 01:01:25,852
A single dose of psychedelic
magic mushrooms

1149
01:01:26,190 --> 01:01:28,321
can make people with severe
anxiety and depression

1150
01:01:28,488 --> 01:01:30,824
feel better
for months.

1151
01:01:30,990 --> 01:01:33,893
[Richards] It changes the way
they view themselves,

1152
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:36,262
other people in the world...

1153
01:01:36,429 --> 01:01:38,865
from a single experience,

1154
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:42,235
not Prozac that you have
to keep taking day after day.

1155
01:01:44,700 --> 01:01:46,873
[Pollan]
These are not chronic drugs,

1156
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:49,109
and that's where most
of the research

1157
01:01:49,275 --> 01:01:51,378
and development
in Big Pharma goes.

1158
01:01:52,345 --> 01:01:54,848
The treatments that are
being explored for psilocybin

1159
01:01:55,150 --> 01:01:58,385
involve one, two,
maybe three pills.

1160
01:01:58,551 --> 01:01:59,919
That's tt.

1161
01:02:00,530 --> 01:02:01,221
That's not a very good
business model.

1162
01:02:01,388 --> 01:02:03,256
You can't make
a lot of money that way.

1163
01:02:06,292 --> 01:02:11,970
The core of this mystical
experience Is, um...

1164
01:02:12,465 --> 01:02:14,868
Is a mystery,
frankly.

1165
01:02:15,350 --> 01:02:16,436
It's the existential mystery

1166
01:02:16,603 --> 01:02:19,720
of what are we really
doing here?

1167
01:02:19,205 --> 01:02:21,941
What's the meaning
of all this?

1168
01:02:22,108 --> 01:02:25,912
and that is a very uplifting
kind of experience to have.

1169
01:02:26,790 --> 01:02:27,470
[Richards] As a whole,

1170
01:02:27,213 --> 01:02:29,115
there's a sense of being part

1171
01:02:29,249 --> 01:02:31,451
of a larger network.

1172
01:02:33,219 --> 01:02:37,457
And somehow, that's more real
after a mystical experience.

1173
01:02:39,426 --> 01:02:41,161
You feel
that you really are connected

1174
01:02:41,327 --> 01:02:43,630
In some meaningful way

1175
01:02:43,229 --> 01:02:45,165
with every atom
of the universe.

1176
01:02:46,399 --> 01:02:48,334
[Griffiths]
From my perspective,

1177
01:02:48,501 --> 01:02:50,937
this core experience then forms

1178
01:02:51,104 --> 01:02:54,307
all of the religious, ethical
and moral traditions.

1179
01:02:54,474 --> 01:02:59,112
I mean, that is the core of
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."

1180
01:03:00,613 --> 01:03:03,516
If we don't get some
of these priorities straight

1181
01:03:03,683 --> 01:03:05,985
with respect
to how we treat other people,

1182
01:03:06,152 --> 01:03:07,954
how we treat our environment,

1183
01:03:09,122 --> 01:03:10,623
we're going to cease
to exist.

1184
01:03:11,491 --> 01:03:13,326
I could see this
as being critical

1185
01:03:13,460 --> 01:03:16,363
to the evolution
of the species, frankly.

1186
01:03:19,299 --> 01:03:21,670
[P. Stamets] You wouldn't go
hiking the Himalaya mountains

1187
01:03:21,234 --> 01:03:22,535
without any preparation.

1188
01:03:22,669 --> 01:03:24,137
Well, this is a journey.

1189
01:03:25,380 --> 01:03:26,506
These are sacraments
and medicines

1190
01:03:26,673 --> 01:03:28,375
that should be treated
with respect

1191
01:03:28,541 --> 01:03:29,843
and caution.

1192
01:03:35,415 --> 01:03:39,185
Consider it to be going
to your own personal church.

1193
01:03:39,319 --> 01:03:42,880
You're going to sit
in awe of the universe.

