All language subtitles for 663ABC35C98B91EF7FC104AD2779B20E_eng

There's a feeling.

The pulse of eternal knowledge.

When you sense the oneness...

you are with us.

We brought life to Earth.

You can't see us,

but we flourish all around you.

Everywhere.

In everything.

And even inside you,

whether you believe in us

or not.

From your first
breath to your last,

in darkness and in the light,

we are the oldest and youngest.

We are the largest and smallest.

We are the wisdom
of a billion years.

We are creation.

We are resurrection,

condemnation, and regeneration.

We are mushrooms.

Mushrooms are very clandestine
and very much the trickster.

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

We're in Agarikon territory now.

There're some big
living snags up here.

It's always interesting

and exhilarating to be
in the old growth forest,

but not always rewarding

in accomplishing our mission

to find a new Agarikon strain,

but nevertheless,

it beats being in the office.

Fungi are the grand molecular
decomposers of nature.

Now, what does that mean? Well,

they break down wood,

and here I'm
laying in the forest.

I haven't peeked yet,

but here's a piece of wood

laying down on the ground.

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

fungi would leap
up to recycle me.

Well, that's the way of nature.

Mushrooms represent rebirth,

rejuvenation, regeneration.

Fungi generate
soil that gives life.

The task that we face today

is to understand the
language of nature.

My mission is to discover the
language of nature of the fungal networks

that communicate
with the ecosystem,

and I believe
nature is intelligent.

The fact that we lack the language
skills to communicate with nature

does not impugn the concept
that nature's intelligent.

It speaks to our inadequacy
for communication.

If we don't get our act together and
come in commonality and understanding

with the organisms
that sustain us today,

not only will we
destroy those organisms,

but we will destroy ourselves.

Mushroom. It's
not like a vegetable,

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

The fungus is its own
kingdom altogether.

There's over 1.5
million species.

That's six times
more than plants.

Of all those species of fungi,

about 20,000 produce mushrooms,

and mushrooms come
in an incredible diversity

of shapes and sizes
and colors and lifestyles.

There are even
bioluminescent mushrooms.

A lot of people are
afraid of mushrooms.

People associate mushrooms
and fungi you know, mold

with death and decay,
which makes sense.

You know, there's a lot of fear

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

They decompose dead
and dying organisms

and move all those
nutrients back into the cycle.

They kind of are at
the very end of stuff,

but they're also
at the beginning.

Once you start working
with mushrooms,

you get drawn in.

A really important difference
between plants and fungi

is that plants have
evolved to catch your eye.

When a tomato gets red,

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

The mushrooms don't give a shit.

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

Every time you
pick up a mushroom,

you are faced with the
omnivore's dilemma.

Do I know enough to eat this?

Should I eat this?

Will this kill me?

And that's one of
the reasons why

people are freaked out about
mushrooms, because yeah,

there are ones
that can kill you.

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

but to be honest with you, there's
berries in the woods that can kill you too.

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

There's a huge
subculture of mycophiles,

of people who are
fascinated with mushrooms.

They hunt mushrooms together,
and they eat mushrooms together,

and they're sort of
bloated pleasure seekers

with a scientific bent.

You know, really
my kind of crowd.

This is a tricholoma.

Grifola frondosa.

This is Cortinarius.

Agaricus bisporus.

That's a Cladonia lichen.

So I started attending
these festivals and forays

and learning more and more.

It changed the way
I saw everything.

Mushrooms actually
were the window by which

I came to understand
nature in a deeper way.

If we didn't have fungi,

we would get this buildup of plant
matter that would choke the Earth.

They really are the key.

They break down plant
life and make it usable

for new plant life
and for animal life.

They are the digestive
tracts of the forest.

One of the lifestyles of
fungi is as decomposers,

called saprobes or
rotters, if you want.

The yeasts and molds used in
making beer and wine and cheese

are all saprobes.

That's actually
a penicillin mold

in Gorgonzola and Roquefort.

Bourbon is fungi-fermented corn.

But this ability to
break things down

is a talent, if you will,

that can be harnessed

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

These rotters,

they can break down
anything that's natural.

That's what they've
evolved to do.

Anything that's
hydrocarbon-based,

so that includes
stuff like oil spills,

pollutant problems.

That's kind of the truth of it.

I was a part of this experiment.

There were four piles
saturated with diesel

and other petroleum waste.

One was a control pile,

one pile was treated
with enzymes,

one pile treated
with a bacteria,

and our pile, we inoculated
with mushroom spores.

The fungi absorbs the oil,

so the fungi is producing
enzymes for oxidases

that break
carbon-hydrogen bonds.

These are the same bonds
that hold hydrocarbons together.

So the fungi becomes
saturated with oil.

And then when we
returned six weeks later,

all the tarps were removed.

All the other piles

were dead, dark and stinky.

We came back to our pile.

It was covered with
hundreds of pounds

of oyster mushrooms.

Some of these mushrooms
are very happy mushrooms.

They were very large,

by showing how much
nutrition that they could obtain.

But something else happened,
which was an epiphany in my life.

They sporulated.

The spores attract insects.

Birds then came,
bringing in seeds,

and our pile became
an oasis of life.

Mushrooms are the
fruiting bodies of fungi.

So the mushroom
is like the apple.

