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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:18,750 --> 00:00:20,300 There's a feeling, 2 00:00:23,110 --> 00:00:25,163 the pulse of eternal knowledge. 3 00:00:29,060 --> 00:00:31,374 When you sense the oneness, 4 00:00:33,783 --> 00:00:35,016 you are with us. 5 00:00:37,530 --> 00:00:39,113 We brought life to Earth. 6 00:00:45,730 --> 00:00:50,173 You can't see us, but we flourish all around you. 7 00:00:51,690 --> 00:00:55,283 Everywhere, in everything, 8 00:00:59,300 --> 00:01:01,011 and even inside you, 9 00:01:02,890 --> 00:01:04,993 whether you believe in us or not. 10 00:01:08,670 --> 00:01:11,697 From your first breath, to your last. 11 00:01:14,410 --> 00:01:16,713 In darkness, and in the light. 12 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,700 We are the oldest, and youngest. 13 00:01:21,700 --> 00:01:25,450 We are the largest, and smallest. 14 00:01:25,450 --> 00:01:28,523 We are the wisdom of a billion years. 15 00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:31,200 We are creation. 16 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,810 We are resurrection, condemnation, and regeneration. 17 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:38,620 We are mushrooms. 18 00:01:56,547 --> 00:01:59,510 - Mushrooms are very clandestine 19 00:01:59,510 --> 00:02:01,643 and very much the trickster. 20 00:02:03,170 --> 00:02:04,973 So, they're hiding from you all the time. 21 00:02:09,470 --> 00:02:11,143 We're in Agarikon territory now, 22 00:02:12,067 --> 00:02:13,967 there's some big living stags up here. 23 00:02:16,650 --> 00:02:19,440 It's always interesting and exhilarating 24 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:20,460 to be in the old growth forest, 25 00:02:20,460 --> 00:02:23,670 but not always rewarding in accomplishing our mission 26 00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:25,643 to find a new Agarikon strain. 27 00:02:26,690 --> 00:02:30,892 But nevertheless, it beats being in the office. 28 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,130 Fungi are the grand molecular decomposers of nature. 29 00:02:38,130 --> 00:02:38,963 Now, what does that mean? 30 00:02:38,963 --> 00:02:40,980 Well, they break down wood. 31 00:02:40,980 --> 00:02:42,660 And here I'm laying in the forest, 32 00:02:42,660 --> 00:02:45,140 haven't peeked yet, but here's a piece of wood 33 00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:46,770 laying down on the ground. 34 00:02:46,770 --> 00:02:48,770 If I were laying down on the ground, and I died, 35 00:02:48,770 --> 00:02:51,713 fungi would leap up to recycle me 36 00:02:51,713 --> 00:02:52,926 and that's the way of nature. 37 00:03:05,260 --> 00:03:10,260 Mushrooms represent rebirth, rejuvenation, regeneration. 38 00:03:15,790 --> 00:03:20,063 Fungi generate soil that gives life. 39 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:24,570 The task that we face today 40 00:03:24,570 --> 00:03:27,330 is to understand the language of nature. 41 00:03:27,330 --> 00:03:29,310 My mission is to discover the language 42 00:03:29,310 --> 00:03:30,840 of nature of the fungal networks 43 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:32,640 that communicate with the ecosystem. 44 00:03:35,530 --> 00:03:37,973 And I believe nature is intelligent. 45 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:45,110 The fact that we lack the language skills 46 00:03:45,110 --> 00:03:48,290 to communicate with nature does not impugn 47 00:03:48,290 --> 00:03:50,600 the concept that nature's intelligent. 48 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,919 It speaks to our inadequacy for communication. 49 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:07,070 If we don't get our act together 50 00:04:07,070 --> 00:04:08,740 and come in commonality and understanding 51 00:04:08,740 --> 00:04:11,400 with the organisms that sustain us today, 52 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:14,340 not only will we destroy those organisms, 53 00:04:14,340 --> 00:04:15,840 but we will destroy ourselves. 54 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,820 - Mushroom, it's not like a vegetable 55 00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:32,093 and it's not like a animal, but it's somewhere in between. 56 00:04:34,610 --> 00:04:37,855 The fungus is it's own kingdom all together. 57 00:04:47,932 --> 00:04:50,682 There's over 1.5 million species. 58 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:54,690 That's six times more than plants. 59 00:04:54,690 --> 00:04:57,530 Of all those species of fungi, 60 00:04:57,530 --> 00:05:01,320 about 20,000 produce mushrooms, 61 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:04,850 and mushrooms come in an incredible diversity 62 00:05:04,850 --> 00:05:08,823 of shapes and sizes and colors and lifestyles. 63 00:05:10,070 --> 00:05:12,673 There are even bioluminescent mushrooms. 64 00:05:18,380 --> 00:05:21,645 A lot of people are afraid of mushrooms. 65 00:05:25,630 --> 00:05:28,270 People associate mushrooms and fungi, 66 00:05:28,270 --> 00:05:31,773 you know, mold, with death and decay, which makes sense. 67 00:05:34,970 --> 00:05:38,080 You know, there's a lot of fear because of fungi's role 68 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:39,593 in the cycle of life. 69 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:46,420 They decompose dead and dying organisms 70 00:05:46,420 --> 00:05:49,683 and move all those nutrients back into the cycle. 71 00:05:51,430 --> 00:05:54,510 They kind of are at the very end of stuff, 72 00:05:54,510 --> 00:05:56,210 but they're also at the beginning. 73 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:03,323 - Once you start working with mushrooms, you get drawn in. 74 00:06:04,350 --> 00:06:07,120 A really important difference between plants and fungi 75 00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:10,013 is that plants have evolved to catch your eye. 76 00:06:13,750 --> 00:06:16,010 When a tomato gets red it is saying, 77 00:06:16,010 --> 00:06:17,703 hey, I'm ready, come get me. 78 00:06:19,750 --> 00:06:21,889 The mushrooms don't give a shit. 79 00:06:22,722 --> 00:06:26,093 They're doing their own thing and a lot of them are hiding. 80 00:06:29,670 --> 00:06:31,410 Every time you pick up a mushroom, 81 00:06:31,410 --> 00:06:34,000 you are faced with the omnivore's dilemma. 82 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:35,750 Do I know enough to eat this? 83 00:06:35,750 --> 00:06:37,293 Should I eat this? 84 00:06:37,293 --> 00:06:38,880 Will this kill me? 85 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:40,340 - And that's one of the reason why people 86 00:06:40,340 --> 00:06:42,670 are freaked out about mushrooms, because, yeah, 87 00:06:42,670 --> 00:06:44,460 there are ones that can kill you. 88 00:06:44,460 --> 00:06:46,940 There are some that will take out your liver 89 00:06:46,940 --> 00:06:49,760 or your kidneys, but to be honest with you there's berries 90 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:51,440 in the woods that can kill you, too. 91 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:54,076 So it's, it's really a matter of knowing your mushrooms. 92 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,890 There's a huge subculture of mycofiles, 93 00:06:58,890 --> 00:07:01,180 of people who are fascinated with mushrooms. 94 00:07:01,180 --> 00:07:02,480 They hunt mushrooms together 95 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:03,920 and they eat mushrooms together, 96 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:06,310 and they are sort of bloated pleasure seekers 97 00:07:06,310 --> 00:07:07,680 with a scientific bent. 98 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:09,393 You know, really my kind of crowd. 99 00:07:10,438 --> 00:07:11,987 Is that tricholoma? 100 00:07:11,987 --> 00:07:13,992 Grifola frondosa. 101 00:07:13,992 --> 00:07:16,906 This is Cortinarius. 102 00:07:16,906 --> 00:07:18,720 Agaricus bisporus. 103 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:20,990 - That's a Cladonia lichen. 104 00:07:20,990 --> 00:07:23,440 - So I started attending these festivals and forays 105 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:25,030 and learning more and more. 106 00:07:25,030 --> 00:07:27,453 It changed the way I saw everything. 107 00:07:28,460 --> 00:07:31,980 Mushrooms actually were the window by which 108 00:07:31,980 --> 00:07:34,253 I came to understand nature in a deeper way. 109 00:07:36,030 --> 00:07:37,860 - If we didn't have Fungi, 110 00:07:37,860 --> 00:07:40,210 we would get this build up of plant matter 111 00:07:40,210 --> 00:07:42,410 that would choke the Earth. 112 00:07:42,410 --> 00:07:44,380 I mean they really are the key. 113 00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:46,620 They break down plant life and make it usable 114 00:07:46,620 --> 00:07:49,020 for new plant life and for animal life. 115 00:07:51,020 --> 00:07:54,433 - They are the digestive tracks of the forest. 116 00:07:56,310 --> 00:08:00,640 One of the lifestyles of fungi is the decomposers 117 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,423 called saprobres, or rotters, if you want. 118 00:08:06,010 --> 00:08:08,910 The yeasts and molds used in making beer 119 00:08:08,910 --> 00:08:12,520 and wine and cheese are all saprobes. 120 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:14,680 That's actually a penicillin mold 121 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:16,563 in Gorgonzola and Roquefort. 122 00:08:17,670 --> 00:08:20,073 Bourbon is fungi fermented corn. 123 00:08:21,260 --> 00:08:26,040 But this ability to break things down is a talent, 124 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:30,660 if you will, that can be harnessed to help us deal 125 00:08:30,660 --> 00:08:33,963 with some of our problems like pollution. 126 00:08:35,340 --> 00:08:39,893 These rotters, they can break down anything that's natural. 127 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:42,170 That's what they have evolved to do, 128 00:08:42,170 --> 00:08:44,480 anything that's hydrocarbon based. 129 00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:47,233 So that includes stuff like oil spills. 130 00:08:48,220 --> 00:08:49,600 Pollutant problems. 131 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:51,940 That's kind of the truth of it. 132 00:08:51,940 --> 00:08:54,930 - I was a part of this experiment. 133 00:08:54,930 --> 00:08:57,340 There were four piles saturated with diesel 134 00:08:57,340 --> 00:08:58,790 and other petroleum waste. 135 00:08:58,790 --> 00:09:02,830 One was a control pile, one pile was treated with enzymes, 136 00:09:02,830 --> 00:09:05,360 one pile, treated with bacteria and our pile 137 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:07,750 we inoculated with mushroom spores. 138 00:09:07,750 --> 00:09:10,800 The fungi absorbs the oil. 139 00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:13,620 The fungi is producing enzymes for oxidases 140 00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:16,280 that break carbon hydrogen bonds. 141 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:17,160 These are the same bonds 142 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:19,180 that hold hydrogen carbons together, 143 00:09:19,180 --> 00:09:21,770 so the fungi becomes saturated with the oil. 144 00:09:21,770 --> 00:09:24,130 And then, when we returned six weeks later, 145 00:09:24,130 --> 00:09:25,240 all the tarps were removed, 146 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:27,300 all the other piles were dead dark and stinky. 147 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:28,590 We come back to our pile and it's covered 148 00:09:28,590 --> 00:09:31,030 with hundreds of pounds of oyster mushrooms. 149 00:09:31,030 --> 00:09:32,453 Some of these mushrooms are very happy mushrooms, 150 00:09:32,453 --> 00:09:34,520 they're very large. 151 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:36,550 They're showing how much nutrition that they could obtain, 152 00:09:36,550 --> 00:09:40,220 but something else happened which is an epiphany in my life. 153 00:09:40,220 --> 00:09:43,253 They sporulated, the spores attract insects, 154 00:09:44,300 --> 00:09:47,610 birds then came, bringing in seeds and our pile 155 00:09:47,610 --> 00:09:48,810 became an oasis of life. 156 00:09:55,460 --> 00:09:59,080 - Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi, 157 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,360 so the mushroom is like the apple. 158 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,730 The bulk of the organism is growing underground 159 00:10:04,730 --> 00:10:08,560 and it's composed of these long threads. 160 00:10:08,560 --> 00:10:11,080 These threads grow one cell at a time 161 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,490 and then they branch and re-branch, 162 00:10:13,490 --> 00:10:15,530 growing in every direction they can, 163 00:10:15,530 --> 00:10:17,640 even three dimensionally. 164 00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:22,640 And that mass of threads is called a mycelium. 165 00:10:22,895 --> 00:10:24,920 A stick falls onto the ground, 166 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:27,123 you pull it up and there's mycelium. 167 00:10:28,994 --> 00:10:30,563 It is virtually everywhere. 168 00:10:31,470 --> 00:10:33,890 - A mycelium has more networks than our brain 169 00:10:33,890 --> 00:10:38,060 has neural pathways, and works in much the same way, 170 00:10:38,060 --> 00:10:40,573 with electrolytes, electrical pulses. 171 00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:43,610 They're the most common species on Earth, 172 00:10:43,610 --> 00:10:44,560 they're everywhere. 173 00:10:46,270 --> 00:10:48,490 - Just to give you an idea of how much fungi 174 00:10:48,490 --> 00:10:50,140 are in the forest, as you're walking through, 175 00:10:50,140 --> 00:10:52,510 there's about 300 miles of fungi, 176 00:10:52,510 --> 00:10:54,460 under every footstep that you take 177 00:10:54,460 --> 00:10:57,216 and that's all over the world. 