1194
01:04:16,256 --> 01:04:18,224
[Bossis] We have a new study,
which is kind of remarkable.

1195
01:04:18,391 --> 01:04:19,893
It's work
with religious leaders.

1196
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:22,429
These are ordained clergy
who have many traditions.

1197
01:04:22,595 --> 01:04:26,232
Christianity, Buddhism,
Judaism, Hinduism.

1198
01:04:26,399 --> 01:04:28,635
Since these experiences are
at the core

1199
01:04:28,802 --> 01:04:30,470
of the major
religions,

1200
01:04:30,637 --> 01:04:33,730
why not bring in
religious leaders

1201
01:04:33,239 --> 01:04:36,543
who spent their careers
studying this landscape

1202
01:04:36,710 --> 01:04:38,278
to have the experience?

1203
01:04:53,693 --> 01:04:56,529
-[phone vibrating]
-[Stamets] You guys hear that?

1204
01:04:56,696 --> 01:04:57,997
-You didn't?
-[man] Vibrating?

1205
01:04:58,164 --> 01:04:59,866
Vibrating.
Phone call was coming in.

1206
01:05:00,330 --> 01:05:01,000
There she goes.

1207
01:05:02,335 --> 01:05:04,437
Message from Mom.

1208
01:05:04,604 --> 01:05:06,206
Inbound message
from Mother.

1209
01:05:06,373 --> 01:05:08,341
I think
I had the best of all mothers.

1210
01:05:08,508 --> 01:05:10,477
My mother was extremely kind.

1211
01:05:14,381 --> 01:05:17,150
[cheering and applause]

1212
01:05:18,184 --> 01:05:22,455
So another mushroom
empowers the immune system

1213
01:05:22,622 --> 01:05:24,190
and this is turkey tails.

1214
01:05:24,324 --> 01:05:26,260
and turkey tail mushrooms
have also been used

1215
01:05:26,192 --> 01:05:28,128
for more than a thousand years.

1216
01:05:28,294 --> 01:05:33,330
This hit home to me very
personally, in June of 2009

1217
01:05:33,199 --> 01:05:35,368
when my 84-year-old mother
called me up

1218
01:05:35,535 --> 01:05:37,170
and said, "Paul,

1219
01:05:37,337 --> 01:05:39,139
I have something very serious
to talk to you about."

1220
01:05:39,305 --> 01:05:42,175
She said, "My right breast is
five times the size of my left.

1221
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:46,479
I have six swollen lymph glands
the size of walnuts,"

1222
01:05:46,646 --> 01:05:48,214
and her voice started shaking

1223
01:05:48,381 --> 01:05:50,150
and I'm not ashamed to admit
that I started crying.

1224
01:05:50,250 --> 01:05:53,186
She had stage four
breast cancer.

1225
01:05:53,353 --> 01:05:54,554
But then the doctor said,
"You know,

1226
01:05:54,721 --> 01:05:56,489
you're too old
to have radiation therapy.

1227
01:05:56,656 --> 01:05:58,558
You can't have
your breasts removed.

1228
01:05:58,725 --> 01:06:01,161
But there's an interesting study
on turkey tail mushrooms

1229
01:06:01,327 --> 01:06:02,529
at Bastyr Medical School.

1230
01:06:02,696 --> 01:06:05,650
You might want
to try taking those."

1231
01:06:05,231 --> 01:06:06,332
And that's when my buddy goes,

1232
01:06:06,499 --> 01:06:08,201
"Well, my son's
supplying those."

1233
01:06:08,368 --> 01:06:12,238
So she was put on Taxol
and Herceptin, wonderful drugs.

1234
01:06:12,405 --> 01:06:13,540
And then she started taking

1235
01:06:13,707 --> 01:06:15,275
eight turkey tail capsules
a day.

1236
01:06:15,442 --> 01:06:18,440
Four in the morning
and four in the evening,

1237
01:06:18,211 --> 01:06:21,548
and that was in June of 2009.