The bulk of the organism
is growing underground

and it's composed
of these long threads

and these threads
grow one cell at a time

and then they
branch and rebranch,

growing in every
direction they can,

even three-dimensionally.

And that mass of threads
is called a mycelium.

When a stick falls
onto the ground...

you pull it up...

and there's mycelium.

It is virtually everywhere.

A mycelium has more networks

than our brain has
neural pathways,

and works in much the same way,

with electrolytes,
electrical pulses.

They're the most
common species on Earth.

They're everywhere.

Just to give you an idea of
how much fungi are in the forest,

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

under every
footstep that you take.

And that's all over the world.

And they form
these massive links.

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

Mycelium that can grow
out even just this big

can have trillions, literally
trillions, of end branchings.

Almost everyone knows
about the computer internet.

The mycelium shares
the same network design.

Trees are communicating,
using the mycelium as pathways.

They're connecting
one tree to another.

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

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

using mycelium
as the passageway.

So we often think of kin
recognition as an animal behavior.

Humans, you know,
we love our babies.

We know it's our baby, and
we're going to look after that baby.

Well, we never thought
that plants could do that,

but we're finding
in our research

that plants can
recognize their own kin.

So these mother
trees recognize their kin

through their
mycorrhizal networks.

The mother tree and the baby
seedlings are sending signals,

talking to each other.

When they're connected together

and carbon is moving
between plants,

the trees are supporting
the weaker ones.

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

she will increase her competitive
environment towards her own babies,

so that they
regenerate further away.

It's a magical thing.

And this could not
happen without the fungi.

I'm not this
super-idealist tree hugger.

I do hug trees occasionally.
I do confess to that,

but I was a logger.
I cut the woods.

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

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

but we're letting them
rot with a purpose.

We're letting them rot
with shiitake mushrooms,

which are delicious
and medicinal... Yes!

September of '74,

Paul was working as a logger

in Darrington.

I went up to visit
him one weekend,

and we were out
walking in the woods,

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

He says, "What are those?"

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

...for the first time.

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

I'd never seen
one like that before.

It was just like
this huge epiphany,

like... Whoo-whoo!

You know? And
that's where it began.

He just never stopped.

These are old red
belted polypores.

Elegant polyporus.
It's got a furry stem.

This is a delicious
shrimp russula mushroom,

edible and choice,

and it grows here in
the old growth forest.

It's rare in science you
have such powerful amateurs.

The meaning of the
word "amateur" is a lover,

and he loves his mushrooms.

And he's proven that amateurs
can do credible, important research.

And that used to be the case.

The 19th century obviously,

you know, was full of
great amateur naturalists,

Darwin being one of them.

He's handed over to this
universal consciousness.

That's where genius comes from.

Every magnificent thing

that humans have ever achieved

comes from that place.

I grew up in a small town
called Columbiana, Ohio.

Very conservative,
very religious.

And my brother
John went to Yale,

and my brother
Bill went to Cornell.

So we were an academic family.

But I had a severe
stuttering habit

that greatly interfered with
my ability to express myself.

I went through six
years of speech therapy.

I could not speak
a single sentence

without stuttering profusely,

and nothing in speech
therapy could help me.

I couldn't look at
people in their eyes.

So all my life, I
stared at the ground.

Anybody came up to
me, I'd stare at the ground.

I found fossils and mushrooms.

We are all of the stars.

My kingdom was
born from the heavens

four and a half
billion years ago.

We are the pioneers.

We climbed out of the
sea to create the fertile soil,

and set the
stage for all of life.

In South Africa, in
the sediments of lava,

they have found
fungus-like organisms,

mycelium fossils in the
lava 2.4 billion years old.

This is the oldest record of a
multicellular organism on Earth.

This year another fossil was
found in the sediments of Brazil.

It's 113 million years old

and it's a perfectly
shaped mushroom.

We divided from fungi
about 650 million years ago.

One branch led to fungi.

The other branch led to animals.

We chose a path of encirculating our
nutrients in sort of a sac, the stomach.

The mycelium
remained underground,

externally digesting
its nutrients.

Biodiversity surged...

until we had these great
cataclysmic extinction events,

and when the asteroids
impacted the Earth, bam!

Enormous amounts of debris
was jettisoned in the atmosphere.

Sunlight was cut off.

Plants die, animals die...

and fungi inherited the Earth.

From these extinction
events, there's one lesson.

Those organisms that
paired with fungi survived.

We are more closely
related to fungi

than we are to
any other kingdom.

What this means is that we
are descendants of mycelium.

Mycelium is the
mother of us all.

Living creatures like
fungi are intelligent

in the sense that they
respond to their environment,

they seek out food, and
they defend themselves.

They solve problems,
and that's intelligence.

A mycelium can
theoretically live forever

as long as it has
food to grow into,

which is why the oldest and
largest organism on Earth

is a fungus.

It lives on top of a
mountain in Oregon.

It's like thousands of acres,

and it's thousands of years old.

The mushroom is the
organ of sexual reproduction

for the spore of the fungus.

Fungi don't have
seeds. They have spores.

The spores are extremely tiny,

little lightweight
gene-carrying systems.

When they land on
something they can eat,

they break down the
food that they're on,

and then reabsorb the nutrients

because you need to move on

and find another place
where there's food.

The mushroom releases zillions
of spores into the atmosphere.

There's so many spore.