178 00:11:00,630 --> 00:11:02,560 And they form these massive links, 179 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:06,533 it's like a big web just growing through the forest. 180 00:11:18,020 --> 00:11:22,060 - Mycelium that can grow out even just this big 181 00:11:22,060 --> 00:11:25,540 can have trillions, literally trillions of end branchings. 182 00:11:25,540 --> 00:11:27,870 Almost everyone knows about the computer Internet. 183 00:11:27,870 --> 00:11:30,523 The mycelium shares the same network design. 184 00:11:35,430 --> 00:11:36,520 Trees are communicating 185 00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:39,050 using the mycelium as pathways. 186 00:11:39,050 --> 00:11:41,240 They are connecting one tree to another. 187 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,040 They're using the mycelium, too, to feed one another, 188 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,920 in other words one tree can swap nutrients 189 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:50,777 with another tree using mycelium as the passage way. 190 00:12:05,300 --> 00:12:07,210 - So we often think of kin recognition 191 00:12:07,210 --> 00:12:08,840 as an animal behavior. 192 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:10,550 Humans, you know, we love our babies, 193 00:12:10,550 --> 00:12:11,530 we know it's our baby 194 00:12:11,530 --> 00:12:13,400 and we're gonna look after that baby. 195 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:15,600 Well, we never thought that plants could do that, 196 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:17,940 but we're finding in our research that plants 197 00:12:17,940 --> 00:12:19,690 can recognize their own kin. 198 00:12:19,690 --> 00:12:21,830 So these mother trees recognize their kin 199 00:12:21,830 --> 00:12:23,680 through their mycorrhizal networks. 200 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,540 The mother tree and the baby seedlings are sending signals, 201 00:12:26,540 --> 00:12:27,991 talking to each other. 202 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:37,680 When they're connected together and carbon 203 00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:39,120 is moving between plants, 204 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,940 the trees are supporting the weaker ones. 205 00:12:41,940 --> 00:12:43,740 If she knows that there's pests around 206 00:12:43,740 --> 00:12:45,050 and that she's under danger, 207 00:12:45,050 --> 00:12:47,210 she will increase her competitive environment 208 00:12:47,210 --> 00:12:50,570 towards her own babies so that they regenerate further away. 209 00:12:50,570 --> 00:12:54,050 It's a magical thing, and this could not happen 210 00:12:54,050 --> 00:12:55,384 without the fungi. 211 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,540 - I'm not the super-idealist tree hugger. 212 00:13:07,540 --> 00:13:08,830 I do hug trees occasionally. 213 00:13:08,830 --> 00:13:10,990 I do confess to that, but I was a logger. 214 00:13:10,990 --> 00:13:12,646 I cut the woods. 215 00:13:22,070 --> 00:13:25,630 - Damn, we got a two for one on that one! 216 00:13:25,630 --> 00:13:28,600 Cutting down these trees and we're going to let them rot! 217 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:30,050 But we're letting them rot with a purpose. 218 00:13:30,050 --> 00:13:31,820 We're letting them rot with shiitake mushrooms, 219 00:13:31,820 --> 00:13:34,325 which are delicious and medicinal. 220 00:13:34,325 --> 00:13:35,207 Yes! 221 00:13:35,207 --> 00:13:39,410 - September '74, Paul was working as a logger in Darrington. 222 00:13:40,420 --> 00:13:41,730 I went up to visit him one weekend 223 00:13:41,730 --> 00:13:43,550 and we were out walking in the woods 224 00:13:43,550 --> 00:13:45,780 and I start showing him all these mushrooms. 225 00:13:45,780 --> 00:13:47,570 You know, he said, "What are those?" 226 00:13:47,570 --> 00:13:49,650 And I said, "Looking at mushrooms, for the first time." 227 00:13:49,650 --> 00:13:50,680 We came around the corner 228 00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:52,150 and there's this purple mushroom, 229 00:13:52,150 --> 00:13:53,960 I'd never seen one like that before, 230 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:55,530 and it was just like a huge epiphany. 231 00:13:55,530 --> 00:13:58,020 Like, woo woo woo woo woo, you know? 232 00:13:58,020 --> 00:14:00,870 And that's where it began, he just never stopped. 233 00:14:00,870 --> 00:14:04,040 - These are old red bell hood polypores. 234 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:05,614 Elegant Polyporus. 235 00:14:05,614 --> 00:14:06,657 It's got a free stem. 236 00:14:06,657 --> 00:14:09,310 This is a delicious shrimp russula mushroom. 237 00:14:09,310 --> 00:14:10,730 Edible in choice. 238 00:14:10,730 --> 00:14:12,680 It grows here in the old-growth forest. 239 00:14:14,660 --> 00:14:18,723 - It's rare in science you have such powerful amateurs. 240 00:14:19,649 --> 00:14:21,580 The meaning of the word amateur is a lover. 241 00:14:21,580 --> 00:14:23,600 And, he loves his mushrooms. 242 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,090 And he's proven that amateurs can do 243 00:14:26,090 --> 00:14:28,440 really credible, important research. 244 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:30,570 And that used to be the case, the 19th century, 245 00:14:30,570 --> 00:14:33,390 obviously, you know, was full of great amateur naturalists, 246 00:14:33,390 --> 00:14:34,640 Darwin being one of them. 247 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:43,630 - He's handed over to this universal consciousness. 248 00:14:43,630 --> 00:14:45,563 That's where genius comes from. 249 00:14:47,110 --> 00:14:50,860 Every magnificent thing that humans have ever achieved 250 00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:52,253 comes from that place. 251 00:14:59,710 --> 00:15:03,430 - I grew up in a small town called Columbiana, Ohio. 252 00:15:03,430 --> 00:15:06,120 Very conservative, very religious. 253 00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,134 And my brother John went to Yale, 254 00:15:09,134 --> 00:15:10,560 and my brother Bill went to Cornell, 255 00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:12,813 so we were an academic family. 256 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:18,630 But I had a severe stuttering habit that greatly interfered 257 00:15:18,630 --> 00:15:21,090 with my ability to express myself. 258 00:15:21,090 --> 00:15:23,800 I went through six years of speech therapy. 259 00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:26,360 I could not speak a single sentence 260 00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:28,173 without stuttering profusely. 261 00:15:29,090 --> 00:15:31,623 And nothing in speech therapy could help me. 262 00:15:34,340 --> 00:15:38,040 I couldn't look at people in their eyes, so all my life, 263 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:39,570 I stared at the ground. 264 00:15:39,570 --> 00:15:42,340 Anybody came up to me, I'd stare at the ground. 265 00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:44,153 I found fossils and mushrooms. 266 00:15:59,810 --> 00:16:02,393 We are all of the stars. 267 00:16:03,690 --> 00:16:06,410 My kingdom was borne from the heavens 268 00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:08,933 four and a half billion years ago. 269 00:16:11,670 --> 00:16:13,173 We are the pioneers. 270 00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:18,190 We climbed out of the sea to create the fertile soil 271 00:16:20,370 --> 00:16:24,333 and set the stage for all of life. 272 00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:33,810 - In South Africa in the sediments of lava 273 00:16:33,810 --> 00:16:36,810 they have found fungus like organisms, 274 00:16:36,810 --> 00:16:39,020 mycelium fossils in the lava. 275 00:16:39,020 --> 00:16:42,090 2.4 billion years old. 276 00:16:42,090 --> 00:16:43,820 This is the oldest record 277 00:16:43,820 --> 00:16:47,053 of a multicellular organism on Earth. 278 00:16:48,830 --> 00:16:51,220 This year, another fossil was found 279 00:16:51,220 --> 00:16:52,830 in the sediments of Brazil, 280 00:16:52,830 --> 00:16:55,390 it's 113 million years old, 281 00:16:55,390 --> 00:16:57,641 and it's a perfectly shaped mushroom. 282 00:17:00,490 --> 00:17:04,423 We divided from Fungi about 650 million years ago. 283 00:17:05,290 --> 00:17:09,593 One branch led to Fungi, the other branch led to animals. 284 00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:13,790 We chose a path of encirculating our nutrients 285 00:17:13,790 --> 00:17:15,950 in a cellular sack, our stomach. 286 00:17:15,950 --> 00:17:18,440 The mycelium remained underground, 287 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:20,949 externally digesting its nutrients. 288 00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:26,500 - Biodiversity surged 289 00:17:33,070 --> 00:17:36,600 until we had these great cataclysmic extinction events, 290 00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:38,907 when the asteroids impacted the Earth, kebam, 291 00:17:39,770 --> 00:17:41,790 enormous amounts of debris was jettisoned 292 00:17:41,790 --> 00:17:42,740 into the atmosphere. 293 00:17:42,740 --> 00:17:44,163 Sunlight was cut off. 294 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:47,823 Plants die, animals die. 295 00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:51,943 And Fungi inherited the Earth. 296 00:17:57,090 --> 00:18:01,020 From those great extinction events there's one lesson, 297 00:18:01,020 --> 00:18:04,763 those organisms that paired with fungi survived. 298 00:18:07,020 --> 00:18:09,250 We are more closely related to fungi 299 00:18:09,250 --> 00:18:10,900 than we are to any other kingdom. 300 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:15,640 What this means is that we are descendants of mycelium. 301 00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,696 Mycelium is the mother of us all. 302 00:18:26,700 --> 00:18:28,340 Living creatures like fungi 303 00:18:28,340 --> 00:18:31,020 are intelligent in the sense that they respond 304 00:18:31,020 --> 00:18:32,430 to their environment, 305 00:18:32,430 --> 00:18:35,010 they seek out food and they defend themselves, 306 00:18:35,010 --> 00:18:38,033 they solve problems, and that's intelligence. 307 00:18:47,185 --> 00:18:50,810 - A mycelium can theoretically live forever 308 00:18:50,810 --> 00:18:53,440 as long as it has food to grow into 309 00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:56,610 which is why the oldest and largest 310 00:18:56,610 --> 00:18:59,480 organism on earth is a fungus. 311 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,200 It lives on top of a mountain on Oregon. 312 00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:04,010 It's like thousands of acres 313 00:19:04,010 --> 00:19:05,763 and it's thousands of years old. 314 00:19:09,810 --> 00:19:14,240 The mushroom is the organ of sexual reproduction, 315 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,493 for the spore of the fungus. 316 00:19:18,390 --> 00:19:21,053 Fungi don't have seeds, they have spores. 317 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,340 The spores are extremely tiny, little, 318 00:19:26,340 --> 00:19:29,483 lightweight gene carrying systems. 319 00:19:30,690 --> 00:19:33,480 When they land on something they can eat, 320 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,860 they break down the food that they're on, 321 00:19:35,860 --> 00:19:38,360 and then reabsorb the nutrients, 322 00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,110 because you need to move on and find 323 00:19:40,110 --> 00:19:42,563 another place where there's food. 324 00:19:46,530 --> 00:19:50,760 The mushroom releases zillions of spores 325 00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:52,990 into the atmosphere. 326 00:19:52,990 --> 00:19:56,993 There's so many spore, I mean, you take one breath, 327 00:19:58,330 --> 00:20:00,990 you just breathed in 10 fungal spore. 328 00:20:00,990 --> 00:20:02,930 So they are everywhere. 329 00:20:02,930 --> 00:20:04,293 We evolved with them. 330 00:20:06,410 --> 00:20:08,570 - When you see what mushrooms do, 331 00:20:08,570 --> 00:20:11,890 it's kind of spooky in the most wonderful way, 332 00:20:11,890 --> 00:20:14,260 I mean they correct everything on Earth. 333 00:20:14,260 --> 00:20:15,320 They support life. 334 00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:16,460 They convert life. 335 00:20:16,460 --> 00:20:18,380 They carry life. 336 00:20:18,380 --> 00:20:19,893 They're remarkable beings. 337 00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:24,970 If humans become extinct, 338 00:20:24,970 --> 00:20:27,670 what's the next species that will take over the Earth? 339 00:20:28,900 --> 00:20:32,270 Maybe mycelium already are the dominant species, 340 00:20:32,270 --> 00:20:33,970 not just because they're the most common 341 00:20:33,970 --> 00:20:36,610 species on Earth, they're everywhere. 342 00:20:36,610 --> 00:20:37,570 I mean, you look at humans. 343 00:20:37,570 --> 00:20:38,610 There's seven billion of us 344 00:20:38,610 --> 00:20:39,970 but we're just one little creature 345 00:20:39,970 --> 00:20:41,710 wandering around incredibly vulnerable 346 00:20:41,710 --> 00:20:44,683 and don't survive easily if we're assaulted. 347 00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:48,640 Hurricane Harvey has started to make landfall 348 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:50,560 here on the Texas coast. 349 00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,300 More than 30,000 people are without power 350 00:20:53,300 --> 00:20:55,460 And things are only expected to get worst. 351 00:20:55,460 --> 00:20:57,810 - Granted we've always had the worst storm 352 00:20:57,810 --> 00:21:01,510 in about a century, and it is struggling to understand 353 00:21:01,510 --> 00:21:04,473 the new normal of months ahead without basic services. 354 00:21:05,470 --> 00:21:08,040 Climate change is one of the biggest threats 355 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,740 to our present our world, to the future of our planet. 