1238
01:06:21,715 --> 01:06:26,519
And today, my mother
has no detectable tumors.

1239
01:06:26,653 --> 01:06:28,655
And I'd like
to bring my mother up.

1240
01:06:42,369 --> 01:06:45,238
You have to live through it
to believe it.

1241
01:06:46,473 --> 01:06:48,408
Hey, by the way, thank you
for giving birth to me.

1242
01:06:48,575 --> 01:06:49,676
I really appreciate that.

1243
01:06:49,876 --> 01:06:52,145
Oh, you haven't
thanked me lately?

1244
01:06:56,820 --> 01:06:58,318
[P. Stamets] It has been
reported in literature that

1245
01:06:58,485 --> 01:07:00,353
medicinal mushrooms
like turkey tail

1246
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:02,622
help chemotherapeutic agents
work better.

1247
01:07:02,756 --> 01:07:04,624
And I think
she's a living example of that.

1248
01:07:13,466 --> 01:07:16,360
One can argue with me
on the statistics,

1249
01:07:16,169 --> 01:07:17,504
but my mother's alive,

1250
01:07:17,671 --> 01:07:19,706
and all the doctors
that saw her

1251
01:07:19,873 --> 01:07:22,475
did not believe
that she would survive.

1252
01:07:37,157 --> 01:07:38,391
[man] It is my great honor...

1253
01:07:39,359 --> 01:07:41,528
to introduce Paul Stamets.

1254
01:07:41,695 --> 01:07:45,650
[cheering and applause]

1255
01:07:48,468 --> 01:07:50,470
I have brought
a fungal friend of mine

1256
01:07:50,637 --> 01:07:51,304
from the old-growth forest

1257
01:07:52,372 --> 01:07:56,309
and I present to you...
agarikon.

1258
01:07:56,476 --> 01:07:59,179
[cheering and applause]

1259
01:08:02,482 --> 01:08:04,651
Agarikon was described
in 65 A.D.

1260
01:08:04,818 --> 01:08:07,220
as elixirium ad longam vitam.

1261
01:08:07,387 --> 01:08:08,755
The elixir of long life.

1262
01:08:11,391 --> 01:08:13,930
So I want to take you

1263
01:08:13,259 --> 01:08:15,362
on a magical mushroom
mystery tour.

1264
01:08:17,497 --> 01:08:19,833
and I'm going to push
the envelope here, folks.

1265
01:08:20,734 --> 01:08:24,571
Microdiversity
is biodiversity.

1266
01:08:24,738 --> 01:08:27,707
You will decompose.
I'm going to decompose.

1267
01:08:28,608 --> 01:08:29,709
We're all going to die.

1268
01:08:31,411 --> 01:08:32,779
That's okay,

1269
01:08:32,912 --> 01:08:36,116
because we will enter
into the micro-verse.

1270
01:08:37,884 --> 01:08:40,420
We will forever exist together

1271
01:08:40,587 --> 01:08:43,256
within
the micromolecular matrix.

1272
01:08:43,423 --> 01:08:45,191
[Lincoff]
When he talks the way he does,

1273
01:08:45,358 --> 01:08:46,292
he Is...

1274
01:08:47,694 --> 01:08:50,363
channeling the mycelium.

1275
01:08:50,530 --> 01:08:52,699
And this is a marvelous thing.

1276
01:08:52,866 --> 01:08:54,200
Brain neurons,

1277
01:08:54,367 --> 01:08:55,201
mycelium,

1278
01:08:55,368 --> 01:08:57,470
the computer internet,

1279
01:08:57,637 --> 01:09:01,574
the organization of the universe
all shares the same archetype.

1280
01:09:01,741 --> 01:09:04,811
I believe
matter begets life.

1281
01:09:04,978 --> 01:09:06,713
Life becomes single cells.

1282
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:08,715
Single cells
form chains.

1283
01:09:08,882 --> 01:09:10,884
Chains forms branches.