I mean, you take one breath...

you just breathed
in ten fungal spore.

So they are everywhere.
We've evolved with them.

When you see what mushrooms do,

it's kind of spooky in
the most wonderful way.

I mean, they correct
everything on Earth.

They support life,

they convert life,

they carry life.

They're remarkable beings.

If humans become extinct...

what's the next species
that will take over the Earth?

Maybe mycelium already
are the dominant species,

not just because they're the
most common species on Earth.

They're everywhere.

I mean, you look at humans.
There's seven billion of us,

but we're just one little
creature wandering around,

incredibly vulnerable,

and don't survive
easily if we're assaulted.

Hurricane Harvey has
started to make landfall

here on the Texas coast.

More than 30,000
people are without power,

and things are only
expected to get worse.

Puerto Rico has
had the worst storm

in about a century,

and it's struggling

to understand the new normal

of months ahead
without basic services.

Climate change is one of the
biggest threats to our present world,

to the future of our planet.

CO2 is our biggest
greenhouse gas.

As plants photosynthesize,

they literally inhale CO2
while exhaling oxygen.

CO2 is what plants
photosynthesize,

and they take that carbon,
and they put it in different places.

They put it in their
leaves, in their trunks,

but they put 70% of it,
we're finding, below ground.

And the root systems trade
that carbon for nutrients.

The carbon ends up in the
fungal cell walls, where it's stored.

This fuels the
microbial community

and all the other
parts of the food web,

like the mites and nematodes,

and they start cycling nutrients

through that eating process.

So the fungi are
really important

in stabilizing carbon in soils.

Once the carbon is stable,

it can stay there stored
for thousands of years.

We know, for example, that
carbon can move from plant to plant,

and it evens out the distribution
of carbon in that system.

They're working really hard.

If we maintain the plant,

the forest, and the
natural fungal community,

we've got a natural engine

that's just storing
carbon below ground.

So it's essential.

You know, it's
there for us, right?

It's right in front of us.

We do more than make mushrooms.

We have the ability to do so much
more than just breakdown matter.

Like the fruit of our labor,

most of you have only scratched
the surface of our usefulness.

We are the changers.

I was 14 or 15 years
of age, I believe,

when my brother
John gave me a book...

called Altered States
of Consciousness.

And within that book,

Andy Weil was referenced

on expanded consciousness,

and I got really excited.

I was going to charismatic
Christian revival meetings

and seeing people being saved,

but it kind of was cool
from my perspective

that they're achieving this
altered state of consciousness.

So I thought that was part
of all the same idea here.

I really owe credit
to Andrew Weil.

I think he read one
of my early books

in which I wrote about
mushroom hunting

and psychedelic mushrooms

and made some reference to
medicinal mushrooms as well.

It was like a turning point.

You know, I certainly
was awakened.

Other people were thinking
about expanding consciousness.

And so I gave this book
to my friend Ryan Snyder.

So Ryan took it home
and a few days later,

I said, "Ryan, where's my book?"

And he told me his
dad had burned it.

I said, "Burned my book?"

Rather than giving it back
to me or calling my parents,

he actually took the
initiative to burn this book.

I owe Ryan Snyder's father
a deep debt of gratitude

because that single act
galvanized my interest

saying, "If this is so powerful to
cause a person to do such a bizarre act,

then I should examine
what this subject's all about."

Human existence on
this Earth goes back

an extraordinarily
long period of time,

most of which we have
no identifiable information.

It's entirely plausible,

given that the indigenous
people all around the world

know intimately
all the plant life,

and will know the different
combinations of plant life

that our prehistoric ancestors,

they had come across the
plants that do alter consciousness.

In about two million years,

the human cortex
tripled in size,

and the brain exploded
over a ridiculously short span

of evolutionary time.

Two million years is nothing
when it comes to evolution.

What triggered that?

In the late 1970s,

Terrence McKenna and
his brother Dennis McKenna

were the first that proposed
the Stoned Ape hypothesis.

It is known now
that 22 primates

23, including us
consume mushrooms.

And the idea is our ancestors,
they came out of the trees

and went across the savannah,

would be tracking animals

that were pooping.

Well, in the subtropics,

the most common mushroom

coming out of those cow patties

is Psilocybe cubensis, a
potent magic mushroom.

One thing that mushrooms

and other
psychedelics do reliably

is they induce a synesthesia.

Synesthesia is the perception
of one sensory modality

in another,

hearing colors, for example,

or seeing music.

You have these
profound experiences

and you have to put
yourself in their place

and imagine what the
impact of such an experience

must have been
on an early hominid.

These magic mushrooms open up

the floodgates of
information you receive.

Basically, you can think
of it as a contact fluid

between the synapses
within the brain Wow!

What a competitive advantage,

especially if you're working

with a geometry of weapons,

or having to put
together something

that will give you a
better chance of survival.

The fact that this happened
not once, not twice,

but millions upon
millions of times

over millions of years

is a very plausible explanation

for the tripling of the
brain two million years ago.

It's not so simple to say that
they ate psilocybin mushrooms

and suddenly the brain mutated.

I think it's more
complex than that,

but I think it was a factor.

It was like a software

to program this neurologically
modern hardware to think,

to have cognition,
to have language

because language is
essentially synesthesia.