356 00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:20,493 - C02 is our biggest greenhouse gas. 357 00:21:21,370 --> 00:21:23,450 As plants photosynthesize, 358 00:21:23,450 --> 00:21:27,403 they literally inhale CO2 while exhaling oxygen. 359 00:21:32,790 --> 00:21:35,177 CO2 is what plants photosynthesize 360 00:21:35,177 --> 00:21:36,910 and they take that carbon 361 00:21:36,910 --> 00:21:38,330 and they put it in different places, 362 00:21:38,330 --> 00:21:40,170 they put it in their leaves, in their trunks, 363 00:21:40,170 --> 00:21:43,909 but they put 70 % of it, we are finding, below ground. 364 00:21:49,980 --> 00:21:53,860 And the root systems trade that carbon for nutrients. 365 00:21:53,860 --> 00:21:56,640 That carbon ends up in the fungal cell walls 366 00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:57,823 where it's stored. 367 00:22:04,470 --> 00:22:07,000 This fuels the microbial community 368 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:08,740 and all the other parts of the food web, 369 00:22:08,740 --> 00:22:10,260 like the mites and the nametodes, 370 00:22:10,260 --> 00:22:12,240 and they start cycling nutrients 371 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:13,833 through that eating process. 372 00:22:15,300 --> 00:22:16,810 So the fungi are really important 373 00:22:16,810 --> 00:22:20,200 in stabilizing carbon in soils. 374 00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:22,050 Once the carbon is stable 375 00:22:22,050 --> 00:22:24,793 it can stay there stored for thousands of years. 376 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:28,430 We know for example that carbon 377 00:22:28,430 --> 00:22:29,710 can move from plant to plant 378 00:22:29,710 --> 00:22:33,920 and it evens out the distribution of carbon in that system. 379 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:35,780 They're working really hard. 380 00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:39,170 If we maintain the plants, the forest, 381 00:22:39,170 --> 00:22:40,670 and the natural fungal community, 382 00:22:40,670 --> 00:22:42,250 we've got a natural engine 383 00:22:42,250 --> 00:22:44,260 that's storing carbon below ground. 384 00:22:44,260 --> 00:22:45,513 So, it's essential. 385 00:22:46,420 --> 00:22:48,110 You know, it's there for us, right? 386 00:22:48,110 --> 00:22:49,879 It's right in front of us. 387 00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,423 We do more than make mushrooms. 388 00:22:57,050 --> 00:22:59,490 We have the ability to do so much more 389 00:22:59,490 --> 00:23:01,273 than just break down matter. 390 00:23:04,350 --> 00:23:06,240 Like the fruit of our labor, 391 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:07,810 most of you have only scratched 392 00:23:07,810 --> 00:23:09,853 the surface of our usefulness. 393 00:23:13,100 --> 00:23:15,453 We are the changers. 394 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:26,950 - I was 14 or 15 years of age, I believe, 395 00:23:26,950 --> 00:23:29,100 when my brother, John, gave me a book 396 00:23:29,100 --> 00:23:32,380 called "Altered States of Consciousness". 397 00:23:32,380 --> 00:23:34,870 And within that book, Andy Weil was referenced 398 00:23:34,870 --> 00:23:37,520 on expanding consciousness, and I got really excited. 399 00:23:40,300 --> 00:23:43,050 I was going to charismatic christian revival meetings 400 00:23:43,050 --> 00:23:44,810 and seeing people being saved, 401 00:23:44,810 --> 00:23:47,170 but it kind of was cool from my perspective 402 00:23:47,170 --> 00:23:48,003 that they were achieving 403 00:23:48,003 --> 00:23:49,070 this altered states of consciousness. 404 00:23:49,070 --> 00:23:51,870 So I thought that was part of all of the same idea here. 405 00:23:52,870 --> 00:23:55,463 I really owe credit to Andrew Weil. 406 00:23:57,700 --> 00:23:59,960 - I think he read one of my early books 407 00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:01,840 in which I wrote about mushroom hunting, 408 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,010 and psychodelic mushrooms 409 00:24:04,010 --> 00:24:06,890 and made some reference to medicinal mushrooms as well. 410 00:24:06,890 --> 00:24:08,450 - It was like a turning point, you know, 411 00:24:08,450 --> 00:24:10,250 like, I certainly was awakened. 412 00:24:10,250 --> 00:24:13,750 Other people were thinking about expanding consciousness. 413 00:24:13,750 --> 00:24:16,900 And so I gave this book to my friend, Ryan Schneider. 414 00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:19,420 So, Ryan took it home, and a few days later, 415 00:24:19,420 --> 00:24:21,070 I said, "Ryan, where is my book?" 416 00:24:21,070 --> 00:24:23,313 He told me his dad had burned it. 417 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:28,460 I said, "He burned my book?" 418 00:24:28,460 --> 00:24:31,430 Rather than giving it back to me or calling my parents, 419 00:24:31,430 --> 00:24:34,063 he actually took the initiative to burn this book. 420 00:24:36,670 --> 00:24:41,050 I owe Ryan Schneider's father a deep debt of gratitude, 421 00:24:41,050 --> 00:24:46,050 because that single act galvanized my interest. 422 00:24:46,070 --> 00:24:48,247 Saying, "If this is so powerful to cause a person 423 00:24:48,247 --> 00:24:50,377 "to do such a bizarre act, 424 00:24:50,377 --> 00:24:54,198 "then I should examine what this subject is all about." 425 00:24:57,870 --> 00:25:00,120 - Human existence on this Earth 426 00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:04,310 goes back an extraordinary long period of time, 427 00:25:04,310 --> 00:25:09,150 most of which we have no identifiable information. 428 00:25:09,150 --> 00:25:11,180 It's entirely plausible, 429 00:25:11,180 --> 00:25:13,740 given that the indigenous people all around the world 430 00:25:13,740 --> 00:25:16,020 know intimately all the plant life, 431 00:25:16,020 --> 00:25:18,760 and will know the different combination of plant life, 432 00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,180 that our prehistoric ancestors, 433 00:25:21,180 --> 00:25:25,233 they had come across the plants that do alter consciousness. 434 00:25:27,090 --> 00:25:29,050 - In about two million years, 435 00:25:29,050 --> 00:25:31,977 the human cortex tripled in size, 436 00:25:31,977 --> 00:25:34,240 and the brain exploded 437 00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,333 over a ridiculously short span of evolutionary time. 438 00:25:39,330 --> 00:25:42,900 Two million years is nothing when it comes to evolution. 439 00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:44,640 What triggered that? 440 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,140 In the late 1970s, Terrence McKenna 441 00:25:47,140 --> 00:25:48,510 and his brother Dennis McKenna 442 00:25:48,510 --> 00:25:52,820 were the first that proposed the Stoned Ape hypothesis. 443 00:25:52,820 --> 00:25:55,290 It is known now that 22 primates, 444 00:25:55,290 --> 00:25:58,713 23 including us, consume mushrooms. 445 00:25:59,732 --> 00:26:01,320 And the idea is our ancestors, 446 00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,130 they came out of the trees and went across the Savannah, 447 00:26:03,130 --> 00:26:05,533 would be tracking animals that are pooping. 448 00:26:07,150 --> 00:26:08,340 Well, in the sub tropics, 449 00:26:08,340 --> 00:26:11,020 the most common mushroom coming out of those cow patties 450 00:26:11,020 --> 00:26:13,620 is psilocybe cubensis dung, a potent magic mushroom. 451 00:26:14,660 --> 00:26:15,647 One thing that mushrooms 452 00:26:15,647 --> 00:26:17,870 and other psychedelics do reliably 453 00:26:17,870 --> 00:26:20,313 is they induce synesthesia. 454 00:26:21,740 --> 00:26:23,950 Synesthesia is the perception 455 00:26:23,950 --> 00:26:26,560 of one sensory modality in another. 456 00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,074 Hearing colors for example, or seeing music. 457 00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:44,030 You have these profound experiences 458 00:26:44,030 --> 00:26:47,860 and you have to put yourself in their place 459 00:26:47,860 --> 00:26:49,460 and imagine what the impact 460 00:26:49,460 --> 00:26:52,513 of such an experience must have been on an early hominid. 461 00:26:53,790 --> 00:26:55,220 These magic mushrooms open up 462 00:26:55,220 --> 00:26:57,463 the flood gates of information you receive. 463 00:26:58,790 --> 00:27:01,090 Basically, you can think of it as a contact fluid 464 00:27:01,090 --> 00:27:03,830 between synapses within the brain. 465 00:27:03,830 --> 00:27:05,920 Wow, what a competitive advantage. 466 00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,320 Especially if you're working with the geometry 467 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,530 of weapons or having to put together something 468 00:27:09,530 --> 00:27:11,880 that will give you a better chance of survival. 469 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,970 The fact that this happened not once, not twice, 470 00:27:16,970 --> 00:27:20,590 but millions and millions of times over millions of years, 471 00:27:20,590 --> 00:27:23,030 is a very plausible explanation 472 00:27:23,030 --> 00:27:26,430 for the tripling of the brain two million years ago. 473 00:27:26,430 --> 00:27:27,980 - It's not so simple to say 474 00:27:27,980 --> 00:27:30,070 that they ate psilocybin mushrooms 475 00:27:30,070 --> 00:27:31,700 and suddenly the brain mutated. 476 00:27:31,700 --> 00:27:33,620 I think it's more complex than that. 477 00:27:33,620 --> 00:27:35,183 But I think it was a factor. 478 00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,050 It was like a software to program 479 00:27:39,050 --> 00:27:41,700 this neurologically modern hardware, 480 00:27:41,700 --> 00:27:46,300 to think, to have cognition, to have language, 481 00:27:46,300 --> 00:27:48,830 because language is essentially synesthesia. 482 00:27:48,830 --> 00:27:50,530 Language is just association 483 00:27:50,530 --> 00:27:52,710 with inherently meaningless sound, 484 00:27:52,710 --> 00:27:56,013 except that it's associated with a complex of meaning. 485 00:27:57,050 --> 00:28:00,610 A great deal of the brain's real estate, you might say, 486 00:28:00,610 --> 00:28:02,730 is devoted to the generation 487 00:28:02,730 --> 00:28:05,590 and/or the comprehension of language. 488 00:28:05,590 --> 00:28:09,110 Those neural structures are not found in our ancestors. 489 00:28:09,110 --> 00:28:10,360 That's a human trait, 490 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,980 to have so much physiology devoted 491 00:28:12,980 --> 00:28:15,183 to generating and understanding language. 492 00:28:15,183 --> 00:28:18,310 And that's a reflection of evolutionary events 493 00:28:18,310 --> 00:28:20,053 that made us what we are. 494 00:28:25,370 --> 00:28:28,370 - I couldn't get these mushrooms for the longest time. 495 00:28:28,370 --> 00:28:31,000 When I was in Ohio I actually purchased 496 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,120 a bag of magic mushrooms. 497 00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:36,190 But I had no guide, I had no recommendations 498 00:28:36,190 --> 00:28:38,210 for how much to consume. 499 00:28:38,210 --> 00:28:39,810 So I had a bag about this big, 500 00:28:39,810 --> 00:28:43,000 so I thought well that's probably one dose, 501 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:44,563 so I consumed the bag. 502 00:28:45,430 --> 00:28:46,523 Now for those of you who don't know, 503 00:28:46,523 --> 00:28:48,450 this is like 10 times more 504 00:28:48,450 --> 00:28:50,423 than you probably need to consume. 505 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,270 It was a warm summer day, 506 00:28:53,270 --> 00:28:58,010 and there was a beautiful big, big tree, an oak tree. 507 00:28:58,010 --> 00:29:00,880 And then I noticed black clouds on the horizon 508 00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,210 and I realized there was a storm coming, 509 00:29:03,210 --> 00:29:04,413 and I thought, "This is great, 510 00:29:04,413 --> 00:29:06,200 "I will have this great visual of the storm coming." 511 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,577 And I thought, "Well, I am going to climb 512 00:29:07,577 --> 00:29:08,410 "to the top of the tree." 513 00:29:08,410 --> 00:29:10,180 So I'm starting to feel the effects. 514 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,350 I am getting waves where the air 515 00:29:20,350 --> 00:29:23,778 becomes a liquid. And woosh, 516 00:29:23,778 --> 00:29:25,390 you have this distortion field 517 00:29:25,390 --> 00:29:27,589 go through the visual landscape. 518 00:29:27,589 --> 00:29:29,800 I've never seen that before. 519 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,107 I went, "Oh wow, this is what they were talking about." 520 00:29:33,107 --> 00:29:35,890 And I see the boiling clouds are coming closer, 521 00:29:35,890 --> 00:29:37,900 but they're looking angry now. 522 00:29:37,900 --> 00:29:41,092 And then the lightning strikes would go. 523 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,330 And then all these geometrical fractals 524 00:29:45,330 --> 00:29:47,660 would emanate out of the lightning strikes. 525 00:29:47,660 --> 00:29:50,010 And pretty soon I had these overlying mosaics 526 00:29:50,010 --> 00:29:53,170 of mathematical patterns and geometric figures 527 00:29:53,170 --> 00:29:55,410 of multiple colors that are swimming 528 00:29:55,410 --> 00:29:56,590 in this field of vision 529 00:29:56,590 --> 00:29:58,920 that these waves were flying through. 530 00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,496 I've never in my life seen anything like that before. 531 00:30:03,733 --> 00:30:05,900 The winds increasing, then the rains would come 532 00:30:05,900 --> 00:30:08,150 and I became extremely scared. 533 00:30:08,150 --> 00:30:10,540 And then also I realized I am at the top of a hill, 534 00:30:10,540 --> 00:30:12,820 during a lightning storm, in the tallest tree, 535 00:30:12,820 --> 00:30:14,240 not the best place to be 536 00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,490 when you're gonna choose a spiritual experience. 