1284
01:09:11,510 --> 01:09:17,624
Matrices form interlocking,
intercepting mosaics of mycelium

1285
01:09:17,791 --> 01:09:21,261
and mycelium-like organisms
ebb and flow

1286
01:09:21,428 --> 01:09:22,762
not only on this planet,

1287
01:09:22,896 --> 01:09:25,398
on other planets
into the future.

1288
01:09:25,565 --> 01:09:26,833
Thank you very much.

1289
01:09:33,840 --> 01:09:35,909
Paul was wonderful
in bringing us information

1290
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:38,345
about all these
aspects of mushrooms

1291
01:09:39,790 --> 01:09:41,414
and that it inspired
all these young people.

1292
01:09:41,581 --> 01:09:43,283
Now we have people
like Tradd Cotter

1293
01:09:43,450 --> 01:09:45,251
carrying on the great work
that Paul started,

1294
01:09:45,418 --> 01:09:47,354
talking about biopesticides,

1295
01:09:47,520 --> 01:09:49,823
talking about the ways
you could detoxify oil.

1296
01:09:49,989 --> 01:09:52,459
All of these amazing things
were started

1297
01:09:52,625 --> 01:09:53,793
because people like Paul

1298
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:55,795
brought that
to the culture at large

1299
01:09:55,962 --> 01:09:57,497
and young people now
have taken up the cause

1300
01:09:57,664 --> 01:09:59,933
and are really expanding
our insights

1301
01:10:00,100 --> 01:10:02,535
into what the world of mushrooms
can do for us.

1302
01:10:02,702 --> 01:10:03,970
Hi, my name's Peter

1303
01:10:04,137 --> 01:10:05,705
and I'm with the radical
mycology project.

1304
01:10:05,872 --> 01:10:06,973
I recently trained a mushroom

1305
01:10:07,140 --> 01:10:09,209
to digest
used cigarette filters.

1306
01:10:09,376 --> 01:10:10,643
Paul Stamets's book
Mycelium Running

1307
01:10:10,810 --> 01:10:12,746
got my mind sort of in a whirl.

1308
01:10:12,912 --> 01:10:14,347
That was when I first discovered
that

1309
01:10:14,514 --> 01:10:16,549
there was much more to mushrooms

1310
01:10:16,716 --> 01:10:17,751
than just food.

1311
01:10:19,419 --> 01:10:20,687
If you would have seen me

1312
01:10:20,854 --> 01:10:21,755
when I dropped out
of high school,

1313
01:10:21,921 --> 01:10:23,356
I was just making
rap music.

1314
01:10:23,523 --> 01:10:24,891
I knew very little
about the natural world.

1315
01:10:25,580 --> 01:10:27,927
I had never even went
on a hike until I was 18,

1316
01:10:28,610 --> 01:10:29,696
but finding Paul Stamets's
TED talk video

1317
01:10:29,863 --> 01:10:32,332
was one of the biggest
inspirations that pushed me

1318
01:10:32,499 --> 01:10:34,701
Into the wonderful world
of mycology.

1319
01:10:34,868 --> 01:10:36,336
My first mushroom book

1320
01:10:36,503 --> 01:10:37,437
was [he Mushroom Cultivator

1321
01:10:37,604 --> 01:10:38,872
by Paul Stamets.

1322
01:10:39,390 --> 01:10:41,274
I will be eternally thankful
to him

1323
01:10:41,441 --> 01:10:44,577
for showing me that it's okay
to be mushroom mad.

1324
01:10:45,679 --> 01:10:48,281
[Lori Cariss] We really don't
even know most fungi.

1325
01:10:48,448 --> 01:10:51,510
We're discovering new species
on a daily basis

1326
01:10:51,217 --> 01:10:53,586
and you dont have to go
to exotic locations

1327
01:10:53,753 --> 01:10:54,587
to discover them.

1328
01:10:56,560 --> 01:10:57,524
[McCoy]
Anybody can add to the science,

1329
01:10:57,691 --> 01:10:59,250
from identifying a new species

1330
01:10:59,192 --> 01:11:01,695
to developing
a new micro-mediation protocol.