Language is just association

with apparently
meaningless sound

except that it's associated
with the complex of meaning.

A great deal of the brain's
real estate, you might say,

is devoted to the generation

and/or the comprehension
of language.

Those neural structures are
not found in our ancestors.

That's a human trait to
have so much physiology

devoted to generating and
understanding language,

and that's a reflection
of evolutionary advance

that made us what we are.

I couldn't get these
mushrooms for the longest time.

When I was in Ohio,

I actually purchased a
bag of magic mushrooms,

but I had no guide.

I had no recommendations
for how much to consume.

So I had a bag about
this big, so I thought,

"Well, that's
probably one dose."

So I consumed the bag!

Now, for those of
you who don't know,

this is like ten times more

than you probably
need to consume.

It was a warm summer day,

and there was a
beautiful big, big tree,

an oak tree,

and then I noticed

the black clouds on the horizon,

and I realized there
was a storm coming.

And I thought, "This is great.

There's great visual.
The storm coming."

And I thought,

"I'm going to climb
to the top of the tree."

So I'm starting
to feel the effects.

I'm getting waves where
the air becomes a liquid,

and...

you'd have this distortion field
go through the visual landscape.

I've never seen that before,

and go, "Oh wow, this is
what they were talking about."

And I see the boiling
clouds are coming closer,

but they're looking angry now.

And then the lightning
strikes would go...

and then all these
geometrical fractals

would emanate out
of the lightning strikes.

And pretty soon,

I have these overlying mosaics

of mathematical patterns

and geometric figures
of multiple colors

that are swimming
in this field of vision

that these waves
were flying through.

I've never in my life seen
anything like that before.

Wind's increasing and
the rains would come,

and I became extremely scared.

And then also I realize
I'm on the top of a hill,

I got a lightning
storm in the tallest tree.

Not the best place to be

when you're going to choose

a spiritual experience.

And so I held onto the tree

for dear life,

and that tree was my pillar,

back into the core of the Earth.

And I felt secure as long
as I held onto the tree.

Lightning strikes all
around. Thunderclaps.

One second between the
lightning strike and a thunderclap.

You knew it was
coming closer and closer.

I was terrified that
I wouldn't survive,

And through this
"terr-rific" experience,

terrifying and terrific
at the same time,

I'm up in this tree
and I'm saying,

"Well, what should I focus on?"

I said, "Well, Stamets,
you're not stupid.

But you stutter all the time."

And so I thought I
need to stop stuttering.

And so I said to
myself, "Stop stuttering.

Stop stuttering now."

A little inner voice in my head.

"You hear me?
Stop stuttering now."

I started saying that.

"Stop stuttering now.
Stop stuttering now."

Hundreds, hundreds,
hundreds, thousands of times.

After the storm had passed,

I came down from
the tree drenched,

soaked to the bone,

you know, in love with life,

with nature, in
love with that tree.

That tree was so
important to me.

And I went home,

and I went to bed.

I didn't see anybody.

And the next morning I woke up,

and there was a
really attractive lady

that I liked a lot,

but I could never
stare at her in the eyes,

because I was afraid to
stutter and embarrass myself.

So better to avoid social
contact than have social contact,

even though I was
really attracted to her.

And she liked me,

but I didn't know
what to do with it,

with that tension.

And so she was walking past me,

and she looked at me,

and she said, "Good
morning, Paul."

And for the first time

I looked her straight in the eye

and I said, "Good
morning. How are you?"

And I stopped
stuttering in one session.

This is the newest thing my
employees are listening to.

My employees are my
best source of new music.

We love loud music for the
mushrooms in the laboratories.

It causes everyone
to be synchronized.

We have a lot of nonverbal
communication in laboratories.

You're not allowed to talk.

Your mouth spreads bacteria.

So we try to minimize talking.

So a lot of it is done by
gestures and knowing.

So, why not have
it with loud music?

My dad was a businessman.

I swore I'd never become one,

but I wanted to be independent,

so I created a little
mail-order business

in order to supply myself and other
people who had like interest in mushrooms.

When we started the business,

it was extremely
difficult back then,

and we didn't
have the resources.

We were putting
little advertisements

in Organic Gardening magazine

back when there was only
three television stations.

I invented this business

so I could buy equipment

for my laboratory wholesale.

Amazing to me, we have
nearly 100 employees

and thousands of media outlets.

These mushrooms
were so powerful to me

that I realized that I
wanted to study them.

This mushroom that's
known as reishi, or lingzhi,

the mushroom of immortality.

And it's one of the most amazing
and interesting mushrooms

that we've ever grown.

This mushroom helps the
immunity of not only people, but bees.

Up this hill here,

we have a quarter
section of property,

160 acres,

and we have a large
mycological experiment.

We planted 33,000 trees,

half with mycorrhizal
fungi attached to the roots,

half without,

and this is year nine.

So, we are putting into
an Excel spreadsheet,

or have put in 1,100 trees

to compare the treatments.

I came into a chunk of change

from licensing
one of my patents,

and so when the political
climate of the USA changed

to be adverse to
environmentalists,

we bought land in Canada.

I think the fact that he didn't come up
on a conventional academic pathway

is part of the
reason he's as willing

to really explore ideas that...

are not on anyone else's radar.

I'm really honored that I
discovered a few things

that no one else
had yet discovered.

So, I have now five patents
on entomopathogenic fungi.