537 00:30:16,490 --> 00:30:18,977 And so, I held on to the tree for dear life. 538 00:30:18,977 --> 00:30:21,887 And that tree was my pillar back into the core of the Earth. 539 00:30:21,887 --> 00:30:24,973 And I felt secure as long as I held on to the tree. 540 00:30:25,940 --> 00:30:28,260 Lightning strikes all around, thunder claps. 541 00:30:28,260 --> 00:30:29,557 You know, one second between a lightning strike 542 00:30:29,557 --> 00:30:30,450 and a thunder clap, 543 00:30:30,450 --> 00:30:32,049 you knew it was coming closer and closer. 544 00:30:33,610 --> 00:30:36,113 I was terrified that I wouldn't survive. 545 00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,510 And through this terrorific experience, 546 00:30:40,510 --> 00:30:42,530 terrifying and terrific at the same time, 547 00:30:42,530 --> 00:30:43,777 I am up in this tree and I'm saying, 548 00:30:43,777 --> 00:30:45,864 "What should I focus on?" 549 00:30:45,864 --> 00:30:47,787 And I said, "Well, Stamet's, you know, you're not stupid, 550 00:30:47,787 --> 00:30:49,417 "but you stutter all the time." 551 00:30:50,420 --> 00:30:53,377 And so I thought, "I need to stop stuttering." 552 00:30:54,500 --> 00:30:56,837 And so I said to myself, "Stop stuttering. 553 00:30:56,837 --> 00:30:59,700 "Stop stuttering now." 554 00:30:59,700 --> 00:31:02,457 A little inner voice in my head, "Can you hear me? 555 00:31:02,457 --> 00:31:04,210 "Stop stuttering now." 556 00:31:04,210 --> 00:31:06,517 And then I started saying that, "Stop stuttering now." 557 00:31:06,517 --> 00:31:07,430 "Stop stuttering now." 558 00:31:07,430 --> 00:31:09,843 Hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, thousands of times. 559 00:31:15,550 --> 00:31:18,620 After the storm had passed, I came down from the tree, 560 00:31:18,620 --> 00:31:20,860 drenched, soaked to the bone, 561 00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:24,100 you know, in love with life, with nature, 562 00:31:24,100 --> 00:31:25,130 in love with that tree. 563 00:31:25,130 --> 00:31:27,450 That tree was so important to me. 564 00:31:27,450 --> 00:31:31,800 And I went home and I went to bed, I didn't see anybody. 565 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,440 And the next morning I woke up 566 00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,820 and there was a really attractive lady that I liked a lot, 567 00:31:37,820 --> 00:31:39,720 but I could never stare at her in the eyes 568 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,000 because I was afraid to stutter and embarrass myself. 569 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,950 So better to avoid social contact than have social contact, 570 00:31:44,950 --> 00:31:47,030 even though I was really attracted to her. 571 00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:48,760 And she liked me, but I was, 572 00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:50,910 didn't know what to do with it, with that attention. 573 00:31:50,910 --> 00:31:52,640 And so she was walking past me 574 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,270 and she looked at me and she said, "Good morning, Paul." 575 00:31:55,270 --> 00:31:56,390 And for the first time, 576 00:31:56,390 --> 00:31:58,547 I looked her straight in the eye and I said, 577 00:31:58,547 --> 00:32:00,440 "Good Morning, how are you?" 578 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,195 And I stopped stuttering in one session. 579 00:32:13,353 --> 00:32:14,654 ♪ The old scrounge rapping hard ♪ 580 00:32:24,783 --> 00:32:27,680 This is the newest thing my employees are listening to. 581 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,760 So my employees are the best source of new music. 582 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,910 We love loud music for the mushrooms in the laboratories. 583 00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:37,729 It causes everyone to be synchronized. 584 00:32:37,729 --> 00:32:40,208 We have a lot of nonverbal communication in laboratories. 585 00:32:40,208 --> 00:32:43,130 You know, when we talk, your mouth spreads bacteria. 586 00:32:43,130 --> 00:32:44,800 So we try to minimize talking. 587 00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,740 So a lot of it is done by gestures and knowing. 588 00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:49,273 So why not have loud music? 589 00:32:52,660 --> 00:32:53,970 My dad was a businessman. 590 00:32:53,970 --> 00:32:56,100 I swore I'd never become one, 591 00:32:56,100 --> 00:32:58,110 but I wanted to be independent 592 00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:00,970 so I created a little mail order business 593 00:33:00,970 --> 00:33:02,760 in order to supply myself and other people 594 00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:04,560 who had like interests in mushrooms. 595 00:33:06,150 --> 00:33:07,580 When we started the business, 596 00:33:07,580 --> 00:33:09,487 it was extremely difficult back then, 597 00:33:09,487 --> 00:33:11,540 and we didn't have the resources. 598 00:33:11,540 --> 00:33:12,810 We were putting little advertisements 599 00:33:12,810 --> 00:33:14,830 in Organic Gardening Magazine, 600 00:33:14,830 --> 00:33:17,353 back when there was only three television stations. 601 00:33:19,790 --> 00:33:20,980 I invented this business 602 00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:23,903 so I could buy equipment for my laboratory wholesale. 603 00:33:28,420 --> 00:33:31,130 Amazing to me, we have nearly 100 employees, 604 00:33:31,130 --> 00:33:33,403 and thousands of media outlets. 605 00:33:35,510 --> 00:33:37,790 These mushrooms were so powerful to me 606 00:33:37,790 --> 00:33:39,990 that I realized that I wanted to study them. 607 00:33:40,910 --> 00:33:43,880 This mushroom is known reishi or lingzhi, 608 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:46,000 the mushroom of immortality. 609 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,830 And it's one of the most amazing and interesting 610 00:33:48,830 --> 00:33:50,430 mushrooms that we've ever grown. 611 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,470 This mushroom helps the immunity 612 00:33:53,470 --> 00:33:55,855 of not only people but bees. 613 00:34:08,740 --> 00:34:12,000 Up this hill here we have a quarter section of property, 614 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:17,000 160 acres, and we have a large micrological experiment. 615 00:34:17,260 --> 00:34:21,107 We planted 33,000 trees, half with mycorrhizal fungi 616 00:34:21,107 --> 00:34:22,490 tapped to the roots, half without. 617 00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:25,240 And this is year nine. 618 00:34:25,240 --> 00:34:27,740 So we are putting into an Excel spreadsheet 619 00:34:27,740 --> 00:34:32,740 or have put in 1,000 trees to compare the treatments. 620 00:34:32,750 --> 00:34:37,040 I came into from licensing one of my patents. 621 00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,770 And so when the political climates in the United States 622 00:34:39,770 --> 00:34:42,560 changed to be adverse to environmentalists, 623 00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:43,810 we bought land in Canada. 624 00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:49,260 - I think the fact that he didn't come up 625 00:34:49,260 --> 00:34:51,180 on a conventional academic pathway 626 00:34:51,180 --> 00:34:52,600 is part of the reason he's as willing 627 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,793 to really explore ideas that are not on anyone else's radar. 628 00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,100 - I'm really honored that I discovered 629 00:35:01,100 --> 00:35:03,530 a few things that no one else had yet discovered 630 00:35:03,530 --> 00:35:07,540 so I have now five patents on entomopathogenic fungi. 631 00:35:07,540 --> 00:35:10,100 These are fungi that infect insects 632 00:35:10,100 --> 00:35:12,560 and, in particular, termites. 633 00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,640 The biggest problem in the commercialization 634 00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,950 of bio-pesticides from fungi 635 00:35:16,950 --> 00:35:19,270 has been the spore repellency property. 636 00:35:19,270 --> 00:35:21,800 The insects avoid the spores of these fungi. 637 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,370 In fact, so concerned are termites 638 00:35:23,370 --> 00:35:25,750 that if a worker goes out and encounters this fungus, 639 00:35:25,750 --> 00:35:27,920 when the worker returns back to the nest, 640 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:29,920 guards, they'll capture that worker 641 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,520 that's infected with these spores, 642 00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,670 take the worker to a graveyard 643 00:35:33,670 --> 00:35:36,200 and they cut off the worker's head 644 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,330 and then the two guards commit suicide. 645 00:35:38,330 --> 00:35:39,590 They're trying to protect the queen 646 00:35:39,590 --> 00:35:42,050 and the nest and colony from infection. 647 00:35:42,050 --> 00:35:44,790 And I discovered something that no one else 648 00:35:44,790 --> 00:35:46,960 had ever reported in the scientific literature. 649 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,980 I found a biological switch that delayed sporulation, 650 00:35:49,980 --> 00:35:52,810 and then the insects were not repelled, 651 00:35:52,810 --> 00:35:54,940 but they were super-attracted. 652 00:35:54,940 --> 00:35:58,220 Which means one finds the fungus now and the others follow, 653 00:35:58,220 --> 00:36:00,040 and it ends up being a Trojan Horse. 654 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,110 The same fungi now are taken past the guards, 655 00:36:03,110 --> 00:36:04,040 given to the queen, 656 00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,760 the queen feeds it to the brood, 657 00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:07,810 the whole colony becomes like mummified 658 00:36:07,810 --> 00:36:10,310 with this mycelium and whoosh, 659 00:36:10,310 --> 00:36:13,890 the whole colony is infected and dies. 660 00:36:13,890 --> 00:36:16,070 And then the spore repellency properties 661 00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:18,450 protects your house from subsequent invasions. 662 00:36:18,450 --> 00:36:20,840 This is a huge discovery. 663 00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,810 And then I tried it with carpenter ants, 664 00:36:22,810 --> 00:36:25,990 with fire ants, fungus gnats and then mosquitoes. 665 00:36:25,990 --> 00:36:27,860 Now we're working with bed bugs 666 00:36:27,860 --> 00:36:30,513 and we've had successes across the board. 667 00:36:36,318 --> 00:36:40,570 The entire ecosystem is infused with fungi. 668 00:36:40,570 --> 00:36:44,623 So I see these deep reservoirs of the ecology all around us. 669 00:36:52,830 --> 00:36:54,880 In a world of invention, 670 00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:56,990 the answer to our greatest problems 671 00:36:56,990 --> 00:37:00,123 may be hiding right under our feet. 672 00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,120 - There are mushrooms that have been used 673 00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,810 in Western medicine. 674 00:37:05,810 --> 00:37:09,863 Penicillin for example is a really effective antibiotic. 675 00:37:11,090 --> 00:37:13,500 Before it was synthesized, during the Civil War, 676 00:37:13,500 --> 00:37:15,970 when a solider would get wounded, 677 00:37:15,970 --> 00:37:17,820 they would slap a piece of moldy bread 678 00:37:17,820 --> 00:37:22,560 on his wound to benefit from those antibiotic properties. 679 00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,660 You know, so he wouldn't get an infection. 680 00:37:26,350 --> 00:37:30,170 Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin in 1927. 681 00:37:30,170 --> 00:37:32,520 The problem was that they couldn't find strains 682 00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:33,890 that could be commercialized, 683 00:37:33,890 --> 00:37:35,090 that could produce enough of it 684 00:37:35,090 --> 00:37:37,083 in a commercially economic fashion. 685 00:37:38,460 --> 00:37:42,550 We fast forward and in 1942 a group of researchers 686 00:37:42,550 --> 00:37:44,550 in Chicago went shopping. 687 00:37:44,550 --> 00:37:46,690 And a lab assistant found a cantaloupe 688 00:37:46,690 --> 00:37:49,173 that was rotting with a beautiful golden mold, 689 00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:53,260 and from that strain 690 00:37:53,260 --> 00:37:56,423 we got the first hyper producing strain of penicillium. 691 00:37:59,020 --> 00:38:01,720 Penicillin literally saved tens of thousands 692 00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:03,610 of soldiers lives. 693 00:38:03,610 --> 00:38:05,900 The Brits had this but the Germans 694 00:38:05,900 --> 00:38:07,150 and the Japanese did not. 695 00:38:09,660 --> 00:38:11,800 It has been suggested that the discovery 696 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,740 of this hyper-producing strain of penicillin 697 00:38:13,740 --> 00:38:16,770 was a significant influence in winning World War II. 698 00:38:16,770 --> 00:38:20,350 Alexander Fleming then received the Nobel Prize in 1945 699 00:38:20,350 --> 00:38:23,020 in recognition of the huge impact 700 00:38:23,020 --> 00:38:25,023 that penicillin had on human health. 701 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:34,850 Here's how medicinal mushrooms 702 00:38:34,850 --> 00:38:35,993 are thought to work. 703 00:38:37,170 --> 00:38:41,010 A fungus will produce all kinds of enzymes, 704 00:38:41,010 --> 00:38:42,590 it's like a chemical warfare, 705 00:38:42,590 --> 00:38:46,060 in order to fight off competition for food, 706 00:38:46,060 --> 00:38:51,060 like, other microbes, other fungi, bacteria, virus. 707 00:38:51,740 --> 00:38:53,803 That's what makes antibiotics work. 708 00:38:54,890 --> 00:38:57,580 Chemicals that are produced by fungus, 709 00:38:57,580 --> 00:39:00,300 like the one that penicillin is made from, 710 00:39:00,300 --> 00:39:01,510 the fungus produces it 711 00:39:01,510 --> 00:39:04,150 to kill bacteria that are competition. 