1331
01:11:01,861 --> 01:11:04,931
[Cariss] There is a great need
for more people to study fungi

1332
01:11:05,980 --> 01:11:07,867
and there's lots
of opportunities.

1333
01:11:07,967 --> 01:11:09,869
[Cotter] It's amazing what
we don't know about mushrooms.

1334
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:12,380
They really are a frontier
of knowledge.

1335
01:11:12,205 --> 01:11:15,775
They probably can help us
solve all sorts of problems

1336
01:11:15,942 --> 01:11:17,911
if we look a little deeper.

1337
01:11:18,440 --> 01:11:20,547
Anyone, anyone can help

1338
01:11:20,714 --> 01:11:21,881
by going and walking
in the woods

1339
01:11:22,480 --> 01:11:23,717
and contributing
to mycology.

1340
01:11:23,883 --> 01:11:26,319
You may have found a species
that has never been found.

1341
01:11:27,987 --> 01:11:29,656
We need these mushrooms.

1342
01:11:29,823 --> 01:11:33,560
We work together as a community
to solve problems.

1343
01:11:33,727 --> 01:11:37,497
We could be the community
that heals the planet.

1344
01:11:38,631 --> 01:11:41,334
[P. Stamets] It's been estimated
two-thirds of our food supply

1345
01:11:41,501 --> 01:11:43,737
Is bee-pollinated-dependent.

1346
01:11:43,903 --> 01:11:46,473
Unfortunately, we're losing bees
across the world

1347
01:11:46,639 --> 01:11:48,508
in a dramatic die-off
that is very dangerous

1348
01:11:48,675 --> 01:11:50,744
for the biosecurity
of this planet.

1349
01:11:51,945 --> 01:11:54,140
So I started exploring ways
to help save the bees

1350
01:11:54,180 --> 01:11:55,682
and I noticed
in the summertime

1351
01:11:55,849 --> 01:11:57,450
there's a continuous convoy
of bees

1352
01:11:57,617 --> 01:11:59,886
going from my beehives
to my mycelium.

1353
01:12:00,530 --> 01:12:01,788
But then it dawned on me,

1354
01:12:01,955 --> 01:12:04,491
maybe the bees are benefiting
from the mycelial extracts

1355
01:12:04,657 --> 01:12:06,726
because they have
antiviral properties.

1356
01:12:06,893 --> 01:12:09,396
And so I cultured the most
aggressive strains

1357
01:12:09,562 --> 01:12:10,864
and then submitted them.

1358
01:12:11,310 --> 01:12:13,333
We started testing the effects
of these extracts

1359
01:12:13,500 --> 01:12:15,680
In helping bees survive.

1360
01:12:16,136 --> 01:12:18,405
[Nicholas Naeger] Some of these
fungal extracts are really good

1361
01:12:18,571 --> 01:12:21,341
at reducing viral levels
in the bee.

1362
01:12:21,474 --> 01:12:22,742
So here we have a fungus

1363
01:12:22,909 --> 01:12:24,878
that is helping fight viruses

1364
01:12:25,450 --> 01:12:26,379
in an insect.

1365
01:12:26,546 --> 01:12:27,714
[man] We're using mushrooms
to create

1366
01:12:27,881 --> 01:12:29,716
an entirely new class
of materials

1367
01:12:29,849 --> 01:12:32,585
which are totally compostable
at the end of their lives.

1368
01:12:34,554 --> 01:12:35,355
[woman]
The researchers found that

1369
01:12:35,522 --> 01:12:36,389
when they heated

1370
01:12:36,556 --> 01:12:37,691
a portobello mushroom skin

1371
01:12:37,857 --> 01:12:39,359
to roughly 2,000 degrees
Fahrenheit,

1372
01:12:39,526 --> 01:12:41,561
it became a lattice
of carbon nano ribbon

1373
01:12:41,728 --> 01:12:43,329
that could be used
in battery design

1374
01:12:43,496 --> 01:12:45,398
because it allows a good amount
of surface area

1375
01:12:45,565 --> 01:12:46,833
for storing energy.