These are fungi
that infect insects,

and in particular, termites.

The biggest problem
in the commercialization

of biopesticides from fungi

has been the spore
repellency property.

The insects avoid the
spores of these fungi.

In fact, so concerned
are termites

that if a worker goes out
and encounters this fungus,

when the worker
returns back to the nest,

guards, they'll
capture that worker

that's infected
with these spores,

take the worker to a graveyard,

and they cut off
the worker's head,

and then the two
guards commit suicide.

They're trying to protect
the queen and the nest

and the colony from infection.

And I discovered something

that no one else
had ever reported

in the scientific literature.

I found a biological switch
that delayed sporulation,

and then the insects
were not repelled.

But they were super attracted,

which means one finds the
fungus now, and others follow,

and it ends up
being a Trojan horse.

The same fungi now
are taken past the guards,

given to the queen,

the queen feeds it to the brood.

The whole colony becomes
mummified with this mycelium,

and, whoosh! The whole
colony is infected and dies.

And then the spore
repellency properties

protects your house from
subsequent invasions.

This is a huge discovery.

And then I tried it
with carpenter ants,

with fire ants, fungus gnats,

and then mosquitoes,

and now we're
working with bed bugs,

and we've had successes
across the board.

The entire ecosystem
is infused with fungi.

So, I see these deep reservoirs
of the ecology all around us.

In a world of invention,

the answer to our
greatest problems

may be hiding
right under our feet.

There are mushrooms

that have been used
in Western medicine.

Penicillin, for example,

is a really
effective antibiotic.

Before it was synthesized,
during the Civil War,

when a soldier
would get wounded,

they would slap a piece of
moldy bread on his wound

to benefit from those
antibiotic properties,

so he wouldn't get an infection.

Alexander Fleming
discovered penicillin in 1927.

The problem was that

they couldn't find strains

that could be commercialized,

that could produce enough of it

in a commercially
economic fashion.

We fast forward,

and in 1942,

a group of researchers
in Chicago went shopping,

and a lab assistant found a
cantaloupe that was rotting

with a beautiful golden mold,

and from that strain,

we got the first hyper-producing
strain of penicillium.

Penicillin literally saved

tens of thousands
of soldiers' lives.

The Brits had this,

but the Germans and
the Japanese did not.

It's been suggested
that the discovery

of this hyper-producing
strain of penicillin

was a significant influence
in winning World War II.

Alexander Fleming then
received the Nobel Prize in 1945,

in recognition of
the huge impact

that penicillin had
on human health.

Here's how medicinal
mushrooms are thought to work:

A fungus will produce
all kinds of enzymes

it's like a chemical warfare

in order to fight off
competition for food,

like other microbes,

other fungi, bacteria, virus.

That's what makes
antibiotics work.

Chemicals that are
produced by fungus,

like the one that
penicillin is made from,

the fungus produces it

to kill bacteria that
are competition,

and when we take
penicillin, it kills our bacteria.

There's a long tradition
of using mushrooms

as medicines in East Asia,

especially in Korea,
China, and Japan.

They appear to
be able to enhance

and protect the body's
innate defensive mechanisms.

The uses for them fill niches

for which we really don't have
anything in Western pharmacology.

In Western medicine,
all of our effort

is on identifying
agents of disease

and eliminating them.

That has its place,

but we do almost nothing

about supporting the good.

Shamans would treat patients

and the diseases
were thought to be

elements of the spirit world.

Well, physicians
today treat infections,

and their spirits are bacteria,

or a pathogenic, or viruses.

So, whether the shamans
called them spirits

or whether the scientists
call them microbes,

with the invention
of microscopes

we get to see the microscopic
universe and landscape

that we thunder upon
with every footstep.

The fact that these
fungal networks

are seemingly invisible,

but then represent themselves

in a big flourishing mushroom

in a matter of a few days,

give us a window into
the invisible landscape

underneath our feet.

Fungal networks have
defended themselves

against vectors of disease
for millions of years.

Viral pandemics
occur periodically.

Between 1347 and 1353,

one-third of the
European population died

from the black plague.

The great flu pandemic of 1918,

two percent of the
world population died.

Millions upon
millions of people.

I think everyone is aware
of the threat of bioterrorism,

but few people may know that

Europeans were
actively involved,

consciously or unconsciously,

in bioterrorism against
indigenous peoples,

especially in the New
World, in Meso-America.

They brought in diseases,

and when you're extremely sick,

you can't fight off an invader.

It's an irony of
history that now,

the US government is interested

in protecting people
from viral pandemics.

Paul Stamets cultured
numerous strains

in his lab, and
prepared natural extract.

He then submitted samples

to the Defense Department's
BioShield program for testing.

And ironically,

I have a debt of gratitude

to Dick Cheney and
George W. Bush.

It is vital that our nation
discuss and address the threat

of pandemic flu now.

Their funding of that research

led to some very
novel discoveries,

to which we're still
elaborating today.

And what we know about
these mycelium networks

is they're learning membranes.

They are self-learning and
network-based organisms

that can share and
store knowledge.

The mycelium is
vaccinating itself

against pathogens
in the ecosystem.

We can capitalize on this

because many of the
same bacterial pathogens

that infect fungi, also
can infect animals.