712 00:39:04,150 --> 00:39:07,433 And, when we take penicillin, it kills our bacteria. 713 00:39:08,950 --> 00:39:10,950 There's a long tradition of using mushrooms 714 00:39:10,950 --> 00:39:13,960 as medicines in East Asia, especially in Korea, 715 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:15,850 China and Japan. 716 00:39:15,850 --> 00:39:19,220 They appear to be able to enhance and protect 717 00:39:19,220 --> 00:39:22,480 the body's innate defensive mechanisms. 718 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,280 The uses for them filled niches for which 719 00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,110 we really don't have anything in Western pharmacology. 720 00:39:28,110 --> 00:39:30,150 In Western medicine, all of our effort 721 00:39:30,150 --> 00:39:34,040 is on identifying agents of disease and eliminating them. 722 00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,410 That has its place but we do almost nothing 723 00:39:36,410 --> 00:39:37,710 about supporting the good. 724 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,390 Shamans would treat patients 725 00:39:45,390 --> 00:39:47,160 and the diseases were thought to be 726 00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:48,883 elements of the spirit world. 727 00:39:49,900 --> 00:39:52,610 Well, physicians today treat infections 728 00:39:52,610 --> 00:39:54,850 and their spirits are bacteria 729 00:39:54,850 --> 00:39:57,460 that are pathogenic, or are viruses. 730 00:39:57,460 --> 00:39:59,820 So whether the shamans called them spirits 731 00:39:59,820 --> 00:40:02,750 or whether the scientists called them microbes, 732 00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:04,660 with the invention of microscopes, 733 00:40:04,660 --> 00:40:07,890 we get to see the microscopic universe and landscape 734 00:40:07,890 --> 00:40:11,410 that we thunder upon with every footstep. 735 00:40:11,410 --> 00:40:13,840 The fact that these fungal networks 736 00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:15,100 are seemingly invisible 737 00:40:15,100 --> 00:40:16,820 but then represent themselves in a big, 738 00:40:16,820 --> 00:40:19,290 flourishing mushroom in a matter of a few days, 739 00:40:19,290 --> 00:40:22,530 give us a window into the invisible landscape 740 00:40:22,530 --> 00:40:23,966 underneath our feet. 741 00:40:40,350 --> 00:40:42,160 Fungal networks have defended themselves 742 00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,310 against vectors of disease for millions of years. 743 00:40:45,310 --> 00:40:48,013 Viral pandemics occur periodically. 744 00:40:48,860 --> 00:40:53,510 Between 1347 and 1353, one third 745 00:40:53,510 --> 00:40:56,483 of the European population died from the Black Plague. 746 00:40:58,210 --> 00:41:01,132 The great flu pandemic of 1918, 747 00:41:01,132 --> 00:41:03,340 2 % of the world population died. 748 00:41:03,340 --> 00:41:04,990 Millions upon millions of people. 749 00:41:07,250 --> 00:41:08,620 I think everyone is aware 750 00:41:08,620 --> 00:41:11,080 of the threat potentially of bio-terrorism. 751 00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,700 But few people may know that Europeans 752 00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:16,810 were actively involved, consciously or unconsciously, 753 00:41:16,810 --> 00:41:19,140 in bio-terrorism against indigenous peoples 754 00:41:19,140 --> 00:41:22,460 especially in The New World, in Meso-America. 755 00:41:22,460 --> 00:41:24,120 They brought in diseases. 756 00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:25,550 And when you are extremely sick, 757 00:41:25,550 --> 00:41:27,593 you can't fight off an invader. 758 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,960 It's an irony of history that now the U.S. government 759 00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,910 is interested in protecting people from viral pandemics. 760 00:41:35,910 --> 00:41:38,730 Paul Stamets cultured numerous strains in his lab 761 00:41:38,730 --> 00:41:40,830 in prepared natural extracts. 762 00:41:40,830 --> 00:41:43,490 He then submitted samples to the Defense Department's 763 00:41:43,490 --> 00:41:45,940 Bioshield Program for testing. 764 00:41:45,940 --> 00:41:48,830 - And Ironically, I owe a debt of gratitude to Dick Cheney, 765 00:41:48,830 --> 00:41:50,970 and George W. Bush. 766 00:41:50,970 --> 00:41:52,670 - It is vital that our nation discuss 767 00:41:52,670 --> 00:41:56,000 and address the threat of pandemic flu now. 768 00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:57,750 - Their funding of that research led 769 00:41:57,750 --> 00:41:59,370 to some very novel discoveries 770 00:41:59,370 --> 00:42:01,170 which we're still elaborating today. 771 00:42:02,940 --> 00:42:04,550 What we know about these mycelial networks 772 00:42:04,550 --> 00:42:06,630 is they're learning membranes. 773 00:42:06,630 --> 00:42:09,780 They are self-learning and network-based organisms 774 00:42:09,780 --> 00:42:12,440 that can share and store knowledge. 775 00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,890 The mycelium is vaccinating itself 776 00:42:14,890 --> 00:42:17,240 against pathogens in the ecosystem. 777 00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:18,730 We can capitalize on this, 778 00:42:18,730 --> 00:42:21,100 because many of the same bacterial pathogens 779 00:42:21,100 --> 00:42:24,690 that infect fungi also can infect animals. 780 00:42:24,690 --> 00:42:28,580 We found novel molecules, highly active against pox viruses, 781 00:42:28,580 --> 00:42:31,060 novel molecules highly active against HPV, 782 00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:32,453 the human papilloma virus. 783 00:42:33,570 --> 00:42:35,930 Many scientists are trying to come up 784 00:42:35,930 --> 00:42:39,170 with the next antibiotic, the next penicillin. 785 00:42:39,170 --> 00:42:41,490 But we have barely tapped into the fungal genome, 786 00:42:41,490 --> 00:42:43,943 especially of the mushroom growing fungi. 787 00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,290 Think of it, our old growth forest 788 00:42:48,290 --> 00:42:51,830 that contain these ancient fungi are deep reservoirs 789 00:42:51,830 --> 00:42:55,150 of potential compounds that can fight pandemic viruses. 790 00:42:55,150 --> 00:42:57,040 We should save the old growth forests 791 00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,524 as a matter of national defense. 792 00:43:09,720 --> 00:43:11,580 - I recommend mushrooms and mushroom products 793 00:43:11,580 --> 00:43:13,950 frequently to patients and I teach other doctors 794 00:43:13,950 --> 00:43:15,143 about their uses. 795 00:43:16,060 --> 00:43:19,600 Mushrooms have molecules not found elsewhere in nature. 796 00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,070 There's some that have totally unusual properties 797 00:43:22,070 --> 00:43:23,933 like Lion's Mane mushroom. 798 00:43:25,490 --> 00:43:27,920 The Lion's Mane mushroom is a globular 799 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,300 cascading icicle formed mushroom, 800 00:43:30,300 --> 00:43:32,330 tastes like lobster or shrimp when you cook it. 801 00:43:32,330 --> 00:43:35,470 But a researcher in Japan by the name of Kawagishi 802 00:43:35,470 --> 00:43:38,100 discovered it around 1993. 803 00:43:38,100 --> 00:43:40,890 And I don't have the foggiest idea how he discovered this, 804 00:43:40,890 --> 00:43:42,950 but he discovered that this mushroom 805 00:43:42,950 --> 00:43:45,730 stimulates nerves to re-grow. 806 00:43:45,730 --> 00:43:47,280 And he postulated it could be 807 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,543 an effective treatment against Alzheimer's. 808 00:43:50,870 --> 00:43:52,470 - Since we don't have anything for Alzheimer's 809 00:43:52,470 --> 00:43:55,920 and since this is non-toxic, we should test it. 810 00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,080 Mushrooms are completely unusual organisms 811 00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,230 and they're ignored by so many people 812 00:44:00,230 --> 00:44:04,995 and yet they're a vital interface between all forms of life. 813 00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,650 - At the University of Southern Florida, 814 00:44:13,650 --> 00:44:16,160 a very interesting study came out. 815 00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:18,600 Mice were trained to have a conditioned fear response, 816 00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,470 and so when there's a sound that is associated with pain, 817 00:44:21,470 --> 00:44:25,058 later on when they heard the sound they cowered in fear. 818 00:44:27,013 --> 00:44:28,920 But they treated the mice with psilocybin, 819 00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,080 the compound in magic mushrooms, 820 00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,510 the mice disassociated that link. 821 00:44:33,510 --> 00:44:36,573 The mice overcame that fear condition response. 822 00:44:37,530 --> 00:44:38,840 - We started with very low doses 823 00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,140 to as high a dose as one milligram per kilogram. 824 00:44:41,140 --> 00:44:43,300 Now what was interesting, 825 00:44:43,300 --> 00:44:45,320 if you look at double labeled cells, 826 00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:46,800 in other words the birth of new neurons, 827 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,630 we saw an increase in neurogenesis. 828 00:44:50,630 --> 00:44:53,390 - Neurogenesis literally means neuro for nerves, 829 00:44:53,390 --> 00:44:56,400 and genesis, rebirth or beginning of. 830 00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,223 The re-growing of neurons. 831 00:45:01,090 --> 00:45:03,620 They were not using the same neurological pathways 832 00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:05,050 they have in the past. 833 00:45:05,050 --> 00:45:07,780 This is really exciting because it means that 834 00:45:07,780 --> 00:45:10,630 the brain has a plasticity about it, 835 00:45:10,630 --> 00:45:13,010 it's able to heal, it's able to grow, 836 00:45:13,010 --> 00:45:14,910 it just needs the right compounds 837 00:45:14,910 --> 00:45:18,133 to help it develop new neurological pathways. 838 00:45:19,390 --> 00:45:20,680 We're all getting older, 839 00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,504 we'll all suffer some degree of dementia. 840 00:45:27,910 --> 00:45:29,770 What compounds can we take 841 00:45:29,770 --> 00:45:32,393 that enhances and preserves neurogenesis? 842 00:45:37,070 --> 00:45:39,830 I know many many people who would not dare 843 00:45:39,830 --> 00:45:41,680 take a psilocybin mushroom trip. 844 00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:45,420 But the concept of them taking 1/50th of a dose, 845 00:45:45,420 --> 00:45:47,236 something like that, 846 00:45:47,236 --> 00:45:49,610 and it causes neurogenesis and it might make them smarter, 847 00:45:49,610 --> 00:45:51,360 or in a better mood or happier? 848 00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,183 That's a whole different subject. 849 00:45:57,460 --> 00:46:00,360 We are on a never ending search for partners. 850 00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,693 Life affirming relationships. 851 00:46:07,630 --> 00:46:09,550 Or, at the very least, 852 00:46:09,550 --> 00:46:11,843 nourishment for the next leg of our journey. 853 00:46:13,940 --> 00:46:17,193 We have flourished side by side with your species, 854 00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,403 symbiotically, for centuries. 855 00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,390 - Many shamanic cultures relied on mushrooms 856 00:46:28,390 --> 00:46:31,240 for their transcendental experiences. 857 00:46:31,240 --> 00:46:34,693 This is pre-religion, all over the world. 858 00:46:35,850 --> 00:46:38,070 It was all about the individual's connection 859 00:46:38,070 --> 00:46:39,750 to the spiritual world 860 00:46:39,750 --> 00:46:43,563 or the mystery that is our context for living. 861 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,170 - These are ancient artifacts from the Mayan culture. 862 00:46:50,170 --> 00:46:52,450 These are called mushroom stones. 863 00:46:52,450 --> 00:46:54,110 This may be the largest collection 864 00:46:54,110 --> 00:46:55,940 of mushroom stones in the world. 865 00:46:55,940 --> 00:46:58,660 The Mayan culture was very mycophilic, 866 00:46:58,660 --> 00:47:02,000 and they revered mushroom stones for divination, 867 00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,610 for spirituality, also to be able to predict 868 00:47:05,610 --> 00:47:09,002 incoming armies and how to strategize against them. 869 00:47:17,810 --> 00:47:22,260 A great ethnomycologist by the name of R. Gordon Wasson 870 00:47:22,260 --> 00:47:24,670 came up with the phrase mycophilia, 871 00:47:24,670 --> 00:47:27,200 the love of mushrooms that the Mayans shared. 872 00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,340 Mycophobia was, classically, 873 00:47:29,340 --> 00:47:31,340 the English who had a fear of mushrooms, 874 00:47:31,340 --> 00:47:33,260 because they were enigmatic. 875 00:47:33,260 --> 00:47:35,350 You know, these mushrooms can get you high, 876 00:47:35,350 --> 00:47:38,090 they can heal you, they can can feed you, they can kill you. 877 00:47:38,090 --> 00:47:41,520 And so, that which is so powerful is naturally feared. 878 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,890 - Wasson was an amateur mycologist, 879 00:47:43,890 --> 00:47:46,210 a person who studies mushrooms, 880 00:47:46,210 --> 00:47:51,060 and was invited to participate in a ceremony 881 00:47:51,060 --> 00:47:56,060 by a curandera; Maria Sabina in 1955. 882 00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,680 He took these mushrooms and had a psychedelic experience. 