1376
01:12:47,000 --> 01:12:48,101
[Cotter]
You can filter water.

1377
01:12:49,235 --> 01:12:52,500
You can create medicinal
compounds almost on demand.

1378
01:12:52,172 --> 01:12:53,673
We've worked In Haiti,

1379
01:12:53,840 --> 01:12:55,408
and they look at you
like I have super powers.

1380
01:12:56,142 --> 01:12:57,610
Well, I tell them, I said,

1381
01:12:57,777 --> 01:12:59,779
"You are about
to have superpowers too."

1382
01:13:01,114 --> 01:13:03,416
[Brown] Coming from the background
of not having any training,

1383
01:13:03,583 --> 01:13:05,785
getting myself into the lab
was very empowering.

1384
01:13:05,952 --> 01:13:07,721
I felt like a Superhero.
I felt like I could do anything.

1385
01:13:09,489 --> 01:13:11,391
You're officially
a mushroom farmer.

1386
01:13:12,792 --> 01:13:14,494
Sporulating.
Sporgasm.

1387
01:13:14,661 --> 01:13:17,964
[Lincoff] I see my species
as part of a larger whole.

1388
01:13:18,131 --> 01:13:20,467
Rather than being at the top
of the pyramid,

1389
01:13:20,633 --> 01:13:23,737
being one of the organisms
with inside the circle.

1390
01:13:24,637 --> 01:13:27,907
and the circle
is made up of mycelium,

1391
01:13:28,740 --> 01:13:29,642
holding us all together.

1392
01:13:37,784 --> 01:13:40,820
[Simard] We've always thought of
plants as these inert objects,

1393
01:13:40,987 --> 01:13:43,823
these things that don't
actually interact with each other

1394
01:13:43,990 --> 01:13:45,759
and build things,

1395
01:13:45,925 --> 01:13:48,128
and what my work is showing,
and other people's work as well,

1396
01:13:48,261 --> 01:13:50,864
it's saying actually,
they need each other.

1397
01:13:51,998 --> 01:13:54,601
They need each other
to grow in a community

1398
01:13:54,768 --> 01:13:56,669
so that they can start sharing
the load.

1399
01:13:57,670 --> 01:13:59,773
You do this, I'll do that,
and together,

1400
01:13:59,873 --> 01:14:02,142
we can make a beautiful
resilient community.

1401
01:14:04,878 --> 01:14:06,646
They have incredible capacity

1402
01:14:06,813 --> 01:14:09,449
to make things change
very, very quickly.

1403
01:14:09,616 --> 01:14:10,817
So if we can work with them,

1404
01:14:10,984 --> 01:14:12,986
if we get it, you know?
lf humans get it,

1405
01:14:13,153 --> 01:14:15,622
we can change this thing
really fast.

1406
01:14:15,789 --> 01:14:17,457
So I am super hopeful.

1407
01:14:17,624 --> 01:14:20,126
We just got to get busy
and help nature do its thing.

1408
01:14:26,320 --> 01:14:27,634
Evolution never stops.

1409
01:14:27,801 --> 01:14:29,169
There's not one point
that it happens

1410
01:14:29,335 --> 01:14:30,670
and then
it doesn't happen again.

1411
01:14:30,837 --> 01:14:32,505
It's continuously happening.

1412
01:14:38,110 --> 01:14:39,779
The core concept of evolution

1413
01:14:39,946 --> 01:14:41,414
is that
through natural selection,

1414
01:14:41,548 --> 01:14:44,517
the strongest
and the fittest survive.

1415
01:14:44,684 --> 01:14:45,919
But moreover,

1416
01:14:46,860 --> 01:14:49,422
communities survive better
than individuals.