We have found novel molecules

highly active
against pox viruses,

novel molecules highly active

against HPV, the
human papillomavirus.

Many scientists
are trying to come up

with the next antibiotic,
the next penicillin,

but we have barely tapped
into the fungal genome,

especially the
mushroom form of fungi.

Think of it: our old-growth forests
that contain these ancient fungi

are deep reservoirs

of potential compounds that
can fight pandemic viruses.

We should save the old-growth
forest as a matter of national defense.

I recommend mushrooms and
mushroom products frequently to patients

and I teach other
doctors about their uses.

Mushrooms have molecules
not found elsewhere in nature.

There're some that have
totally unusual properties

like Lion's Mane mushroom.

The Lion's Mane mushroom

is a globular cascading
icicle-formed mushroom.

Tastes like lobster or
shrimp when you cook it,

but a researcher in Japan
by the name of Kara-Jishi

discovered in around 1993,

and I don't have the foggiest
idea how you discover this,

but he discovered that this
mushroom stimulates nerves to regrow

and he postulated it could be an
effective treatment against Alzheimer's.

Since we don't have
anything for Alzheimer's

and since this is
nontoxic, we should test it.

Mushrooms are completely
unusual organisms

and they're ignored
by so many people

and yet they're
a vital interface

between all forms of life.

At the University
of Southern Florida,

a very interesting
study came out.

Mice were trained to have
a conditioned fear response

and so when there's a sound
that is associated with a pain,

later on when they
just heard the sound,

they cowered in fear.

When they treated the
mice with psilocybin,

the compound of magic mushrooms,

the mice dissociated that link.

The mice overcame the
fear-conditioned response.

We started with very low doses

to as high a dose as one
milligram per kilogram.

Now what was interesting,

if you look at
double-labeled cells,

in other words, the
birth of new neurons,

we saw an increase
in neurogenesis.

Neurogenesis literally
means "neuro" for nerves

and "genesis,"
rebirth or beginning of.

The regrowing of neurons.

They were not using the same neurological
pathways they have in the past.

This is really exciting

because it means that the
brain has a plasticity about it,

is able to heal,
is able to grow.

It just needs the
right compounds

to help it develop new
neurological pathways.

We're all getting older.

We'll all suffer some
degree of dementia.

What compounds can we take

that enhances and
preserves neurogenesis?

I know many, many people

who would not dare take
a psilocybin mushroom trip,

but the concept of them
taking one 50th of a dose,

something like that, and
it causes neurogenesis

that might make them smarter
or in a better mood or happier?

That's a whole
different subject.

We are on a never-ending
search for partners,

life-affirming relationships,

or at the very least,

nourishment for the
next leg of our journey.

We have flourished side
by side with your species

symbiotically for centuries.

Many shamanic cultures

relied on mushrooms

for their transcendental
experiences.

This is pre-religion
all over the world.

It was all about the
individual's connection

to the spiritual world,

or the mystery that is
our context for living.

These are ancient artifacts
from the Mayan culture.

These are called
mushroom stones.

This may be the
largest collection

of mushroom stones in the world.

The Mayan culture
was very mycophillic

and they revered mushroom
stones for divination,

for spirituality.

Also to be able to
predict incoming armies,

and how to strategize
against them.

A great ethnomycologist by
the name of R. Gordon Wasson

came up with the
phrase mycophilia,

the love of mushrooms
that the Mayans shared.

Mycophobia is a classically

the English had a
fear of mushrooms

because they're enigmatic.

You know, these
mushrooms can get you high,

they can heal you, they can
feed you, they can kill you.

And so that which is so
powerful is naturally feared.

Wasson was an
amateur mycologist,

a person who studies mushrooms

and was invited to participate
in a ceremony by a curandera,

Maria Sabina in 1955.

He took these mushrooms

and had a psychedelic
experience...

And when R. Gordon Wasson
came out with this research

that was published in
Life magazine in 1957...

that was basically a field
guide to psilocybin mushrooms

delivered to tens of
millions of Americans

on their doorstep, during
the peak of the Cold War.

This then was quickly noticed
by academics at Harvard

and other Ivy League schools
and then the cognoscenti,

including Timothy Leary, Ram
Dass, and Dr. Andrew Weil.

Why do mushrooms
produce molecules

that fit receptors in the
human brain and body?

What does that say?
What does that mean?

I mean, does that mean that we're
supposed to be using these things?

Psychedelics during
the '50s and '60s

were the cutting edge
of psychiatric research.

There were remarkable studies

with very, very
promising findings.

Psychedelics became part of
research in psychiatry for 30 years.

and there were several very interesting
indications that they were researched.

The best data was
actually for alcoholism.

We found that having
a mystical experience

during the course of one session

was the strongest predictor
of positive outcome,

meaning maintaining sobriety
over the long follow-up period.

It was very impressive.

Some of these drugs,

they had "escaped the
lab," as the phrase goes.

Millions of people
were using them

and you have to realize

that this was a radical
force unleashed in the West.

The kids who take psychedelics
aren't going to fight your wars.

They're not going to
join your corporations,

they won't buy it.

A lot was going
on back in the '60s.

It was a time of
rapid cultural change.

There was irrational fears

about too much
cultural change too fast.

President Nixon
called Timothy Leary

the most dangerous
man in America.

We must wage what
I have called total war

against public enemy number
one in the United States,

the problem with
dangerous drugs.