883 00:48:04,540 --> 00:48:05,960 - And when R. Gordon Wasson came out 884 00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:07,250 with his research that was published 885 00:48:07,250 --> 00:48:09,603 in Life Magazine in 1957, 886 00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,090 that was basically a field guide to psilocybin mushrooms 887 00:48:16,090 --> 00:48:18,950 delivered to tens of millions of Americans 888 00:48:18,950 --> 00:48:22,033 on their doorstep during the peak of the Cold War. 889 00:48:22,940 --> 00:48:26,340 This, then, was quickly noticed by academics at Harvard 890 00:48:26,340 --> 00:48:30,670 and other Ivy League schools and then the cognoscente, 891 00:48:30,670 --> 00:48:33,150 including Timothy Leary, 892 00:48:33,150 --> 00:48:35,943 Ram Dass and Dr. Andrew Weil. 893 00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:39,310 - Why do mushrooms produce molecules 894 00:48:39,310 --> 00:48:42,440 that fit receptors in the human brain and body? 895 00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:43,290 What does that say? 896 00:48:43,290 --> 00:48:44,123 What does that mean? 897 00:48:44,123 --> 00:48:45,400 I mean, does that mean that we're supposed 898 00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:46,743 to be using these things? 899 00:48:48,070 --> 00:48:51,270 - Psychedelics during the '50s and '60s 900 00:48:51,270 --> 00:48:53,740 were the cutting edge of psychiatric research. 901 00:48:53,740 --> 00:48:55,530 There were remarkable studies 902 00:48:55,530 --> 00:48:58,683 with very, very promising findings. 903 00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,387 - Psychedelics became part of research 904 00:49:02,387 --> 00:49:04,350 and psychiatry for 30 years, 905 00:49:04,350 --> 00:49:06,960 and there were several very interesting indications 906 00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,440 that they were researched. 907 00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,150 The best data was actually for alcoholism. 908 00:49:11,150 --> 00:49:13,870 - We found that having a mystical experience 909 00:49:13,870 --> 00:49:15,540 during the course of one session 910 00:49:15,540 --> 00:49:18,430 was the strongest predictor of positive outcome 911 00:49:18,430 --> 00:49:20,470 meaning maintaining sobriety 912 00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:23,150 over the long follow-up period. 913 00:49:23,150 --> 00:49:24,763 It was very impressive. 914 00:49:25,980 --> 00:49:27,120 - Some of these drugs, you know, 915 00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:30,158 they had escaped the lab as the phrase goes. 916 00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:33,560 Millions of people were using them 917 00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:34,980 and you have to realize 918 00:49:34,980 --> 00:49:39,008 that this was a radical force unleashed on the West. 919 00:49:45,620 --> 00:49:46,990 The kids who take psychedelics 920 00:49:46,990 --> 00:49:48,800 aren't gonna fight your wars. 921 00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:51,180 They're not going to join your corporations. 922 00:49:51,180 --> 00:49:52,080 They won't buy it. 923 00:49:52,998 --> 00:49:55,870 - A lot was going on back in the '60s. 924 00:49:55,870 --> 00:49:59,360 It was a time of rapid cultural change. 925 00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,430 There was irrational fears 926 00:50:02,430 --> 00:50:05,930 about too much cultural change too fast. 927 00:50:05,930 --> 00:50:08,620 President Nixon called Timothy Leary 928 00:50:08,620 --> 00:50:11,440 the most dangerous man in America. 929 00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:13,180 - We must wage what I have called 930 00:50:13,180 --> 00:50:16,210 total war against public enemy number one 931 00:50:16,210 --> 00:50:19,493 in the United States, the problem of dangerous drugs. 932 00:50:19,493 --> 00:50:22,050 ♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪ 933 00:50:22,050 --> 00:50:24,050 - When everyone says shrooms to me, 934 00:50:24,050 --> 00:50:27,470 it invokes this whole idea to use psilocybin mushrooms 935 00:50:27,470 --> 00:50:28,810 as a party drug. 936 00:50:28,810 --> 00:50:32,193 They are so much more important than just getting high. 937 00:50:33,973 --> 00:50:36,260 ♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪ 938 00:50:36,260 --> 00:50:39,290 - The movement to marginalize 939 00:50:39,290 --> 00:50:42,507 the major psychedelics is incredibly complex. 940 00:50:42,507 --> 00:50:46,410 And it plugged into a counterculture movement, 941 00:50:46,410 --> 00:50:50,283 an anti-war movement, an anti-establishment movement. 942 00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:55,960 But there were many, many forces that were at play. 943 00:51:02,550 --> 00:51:06,880 - Somehow the fuse blew, and one of the victims was 944 00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,853 the medical research with psychedelics. 945 00:51:10,820 --> 00:51:15,820 There's a very irrational and anti-scientific climate 946 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,950 that was fueled even in government pamphlets, 947 00:51:18,950 --> 00:51:21,600 really had distorted information 948 00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,674 that was not scientifically accurate. 949 00:51:24,674 --> 00:51:26,358 - Get away, just get away. 950 00:51:26,358 --> 00:51:28,773 - It's a bad trip, instant insanity. 951 00:51:31,330 --> 00:51:33,713 The research came to a halt in 1970, 952 00:51:33,713 --> 00:51:35,700 the war was declared on drugs, 953 00:51:35,700 --> 00:51:37,920 the Controlled Substances Act was passed, 954 00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:39,920 and the research essentially was erased 955 00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,033 from being taught in psychiatry. 956 00:51:43,290 --> 00:51:45,700 - I think I may have the dubious distinction 957 00:51:45,700 --> 00:51:50,560 of being the last to give psilocybin to a cancer patient 958 00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,143 at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. 959 00:51:54,380 --> 00:51:57,143 And then the research became completely dormant. 960 00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,960 In our evolution as a species 961 00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:07,140 we're at a point of coming to terms 962 00:52:07,140 --> 00:52:09,683 with a major paradigm change. 963 00:52:11,290 --> 00:52:15,133 A change in how we view what we call reality. 964 00:52:19,410 --> 00:52:23,343 And that always evokes tension and fears. 965 00:52:25,620 --> 00:52:30,620 The culture wants to cling to the old view of the universe. 966 00:52:36,550 --> 00:52:39,030 - You realize that you've been limited all this time 967 00:52:39,030 --> 00:52:41,190 with your perspective of reality. 968 00:52:41,190 --> 00:52:44,260 Had reality been known to you at this level, 969 00:52:44,260 --> 00:52:47,863 early on, how much more evolved would we be as beings? 970 00:52:49,700 --> 00:52:51,700 A lot of people would be afraid of that. 971 00:52:55,685 --> 00:52:58,050 This is very dangerous territory. 972 00:52:58,050 --> 00:52:59,560 People wanna give up their responsibility 973 00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:01,670 of being able to understand, 974 00:53:01,670 --> 00:53:04,240 and because they can't understand, then they have faith. 975 00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:05,530 And they put their faith in other people 976 00:53:05,530 --> 00:53:06,930 who say they can understand. 977 00:53:07,894 --> 00:53:10,840 And I think that's a situation 978 00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:12,890 that's ripe for a predatory relationship. 979 00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,200 - Anyone who's had one of those experiences, 980 00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:27,710 in a country where it's not legal to have them, 981 00:53:27,710 --> 00:53:29,060 is stuck in this position 982 00:53:29,060 --> 00:53:33,020 where something really precious and really giving, 983 00:53:33,020 --> 00:53:35,230 a great gift to you, 984 00:53:35,230 --> 00:53:38,110 is not understood by the culture at large 985 00:53:38,110 --> 00:53:40,150 and furthermore puts you or other people, 986 00:53:40,150 --> 00:53:42,713 or and other people, at risk of prosecution. 987 00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,870 And one response to that is to get angry 988 00:53:48,810 --> 00:53:50,227 and to want to fight that. 989 00:53:50,227 --> 00:53:51,990 And another response to it is to say 990 00:53:51,990 --> 00:53:54,783 we just got to explain to people what's going on here. 991 00:53:55,620 --> 00:53:57,330 And when people understand it 992 00:53:57,330 --> 00:54:00,723 then there will be accommodation and respect. 993 00:54:02,730 --> 00:54:05,090 There are a number of elders living in the Bay Area 994 00:54:05,090 --> 00:54:06,930 who've devoted some part of their career 995 00:54:06,930 --> 00:54:09,250 in psychology or religious studies 996 00:54:09,250 --> 00:54:10,700 who ended up being invited 997 00:54:10,700 --> 00:54:14,300 to a small invitational conference at Esalen 998 00:54:14,300 --> 00:54:17,530 called the Pacific Symposium on Psychedelic Drugs. 999 00:54:17,530 --> 00:54:19,690 As we went around the room making introductions, 1000 00:54:19,690 --> 00:54:21,270 most of the people who were clinicians 1001 00:54:21,270 --> 00:54:23,210 were excitedly talking about 1002 00:54:23,210 --> 00:54:25,250 what kind of clinical trial they would run 1003 00:54:25,250 --> 00:54:27,060 if they could use one of these substances 1004 00:54:27,060 --> 00:54:30,093 to treat PTSD or to treat depression. 1005 00:54:31,720 --> 00:54:33,900 - We wrote the best design we could, 1006 00:54:33,900 --> 00:54:38,420 we submitted it to the FDA, and they approved it. 1007 00:54:38,420 --> 00:54:40,273 This is 1999. 1008 00:54:41,553 --> 00:54:44,280 And it reactivated psychedelic research 1009 00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:49,280 after basically a 22-year dormancy in the United States. 1010 00:54:49,700 --> 00:54:52,100 - It's like a Rip Van Winkle effect. 1011 00:54:52,100 --> 00:54:55,880 You know, it's waking up 20 years later. 1012 00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:59,200 The methodologies, the questions that we can ask, 1013 00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,113 on so many different levels. 1014 00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,240 - I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. 1015 00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,113 My diagnosis was so bad that, 1016 00:55:15,950 --> 00:55:18,603 they weren't giving me any chance whatsoever. 1017 00:55:19,940 --> 00:55:23,080 - My diagnosis was kidney cancer. 1018 00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:26,660 Finding out that you may wanna get 1019 00:55:26,660 --> 00:55:27,993 your affairs in order. 1020 00:55:29,370 --> 00:55:31,320 - I first found out about this study 1021 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,830 when my oncologist gave me a pamphlet. 1022 00:55:33,830 --> 00:55:36,360 He said here's something that might be able to help you 1023 00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:37,463 with the anxiety. 1024 00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,310 And I was accepted into the study. 1025 00:55:41,310 --> 00:55:44,070 - The most important thing is to remember 1026 00:55:44,070 --> 00:55:46,850 that you're always safe. 1027 00:55:46,850 --> 00:55:49,720 And our recommendation is that whatever 1028 00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:52,540 is coming up that you allow it, 1029 00:55:52,540 --> 00:55:55,867 that you don't have to like it, but you say, "Okay," 1030 00:55:56,830 --> 00:55:59,190 rather than trying to run away from it. 1031 00:55:59,190 --> 00:56:01,900 Once a volunteer is enrolled in the study, 1032 00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:04,230 they're with us for the preparation, 1033 00:56:04,230 --> 00:56:05,590 the psilocybin sessions 1034 00:56:05,590 --> 00:56:08,253 and the integration follow-ups after. 1035 00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:14,180 I have been a guide for around 350 psilocybin sessions 1036 00:56:14,180 --> 00:56:16,590 and then about 1,000 of the preparatory 1037 00:56:16,590 --> 00:56:18,364 and integration meetings. 1038 00:56:18,364 --> 00:56:20,936 - All right. - Okay. 1039 00:56:20,936 --> 00:56:22,220 Now get your head up. 1040 00:56:22,220 --> 00:56:24,250 It's really just about experiencing 1041 00:56:24,250 --> 00:56:27,543 what comes up as the psilocybin takes effect. 1042 00:56:47,830 --> 00:56:49,900 - In the intense part of this journey, 1043 00:56:49,900 --> 00:56:53,170 this world and things that matter to most people: 1044 00:56:53,170 --> 00:56:55,980 family and all that, that wasn't even 1045 00:56:55,980 --> 00:56:57,570 what it was about. 1046 00:56:57,570 --> 00:57:00,060 They say anything mystical can't be explained. 1047 00:57:00,060 --> 00:57:01,020 It's something like that. 1048 00:57:01,020 --> 00:57:05,870 It's a feeling of such immense power 1049 00:57:07,140 --> 00:57:08,583 that you can't even imagine. 1050 00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:11,680 I've never felt anything like it before. 1051 00:57:14,670 --> 00:57:19,000 It was about being in a place of infinite space 1052 00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,693 and just being there. 1053 00:57:27,140 --> 00:57:29,680 - There's a experience of positive mood, 1054 00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,810 sometimes openheartedness, love. 1055 00:57:32,810 --> 00:57:34,750 Transcendence of time and space, 1056 00:57:34,750 --> 00:57:37,913 and then finally it's thought to be ineffable. 1057 00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:43,831 People say, "I can't describe that experience." 1058 00:57:48,750 --> 00:57:50,967 - In my mind I said, "Okay, hold it, 1059 00:57:50,967 --> 00:57:53,113 "if I give myself over to you, 1060 00:57:54,137 --> 00:57:57,997 "can you promise me that I will be in at least 1061 00:57:57,997 --> 00:58:02,627 "as strong a shape as when I entered this room?" 1062 00:58:03,770 --> 00:58:06,993 And I felt a voice that I needed to heed. 1063 00:58:08,837 --> 00:58:13,837 "Do you think I would disrespect my own handiwork?" 