1417
01:14:49,589 --> 01:14:51,691
Communities rely
upon cooperation,

1418
01:14:51,858 --> 01:14:54,270
and I think
that's the power of goodness.

1419
01:14:55,862 --> 01:14:57,130
Evolution is based

1420
01:14:57,297 --> 01:15:00,400
on the concept
of mutual benefit,

1421
01:15:00,567 --> 01:15:03,103
and the extension
of generosity.

1422
01:15:06,606 --> 01:15:09,476
[Simard] When we see it,
we understand it.

1423
01:15:09,642 --> 01:15:11,611
And when we understand it,
we care about it.

1424
01:15:11,778 --> 01:15:12,879
And when we care about It,

1425
01:15:13,460 --> 01:15:14,714
we'll do something
to help save it.

1426
01:15:15,882 --> 01:15:18,618
We need to have a paradigm shift
in our consciousness.

1427
01:15:18,785 --> 01:15:20,530
What will tt take
to achieve that?

1428
01:15:24,224 --> 01:15:26,626
We are not an individual.

1429
01:15:26,793 --> 01:15:28,595
We are a vast network

1430
01:15:28,762 --> 01:15:32,465
of molecules
and energies and wavelengths.

1431
01:15:32,632 --> 01:15:36,690
The interconnectedness of being
is who we are.

1432
01:15:40,974 --> 01:15:44,110
[narrator] This world of ours
is always changing,

1433
01:15:44,277 --> 01:15:46,513
not for the better
or for the worse,

1434
01:15:47,947 --> 01:15:50,160
but for life.

1435
01:15:50,183 --> 01:15:53,653
If the storms come
and the water rises,

1436
01:15:53,820 --> 01:15:56,623
if fire scorches the land,

1437
01:15:56,790 --> 01:15:58,792
or darkness descends,

1438
01:15:58,958 --> 01:15:59,993
we will be here

1439
01:16:01,294 --> 01:16:03,463
working,

1440
01:16:03,630 --> 01:16:05,310
as we always have.

1441
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:08,101
Extending the network.

1442
01:16:08,268 --> 01:16:10,170
Building community.

1443
01:16:10,336 --> 01:16:12,380
Restoring balance.

1444
01:16:13,940 --> 01:16:15,942
One connection at a time.

1445
01:16:18,978 --> 01:16:21,648
It may take a million years,

1446
01:16:21,815 --> 01:16:23,160
or a hundred million,

1447
01:16:23,950 --> 01:16:28,210
but we will still be here.

1448
01:17:28,615 --> 01:17:31,685
Lieutenant Paul Stamets.

1449
01:17:31,785 --> 01:17:35,255
I became an astral mycologist
because of awe.

1450
01:17:35,422 --> 01:17:37,590
Awe at the miracle of life.

1451
01:17:37,757 --> 01:17:39,250
[TV host] How did you feel

1452
01:17:39,192 --> 01:17:40,960
seeing a fictional
character on Star Trek

1453
01:17:41,127 --> 01:17:43,296
that is inspired
by your science?

1454
01:17:43,430 --> 01:17:45,131
I'm super honored.

1455
01:17:45,298 --> 01:17:47,267
I tuned into Star Trek
when I was about 12 years old.

1456
01:17:47,434 --> 01:17:50,103
Spores by their nature
travel through the cosmos.

1457
01:17:50,270 --> 01:17:52,806
When they germinate,
some mushrooms form.

1458
01:17:52,972 --> 01:17:56,276
Some magic mushrooms help you
bend time and space.

1459
01:17:57,911 --> 01:18:00,947
[TV host] So, uh,
if I were to visit you...

1460
01:18:01,114 --> 01:18:03,783
could we have some
of these magic mushrooms?

1461
01:18:04,551 --> 01:18:06,219
[P. Stamets] Nature provides.
I don''t.

1462
01:18:06,386 --> 01:18:09,422
[laughter]

1463
01:18:09,589 --> 01:18:12,726
♪ ♪