When everyone
says "shrooms" to me,

it invokes this whole idea

of using psilocybin
mushrooms as a party drug,

They are so much more
important than just getting high.

The movement to marginalize
the major psychedelics

is incredibly complex.

I mean, it plugged into a
counterculture movement,

an anti-war movement, an
anti-establishment movement.

There are many, many
forces that were at play.

Somehow the fuse blew

and one of the victims was

the medical research
with psychedelics.

There was a very irrational
and anti-scientific climate

that was fueled even in
government pamphlets,

really had distorted information

that was not
scientifically accurate.

It was a bad trip,
instant insanity.

The research came
to a halt in 1970.

War was declared on drugs.

The Controlled
Substances Act was passed

and the research
essentially was erased

from being taught in psychiatry.

I think I may have the dubious
distinction of being the last

to give psilocybin
to a cancer patient

at the Maryland
Psychiatric Research Center.

And then the research
became completely dormant.

In our evolution as a species,

we're at a point
of coming to terms

with a major paradigm change.

A change in how we
view what we call reality.

And that always
evokes tension and fears.

The culture wants to cling to
the old view of the universe.

You realize that you've
been limited all this time

with your
perspective of reality.

Had reality been known
to you at this level early on,

how much more evolved
would we be as beings?

A lot of people
would be afraid of that.

This is very
dangerous territory.

People want to give up the
responsibility of being able to understand

and because they can't
understand, then they have faith.

and they put their faith in other
people who say they can understand.

And I think it's a situation

that is ripe for a
predatory relationship.

Anyone who's had one
of those experiences

in a country where it's
not legal to have them

is stuck in this position

where something
really precious...

and really giving
a great gift to you

is not understood
by the culture at large

and furthermore, puts you or
other people or/and other people

at risk of prosecution.

And one response to that

is to get angry,

and to want to fight that.

And another
response to it is to say,

We've just got to explain to
people what's going on here.

And when people understand it,

then there will be
accommodation and respect.

There are a number of
elders living in the Bay Area

who've devoted some
part of their career

in psychology or
religious studies

who ended up being invited

to a small invitational
conference at Esalen

called the Pacific Symposium
on Psychedelic Drugs.

As we went around the
room making introductions,

most of the people
who were clinicians

were excitedly talking about

what kind of clinical
trial they would run

if they could use one
of these substances

to treat PTSD...

or to treat depression.

We wrote the best
design we could.

We submitted it to the
FDA and they approved it.

This was 1999,

and it reactivated
psychedelic research

after basically a 22-year
dormancy in the United States.

It's like a Rip
Van Winkle effect.

You know, it's waking
up 20 years later.

The methodologies,

the questions that we can
ask on so many different levels.

I had been diagnosed
with prostate cancer.

My diagnosis was so bad that...

You know, they weren't giving
me any chance whatsoever.

My diagnosis was kidney cancer.

Finding out that you may
want to get your affairs in order.

I first found out
about the study

when my oncologist
gave me a pamphlet.

He said, "Here's something that might
be able to help you with the anxiety."

And I was accepted
into the study.

The most important thing

is to remember that
you're always safe.

And a recommendation is
that whatever is coming up,

that you allow it,

that you don't have to like it,

but you say okay,

rather than trying
to run away from it.

Once a volunteer is
enrolled in the study,

they're with us
for the preparation,

the psilocybin sessions

and the integration
follow-ups after.

I have been a guide for
around 350 psilocybin sessions

and then about a thousand

of the preparatory and
integration meetings.

Alright.

Okay, lift your head up.

It's really just about
experiencing what comes up

as the psilocybin takes effect.

In the intense
part of this journey,

this world and things
that matter to most people,

family and all that,

that wasn't even
what it was about.

They say anything
mystical can't be explained.

It's something like that.

It's a feeling of
such immense power

that you can't even imagine.

I've never felt
anything like it before.

It was about being in
a place of infinite space

and just being there.

There's a experience
of positive mood,

sometimes openheartedness, love,

a transcendence
of time and space,

and then finally, it's
thought to be ineffable.

People say, "I can't
describe that experience."

In my mind I said,
"Okay, hold it.

If I give myself over to you...

can you promise me

that I will be in at
least as strong a shape

as when I entered this room?"

And I felt a voice
that I needed to heed.

"Do you think I would
disrespect my own handiwork?"

This is the voice
from on high saying,

"Do you think I would
disrespect my child?"

And I felt so beautiful.

I felt like I have
never felt before.

My sense of being loved,

of being worthy of
love, of being cared for,

of being important to someone.

It's huge.

You're going into it,
you're doing beautifully.

One-third of
individuals in the study

said it's the single most

spiritually significant
experience of their lives.

About 70% say

it's among the five most personally
meaningful experiences of their lives.

Then you say, "Well, so
what does that mean?"

You know? And
initially I thought,

I wonder if they don't
have pretty dull lives.

But no, people would say,

you know, when my
firstborn came into this world,

I'll never forget that.

And life has never
been the same since.

Or my father passed away.
That was deeply moving to me.

I'm different now in the world.

They say, you know,
it's kind of like that.

The most glorious part was that

it made me feel more
comfortable with living,

you know, because, uh...

you're not afraid of dying.

Frankly, I'm just a
laboratory scientist

and I wasn't prepared for that.