1064 00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:18,987 This is the voice from on high saying, 1065 00:58:18,987 --> 00:58:22,167 "Do you think I would disrespect my child?" 1066 00:58:23,210 --> 00:58:25,893 And I felt so beautiful. 1067 00:58:27,850 --> 00:58:30,963 I felt like I have never felt before. 1068 00:58:32,290 --> 00:58:36,660 My sense of being loved, of being worthy, 1069 00:58:36,660 --> 00:58:41,660 of love, of being cared for, of being important to someone. 1070 00:58:48,460 --> 00:58:49,975 It's huge. 1071 00:58:55,338 --> 00:58:56,701 - Keep going into it. 1072 00:58:56,701 --> 00:58:58,538 Doing beautiful. 1073 00:59:14,350 --> 00:59:17,210 - One third of individuals in this study 1074 00:59:17,210 --> 00:59:19,410 said it's the single most 1075 00:59:19,410 --> 00:59:23,200 spiritually significant experience of their lives. 1076 00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:27,250 About 70 % say it's among the five 1077 00:59:27,250 --> 00:59:30,640 most personally meaningful experiences of their lives. 1078 00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,653 And you say, well, what does that mean, you know? 1079 00:59:34,653 --> 00:59:36,860 And initially, I thought, 1080 00:59:36,860 --> 00:59:40,453 I wonder if they don't have pretty dull lives. 1081 00:59:41,660 --> 00:59:44,517 But no, people would say, you know, 1082 00:59:44,517 --> 00:59:48,137 "When my first born came into this world, 1083 00:59:48,137 --> 00:59:49,907 "I'll never forget that. 1084 00:59:49,907 --> 00:59:52,780 "And life has never been the same since." 1085 00:59:52,780 --> 00:59:56,987 Or, "My father passed away, that was deeply moving to me, 1086 00:59:56,987 --> 00:59:58,880 "I'm different now in the world." 1087 00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,087 They say, you know, "It's kind of like that." 1088 01:00:04,349 --> 01:00:07,180 - The most glorious part was that 1089 01:00:07,180 --> 01:00:12,150 it made me feel more comfortable with living, you know? 1090 01:00:12,150 --> 01:00:16,403 Because you're not afraid of dying. 1091 01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,300 - Frankly, I'm just a laboratory scientist, 1092 01:00:22,300 --> 01:00:25,070 and I wasn't prepared for that. 1093 01:00:25,070 --> 01:00:27,750 - From the memory of the transcendental state 1094 01:00:27,750 --> 01:00:32,100 of consciousness, many people report less anxiety, 1095 01:00:32,100 --> 01:00:36,790 less depression, less preoccupation with pain, 1096 01:00:36,790 --> 01:00:39,800 closer interpersonal relationships. 1097 01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:42,960 And perhaps most impressive they claim 1098 01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,303 to be a loss of the fear of death. 1099 01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:48,450 - It recalibrates how they see death. 1100 01:00:49,670 --> 01:00:53,053 It's been amazing hearing them talk about this idea of love. 1101 01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:56,580 Many of them spoke about how nature itself 1102 01:00:56,580 --> 01:00:59,333 is something like this substance called love. 1103 01:01:01,210 --> 01:01:02,840 And having touched that, 1104 01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:05,987 they've recalibrated and shaped how they die differently. 1105 01:01:13,410 --> 01:01:15,600 - The John Hopkins psilocybin research team 1106 01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:19,100 has completed or has underway a total of nine studies, 1107 01:01:19,100 --> 01:01:21,003 and it got the world's attention. 1108 01:01:25,900 --> 01:01:27,380 When we finally released the results 1109 01:01:27,380 --> 01:01:28,690 of our first experiment 1110 01:01:28,690 --> 01:01:31,320 in a peer reviewed scientific journal, 1111 01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:32,850 it was very gratifying to see 1112 01:01:32,850 --> 01:01:35,280 how the daily press responded to it. 1113 01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:37,290 - A little bit of health news for you. 1114 01:01:37,290 --> 01:01:39,950 A single dose of psychedelic magic mushrooms 1115 01:01:39,950 --> 01:01:42,550 can make people with severe anxiety and depression 1116 01:01:42,550 --> 01:01:44,053 feel better for months. 1117 01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:48,220 - It changes the way they view themselves, 1118 01:01:48,220 --> 01:01:53,040 other people in the world, from a single experience, 1119 01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:56,583 not Prozac that you have to keep taking day after day. 1120 01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,020 - These are not chronic drugs. 1121 01:02:01,020 --> 01:02:03,087 And that's where most of the research 1122 01:02:03,087 --> 01:02:06,580 and development in big pharma goes. 1123 01:02:06,580 --> 01:02:09,110 The treatments that are being explored for psilocybin 1124 01:02:09,110 --> 01:02:13,850 involve one, two, maybe three pills, that's it. 1125 01:02:13,850 --> 01:02:15,320 That's not a very good business model, 1126 01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:17,325 you can't make a lot of money that way. 1127 01:02:20,510 --> 01:02:24,713 - The core of this mystical experience is, 1128 01:02:26,856 --> 01:02:28,860 is a mystery, frankly. 1129 01:02:28,860 --> 01:02:31,000 It's the existential mystery 1130 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:33,270 of what are we really doing here? 1131 01:02:33,270 --> 01:02:36,160 What's the meaning of all this? 1132 01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:40,414 And that is a very uplifting kind of experience to have. 1133 01:02:40,414 --> 01:02:42,380 - As a whole, there's a sense 1134 01:02:42,380 --> 01:02:45,883 of being part of a larger network. 1135 01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:51,633 And somehow that's more real after a mystical experience. 1136 01:02:53,610 --> 01:02:56,040 You feel that you really are connected 1137 01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:59,233 in some meaningful way with every atom of the universe. 1138 01:03:00,810 --> 01:03:05,570 - From my perspective, this core experience informs 1139 01:03:05,570 --> 01:03:08,700 all of the religious, ethical, and moral traditions. 1140 01:03:08,700 --> 01:03:13,273 I mean, that is the core of love thy neighbor as thyself. 1141 01:03:14,930 --> 01:03:17,660 If we don't get some of these priorities straight 1142 01:03:17,660 --> 01:03:20,270 with respect to how we treat other people, 1143 01:03:20,270 --> 01:03:24,853 how we treat our environment, we're gonna cease to exist. 1144 01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:28,300 I could see this as being critical 1145 01:03:28,300 --> 01:03:31,139 to the evolution of the species frankly. 1146 01:03:33,580 --> 01:03:35,430 You wouldn't go hiking up the Himalayan mountains 1147 01:03:35,430 --> 01:03:37,110 without any preparation. 1148 01:03:37,110 --> 01:03:38,313 Well, this is a journey. 1149 01:03:39,460 --> 01:03:41,050 These are sacraments and medicines 1150 01:03:41,050 --> 01:03:44,073 that should be treated with respect and caution. 1151 01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:52,713 Consider it to be like going to your own personal church, 1152 01:03:53,618 --> 01:03:56,947 and you're going to sit in awe of the universe. 1153 01:04:30,450 --> 01:04:32,490 - We have a new study, which is quite remarkable. 1154 01:04:32,490 --> 01:04:33,630 It's working with religious leaders. 1155 01:04:33,630 --> 01:04:36,940 These are ordained clergy of many traditions: 1156 01:04:36,940 --> 01:04:39,463 Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism. 1157 01:04:40,580 --> 01:04:43,040 Since these experiences are at the core 1158 01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:44,670 of the major religions, 1159 01:04:44,670 --> 01:04:48,860 why not bring in religious leaders who spent their careers 1160 01:04:48,860 --> 01:04:52,602 studying this landscape to have the experience? 1161 01:05:09,270 --> 01:05:10,830 - You guys hear that? 1162 01:05:10,830 --> 01:05:12,110 You didn't? - Vibrating. 1163 01:05:12,110 --> 01:05:14,390 - Vibrating, phone call was coming in. 1164 01:05:14,390 --> 01:05:15,223 There she goes. 1165 01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:17,913 Message from mom. 1166 01:05:18,820 --> 01:05:20,600 Inbound message from mother. 1167 01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:23,020 I think I had the best of all mothers. 1168 01:05:23,020 --> 01:05:25,492 My mother was extremely kind. 1169 01:05:32,740 --> 01:05:36,780 So another mushroom empowers the immune system 1170 01:05:36,780 --> 01:05:38,580 and this is Turkey Tails. 1171 01:05:38,580 --> 01:05:40,340 And Turkey Tail mushrooms have been used 1172 01:05:40,340 --> 01:05:42,460 for more than 1,000 years. 1173 01:05:42,460 --> 01:05:47,300 This hit home to me very personally in June of 2009 1174 01:05:47,300 --> 01:05:50,327 when my 84-year-old mother called me up and says, 1175 01:05:50,327 --> 01:05:53,190 "Paul, I have something very serious to talk to you about." 1176 01:05:53,190 --> 01:05:55,057 She says, "My right breast is five times 1177 01:05:55,057 --> 01:05:57,087 "the size of my left. 1178 01:05:57,087 --> 01:06:00,830 "I have six swollen lymph glands the size of walnuts," 1179 01:06:00,830 --> 01:06:02,120 and her voice started shaking, 1180 01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:04,810 and I'm not ashamed to admit that I started crying. 1181 01:06:04,810 --> 01:06:07,160 She had stage 4 breast cancer. 1182 01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:09,557 But then the doctor said, "You're too old 1183 01:06:09,557 --> 01:06:10,747 "to have radiation therapy, 1184 01:06:10,747 --> 01:06:12,827 "you can't have your breasts removed, 1185 01:06:12,827 --> 01:06:15,447 "but there's an interesting study on Turkey Tail mushrooms 1186 01:06:15,447 --> 01:06:16,617 "at Bisteria Medical School. 1187 01:06:16,617 --> 01:06:18,940 "You might want to try taking those." 1188 01:06:18,940 --> 01:06:22,240 And my mother goes, "Well, my son is supplying those." 1189 01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,850 So she was put on Taxol and Herceptin, wonderful drugs, 1190 01:06:26,850 --> 01:06:29,570 and she started taking eight Turkey Tail capsules a day, 1191 01:06:29,570 --> 01:06:32,640 four in the morning, and four in the evening. 1192 01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,930 And that was in June of 2009. 1193 01:06:35,930 --> 01:06:40,930 And today my mother has no detectable tumors. 1194 01:06:41,130 --> 01:06:42,986 And I'd like to bring my mother up. 1195 01:06:56,860 --> 01:06:59,223 - You have to live through it to believe it. 1196 01:07:01,060 --> 01:07:02,730 - By the way, thank you for giving birth to me, 1197 01:07:02,730 --> 01:07:03,980 I really appreciate that. 1198 01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:06,573 - You haven't thanked me lately? 1199 01:07:10,250 --> 01:07:12,070 - It has been reported in literature 1200 01:07:12,070 --> 01:07:14,720 that medicinal mushrooms like turkey tail 1201 01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:17,030 help chemotherapeutic agents work better. 1202 01:07:17,030 --> 01:07:19,180 And I think she's a living example of that. 1203 01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:30,310 One can argue with me on the statistics, 1204 01:07:30,310 --> 01:07:31,950 but my mother is alive 1205 01:07:31,950 --> 01:07:34,310 and all the doctors that saw her 1206 01:07:34,310 --> 01:07:37,056 did not believe that she would survive. 1207 01:07:51,330 --> 01:07:56,175 - It is my great honor to introduce Paul Stamets. 1208 01:08:01,750 --> 01:08:03,010 Keep going, bud. 1209 01:08:03,010 --> 01:08:04,820 - I brought a fungal friend of mine 1210 01:08:04,820 --> 01:08:06,520 from the old growth forest. 1211 01:08:06,520 --> 01:08:08,601 And I present to you 1212 01:08:09,609 --> 01:08:10,442 agarikon. 1213 01:08:16,982 --> 01:08:18,945 Agarikon was described in 65 AD 1214 01:08:18,945 --> 01:08:21,690 as Elixirium at longem vitum, 1215 01:08:21,690 --> 01:08:23,053 the Elixer of long life. 1216 01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:29,413 So I want to take you on a magical mushroom mystery tour, 1217 01:08:31,790 --> 01:08:34,083 And I'm gonna push the envelope here, folks. 1218 01:08:35,340 --> 01:08:38,083 Mycodiversity is biodiversity. 1219 01:08:38,990 --> 01:08:42,950 You will decompose, I'm gonna decompose. 1220 01:08:42,950 --> 01:08:44,153 We're all gonna die! 1221 01:08:45,860 --> 01:08:50,347 That's okay, because we will enter into the mycoverse. 1222 01:08:52,240 --> 01:08:54,960 We will forever exist together 1223 01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,760 within the myco molecular matrix. 1224 01:08:57,760 --> 01:08:59,670 - When he talks the way he does, 1225 01:08:59,670 --> 01:09:04,620 he is channeling the mycelium. 1226 01:09:04,620 --> 01:09:07,180 And this is a marvelous thing. 1227 01:09:07,180 --> 01:09:11,830 - Brain neurons, mycelium, the computer internet, 1228 01:09:11,830 --> 01:09:13,470 the organization of the universe, 1229 01:09:13,470 --> 01:09:16,000 all shares the same archetype. 1230 01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:19,260 I believe matter begets life, 1231 01:09:19,260 --> 01:09:21,060 life becomes single cells, 1232 01:09:21,060 --> 01:09:25,260 single cells form chains, chains forms branches, 1233 01:09:25,260 --> 01:09:27,900 matrices form interlocking, 1234 01:09:27,900 --> 01:09:32,260 intersecting mosaics of mycelium, 1235 01:09:32,260 --> 01:09:35,690 and mycelium-like organisms ebb and flow 1236 01:09:35,690 --> 01:09:37,210 not only on this planet, 1237 01:09:37,210 --> 01:09:38,860 on other planets into the future. 1238 01:09:39,720 --> 01:09:41,141 Thank you very much. 1239 01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:50,330 - Paul was wonderful about bringing us information 1240 01:09:50,330 --> 01:09:52,223 about all these aspects of mushrooms. 1241 01:09:53,571 --> 01:09:55,630 And then it inspired all these young people. 1242 01:09:55,630 --> 01:09:57,400 Now we have people like Trad Kotter 1243 01:09:57,400 --> 01:09:59,640 carrying on all the great work that Paul started, 1244 01:09:59,640 --> 01:10:01,630 talking about bio-pesticides, 1245 01:10:01,630 --> 01:10:04,200 talking about the ways you can detoxify oil. 1246 01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:06,560 All of these amazing things were started 1247 01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:08,520 because people like Paul brought that 1248 01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:10,200 to the culture at large. 1249 01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:11,960 And young people now have taken up the cause 1250 01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,550 and are really expanding our insights 1251 01:10:14,550 --> 01:10:17,520 into what the world of mushrooms can do for us. 1252 01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:18,367 - Hi, my name's Peter and I'm with 1253 01:10:18,367 --> 01:10:20,050 the Radical Mycology Project. 1254 01:10:20,050 --> 01:10:21,380 I recently trained a mushroom 1255 01:10:21,380 --> 01:10:23,370 to digest used cigarette filters. 1256 01:10:23,370 --> 01:10:25,000 - Paul Stamet's book "Mycelium Running", 1257 01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:27,050 got my mind sort of in a whirl. 1258 01:10:27,050 --> 01:10:28,530 That was when I first discovered 1259 01:10:28,530 --> 01:10:31,883 there was much more to mushrooms than just food. 1260 01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:35,370 - If you would have seen me when I dropped out 1261 01:10:35,370 --> 01:10:37,030 of high school, I was just making rap music. 1262 01:10:37,030 --> 01:10:39,370 I knew very little about the natural world, 1263 01:10:39,370 --> 01:10:42,140 I never even went on a hike until I was 18. 1264 01:10:42,140 --> 01:10:44,070 But finding Paul Stamets' TED talk video 1265 01:10:44,070 --> 01:10:46,350 was one of the big inspirations that pushed me 1266 01:10:46,350 --> 01:10:49,200 into the wonderful world of mycology. 1267 01:10:49,200 --> 01:10:51,990 - My first mushroom book was "The Mushroom Cultivator" 1268 01:10:51,990 --> 01:10:53,280 by Paul Stamets. 1269 01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:55,330 - I will be eternally thankful to him 1270 01:10:55,330 --> 01:10:58,073 for showing me that it's okay to be mushroom mad. 1271 01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:02,550 - We really don't even know most fungi. 1272 01:11:02,550 --> 01:11:05,410 We're discovering new species on a daily basis 1273 01:11:05,410 --> 01:11:06,560 and you really don't have to go 1274 01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:09,133 to exotic locations to discover them. 1275 01:11:10,270 --> 01:11:12,550 - Anybody can add to the science from identifying 1276 01:11:12,550 --> 01:11:16,000 a new species to developing a new myco-remediation protocol. 1277 01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:17,940 There's a great need for more people 1278 01:11:17,940 --> 01:11:22,150 to study fungi and there's lots of opportunities. 1279 01:11:22,150 --> 01:11:24,300 It's amazing what we don't know about mushrooms. 1280 01:11:24,300 --> 01:11:26,530 They really are a frontier of knowledge. 1281 01:11:26,530 --> 01:11:30,320 They probably can help us solve all sorts of problems, 1282 01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:32,300 if we would look a little deeper. 1283 01:11:32,300 --> 01:11:36,400 - Anyone, anyone can help by going and walking in the woods 1284 01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:37,930 and contributing to mycology. 1285 01:11:37,930 --> 01:11:40,680 You may have found a species that has never been found. 1286 01:11:42,260 --> 01:11:44,200 We need these mushrooms. 1287 01:11:44,200 --> 01:11:47,880 We work together as a community to solve problems. 1288 01:11:47,880 --> 01:11:51,513 We could be the community that heals the planet. 1289 01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:55,830 - It's been estimated two-thirds of our food supply 1290 01:11:55,830 --> 01:11:57,363 is bee-pollinated dependent. 1291 01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:00,040 Unfortunately we're losing bees 1292 01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:01,790 across the world in a dramatic die off 1293 01:12:01,790 --> 01:12:04,740 that is very dangerous for the bio security of this planet. 1294 01:12:06,020 --> 01:12:08,730 So I started exploring ways to help save the bees. 1295 01:12:08,730 --> 01:12:09,970 And I noticed in the summertime 1296 01:12:09,970 --> 01:12:11,550 there's a continuous convoy of bees 1297 01:12:11,550 --> 01:12:14,260 going from my beehives to mycelium. 1298 01:12:14,260 --> 01:12:15,720 But then it dawned on me, 1299 01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:17,290 maybe the bees were benefiting 1300 01:12:17,290 --> 01:12:18,800 from the mycelial extracts 1301 01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:21,120 because they have anti-viral properties. 1302 01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:23,690 And so I cultured the most aggressive strains 1303 01:12:23,690 --> 01:12:25,150 and then submitted them. 1304 01:12:25,150 --> 01:12:27,700 We started testing the effects of these extracts 1305 01:12:27,700 --> 01:12:29,543 in helping bees survive. 1306 01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:32,760 - Some of these fungal extracts are really good 1307 01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,680 at reducing viral levels in the bee. 1308 01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:39,350 So here we have a fungus that is helping fight viruses 1309 01:12:39,350 --> 01:12:40,730 in an insect. 1310 01:12:40,730 --> 01:12:42,000 - We're musing mushrooms to create 1311 01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:43,780 an entirely new class of materials 1312 01:12:43,780 --> 01:12:46,723 which are totally compostable at the end of their lives. 1313 01:12:48,670 --> 01:12:50,230 - The researchers found that when they heated 1314 01:12:50,230 --> 01:12:51,670 a portobello mushroom skin 1315 01:12:51,670 --> 01:12:53,580 to roughly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 1316 01:12:53,580 --> 01:12:55,880 it became a lattice of carbon nano ribbon 1317 01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:57,570 that could be used in battery design 1318 01:12:57,570 --> 01:12:58,850 because it allows a good amount 1319 01:12:58,850 --> 01:13:01,280 of surface area for storing energy. 1320 01:13:01,280 --> 01:13:04,810 - You can filter water, you can create medicinal compounds 1321 01:13:04,810 --> 01:13:06,720 almost on demand. 1322 01:13:06,720 --> 01:13:08,450 We work in Haiti and they look at you 1323 01:13:08,450 --> 01:13:10,550 like I had superpowers. 1324 01:13:10,550 --> 01:13:11,857 Well, I tell them, I said, 1325 01:13:11,857 --> 01:13:14,137 "You're about to have superpowers too." 1326 01:13:15,340 --> 01:13:16,810 - Coming from the background of not having 1327 01:13:16,810 --> 01:13:18,800 any training and getting myself into the lab, 1328 01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:21,110 was very empowering, I felt like a superhero. 1329 01:13:21,110 --> 01:13:22,710 I felt like I could do anything. 1330 01:13:23,710 --> 01:13:26,040 You're officially a mushroom farmer. 1331 01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:28,890 - Spore Lady. - Spore Lady and Sporegasm. 1332 01:13:28,890 --> 01:13:32,470 - I see my species as part of a larger whole. 1333 01:13:32,470 --> 01:13:34,770 Rather than being at the top of the pyramid, 1334 01:13:34,770 --> 01:13:37,943 being one of the organisms with inside the circle. 1335 01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:42,540 And the circle is made up of mycelium 1336 01:13:42,540 --> 01:13:44,605 holding us all together. 1337 01:13:52,130 --> 01:13:55,110 - We've always thought of plants as these inert objects, 1338 01:13:55,110 --> 01:13:57,130 these things that don't actually 1339 01:13:57,130 --> 01:13:59,680 interact with each other and build things. 1340 01:13:59,680 --> 01:14:02,780 And what my work is showing and other people's work as well, 1341 01:14:02,780 --> 01:14:04,830 is saying, actually they need each other. 1342 01:14:06,380 --> 01:14:08,750 They need each other to grow in a community 1343 01:14:08,750 --> 01:14:10,883 so that they can start sharing the load. 1344 01:14:11,880 --> 01:14:13,230 You do this, I'll do that, 1345 01:14:13,230 --> 01:14:16,403 and together we can make a beautiful resilient community. 1346 01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:20,960 They have an incredible capacity 1347 01:14:20,960 --> 01:14:23,670 to make things change very, very quickly. 1348 01:14:23,670 --> 01:14:26,570 So if we can work with them, if we get it, you know, 1349 01:14:26,570 --> 01:14:29,920 if humans get it, we can change this thing really fast. 1350 01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:31,820 So I am super hopeful. 1351 01:14:31,820 --> 01:14:34,967 We've just got to get busy and help nature do it's thing. 1352 01:14:40,390 --> 01:14:41,920 - Evolution never stops. 1353 01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:43,550 There's not one point it happens 1354 01:14:43,550 --> 01:14:45,000 and then it doesn't happen again. 1355 01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:46,433 It's continuously happening. 1356 01:14:52,260 --> 01:14:53,840 A core concept of evolution 1357 01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:55,800 is that through natural selection, 1358 01:14:55,800 --> 01:14:57,733 the strongest and the fittest survive. 1359 01:14:59,030 --> 01:15:03,650 But, moreover, communities survive better than individuals. 1360 01:15:03,650 --> 01:15:06,500 Communities rely upon cooperation. 1361 01:15:06,500 --> 01:15:08,550 And I think that's the power of goodness. 1362 01:15:10,120 --> 01:15:14,740 Evolution is based on the concept of mutual benefit 1363 01:15:14,740 --> 01:15:17,555 and the extension of generosity. 1364 01:15:20,740 --> 01:15:24,034 When we see it, we understand it. 1365 01:15:24,034 --> 01:15:26,000 And when we understand it, we care about it. 1366 01:15:26,000 --> 01:15:28,850 And when we care about it, we'll do something to save it. 1367 01:15:30,370 --> 01:15:33,180 - We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. 1368 01:15:33,180 --> 01:15:35,261 What will it take to achieve that? 1369 01:15:38,861 --> 01:15:40,980 We are not an individual. 1370 01:15:40,980 --> 01:15:44,330 We are a vast network of molecules, 1371 01:15:44,330 --> 01:15:46,710 and energies and wavelengths. 1372 01:15:46,710 --> 01:15:49,913 The interconnectiveness of being is who we are. 1373 01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,620 This world of ours is always changing, 1374 01:15:58,620 --> 01:16:00,913 not for the better, or for the worse, 1375 01:16:02,230 --> 01:16:03,393 but for life. 1376 01:16:04,510 --> 01:16:08,150 If the storms come and the water rises, 1377 01:16:08,150 --> 01:16:13,150 if fire scorches the land or darkness descends. 1378 01:16:13,290 --> 01:16:16,343 We will be here, working. 1379 01:16:17,850 --> 01:16:19,493 As we always have. 1380 01:16:20,370 --> 01:16:23,793 Extending the network, building community, 1381 01:16:24,870 --> 01:16:26,203 restoring balance. 1382 01:16:28,270 --> 01:16:29,920 One connection at a time. 1383 01:16:33,260 --> 01:16:36,010 It may take a million years, 1384 01:16:36,010 --> 01:16:37,510 or a hundred million. 1385 01:16:38,671 --> 01:16:41,773 But we will still be here. 1386 01:16:53,442 --> 01:16:58,442 ♪ There's a whole wide world right under our feet ♪ 1387 01:17:00,739 --> 01:17:05,739 ♪ Watched it grow so I hate when you leave ♪ 1388 01:17:07,450 --> 01:17:12,450 ♪ Connected on one leaf to a tree ♪ 1389 01:17:14,503 --> 01:17:19,503 ♪ From the ground this magical thing ♪ 1390 01:17:20,891 --> 01:17:24,095 ♪ Breathe life ♪ 1391 01:17:24,095 --> 01:17:27,747 ♪ And break down ♪ 1392 01:17:27,747 --> 01:17:31,238 ♪ Breathe in ♪ 1393 01:17:31,238 --> 01:17:34,559 ♪ Break out ♪ 1394 01:17:34,559 --> 01:17:37,455 ♪ This water, this breath ♪ 1395 01:17:37,455 --> 01:17:40,955 ♪ Will be how we remember ♪ 1396 01:17:43,098 --> 01:17:45,990 Lt. Paul Stamets. 1397 01:17:45,990 --> 01:17:49,810 - I became an astromycologist because of awe. 1398 01:17:49,810 --> 01:17:51,900 Awe at the miracle of life. 1399 01:17:51,900 --> 01:17:54,740 - How did you feel seeing a fictional character 1400 01:17:54,740 --> 01:17:57,670 on Star Trek that is inspired by your science? 1401 01:17:57,670 --> 01:17:58,820 - I'm super honored. 1402 01:17:58,820 --> 01:18:01,560 I tuned in to Star Trek when I was about 12 years old. 1403 01:18:01,560 --> 01:18:04,430 Spores, by nature, travel through the cosmos. 1404 01:18:04,430 --> 01:18:07,160 When they germinate, some mushrooms form. 1405 01:18:07,160 --> 01:18:10,637 Some magic mushrooms to help you bend time and space. 1406 01:18:12,390 --> 01:18:14,463 - Paul, if I were to visit you, 1407 01:18:15,330 --> 01:18:17,530 could we have some of these magic mushrooms? 1408 01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:20,468 - Nature provides, I don't. 1409 01:18:23,554 --> 01:18:27,332 ♪ Everywhere and everything ♪ 1410 01:18:27,332 --> 01:18:32,332 ♪ I am the reason you breathe in ♪ 1411 01:18:33,934 --> 01:18:37,040 ♪ Break down ♪ 1412 01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:40,481 ♪ So breathe in ♪ 1413 01:18:40,481 --> 01:18:44,061 ♪ And breathe out ♪ 1414 01:18:44,061 --> 01:18:47,163 ♪ Now this water, this breath ♪ 1415 01:18:47,163 --> 01:18:52,163 ♪ Will be how we remember ♪ 1416 01:18:53,457 --> 01:18:58,457 ♪ So let it all spread around ♪ 1417 01:19:00,827 --> 01:19:04,410 ♪ Let it all spread around ♪ 1418 01:19:11,064 --> 01:19:16,064 ♪ So let me bring you back to life again ♪ 1419 01:19:17,466 --> 01:19:22,466 ♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪ 1420 01:19:24,709 --> 01:19:29,709 ♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪ 1421 01:19:31,472 --> 01:19:35,972 ♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪ 105698

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