From the memory of the
transcendental state of consciousness,

many people report less
anxiety, less depression,

less preoccupation with pain,

closer interpersonal
relationships,

and perhaps most impressive,

they claim to have a
loss of the fear of death.

It recalibrates how
they see death.

It's been amazing hearing
them talk about this idea of love.

Many of them spoke about

how nature itself
is something like

this substance called love.

And having touched that,

They've recalibrated and
reshaped how they die differently.

The Johns Hopkins
psilocybin research team

has completed or has
underway a total of nine studies

and it got the
world's attention.

When we finally released the
results of our first experiment

in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal,

it was very gratifying to see

how the daily press
responded to it.

A little bit of health
news for you.

A single dose of psychedelic
magic mushrooms

can make people with
severe anxiety and depression

feel better for months.

It changes the way
they view themselves,

other people in the world...

from a single experience,

not Prozac that you have
to keep taking day after day.

These are not chronic drugs,

and that's where
most of the research

and development
in Big Pharma goes.

The treatments that are
being explored for psilocybin

involve one, two,
maybe three pills.

That's it.

That's not a very
good business model.

You can't make a
lot of money that way.

The core of this mystical
experience is, um...

is a mystery, frankly.

It's the existential mystery

of what are we
really doing here?

What's the meaning of all this?

and that is a very uplifting
kind of experience to have.

As a whole,

there's a sense of being part

of a larger network.

And somehow, that's more
real after a mystical experience.

You feel that you
really are connected

in some meaningful way

with every atom of the universe.

From my perspective,

this core experience then forms

all of the religious,
ethical and moral traditions.

I mean, that is the core of
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."

If we don't get some of
these priorities straight

with respect to how
we treat other people,

how we treat our environment,

we're going to cease to exist.

I could see this
as being critical

to the evolution of
the species, frankly.

You wouldn't go hiking
the Himalaya mountains

without any preparation.

Well, this is a journey.

These are sacraments
and medicines

that should be
treated with respect

and caution.

Consider it to be going to
your own personal church.

You're going to sit in
awe of the universe.

We have a new study,
which is kind of remarkable.

It's work with
religious leaders.

These are ordained clergy
who have many traditions.

Christianity, Buddhism,
Judaism, Hinduism.

Since these experiences
are at the core

of the major religions,

why not bring in
religious leaders

who spent their careers
studying this landscape

to have the experience?

You guys hear that?

- You didn't?
- Vibrating?

Vibrating. Phone
call was coming in.

There she goes.

Message from Mom.

Inbound message from Mother.

I think I had the
best of all mothers.

My mother was extremely kind.

So another mushroom
empowers the immune system

and this is turkey tails.

and turkey tail mushrooms
have also been used

for more than a thousand years.

This hit home to me very
personally, in June of 2009

when my 84-year-old
mother called me up

and said, "Paul,

I have something very
serious to talk to you about."

She said, "My right breast is
five times the size of my left.

I have six swollen lymph
glands the size of walnuts,"

and her voice started shaking

and I'm not ashamed to
admit that I started crying.

She had stage
four breast cancer.

But then the doctor
said, "You know,

you're too old to
have radiation therapy.

You can't have your
breasts removed.

But there's an interesting
study on turkey tail mushrooms

at Bastyr Medical School.

You might want
to try taking those."

And that's when my buddy goes,

"Well, my son's
supplying those."

So she was put on Taxol and
Herceptin, wonderful drugs.

And then she started taking

eight turkey tail
capsules a day.

Four in the morning
and four in the evening,

and that was in June of 2009.

And today, my mother
has no detectable tumors.

And I'd like to
bring my mother up.

You have to live
through it to believe it.

Hey, by the way, thank
you for giving birth to me.

I really appreciate that.

Oh, you haven't
thanked me lately?

It has been reported
in literature that

medicinal mushrooms
like turkey tail

help chemotherapeutic
agents work better.

And I think she's a
living example of that.

One can argue with
me on the statistics,

but my mother's alive,

and all the doctors that saw her

did not believe that
she would survive.

It is my great honor...

to introduce Paul Stamets.

I have brought a
fungal friend of mine

from the old-growth forest

and I present to
you... agarikon.

Agarikon was
described in 65 A.D.

as elixirium ad longam vitam.

The elixir of long life.

So I want to take you

on a magical
mushroom mystery tour.

and I'm going to push
the envelope here, folks.

Microdiversity is biodiversity.

You will decompose.
I'm going to decompose.

We're all going to die.

That's okay,

because we will enter
into the micro-verse.

We will forever exist together

within the
micromolecular matrix.

When he talks the way he does,

he is...

channeling the mycelium.

And this is a marvelous thing.

Brain neurons,

mycelium,

the computer internet,

the organization of the universe
all shares the same archetype.

I believe matter begets life.

Life becomes single cells.

Single cells form chains.

Chains forms branches.

Matrices form interlocking,
intercepting mosaics of mycelium

and mycelium-like
organisms ebb and flow

not only on this planet,

on other planets
into the future.

Thank you very much.

Paul was wonderful in
bringing us information

about all these
aspects of mushrooms

and that it inspired
all these young people.

Now we have people
like Tradd Cotter

carrying on the great
work that Paul started,

talking about biopesticides,

talking about the ways
you could detoxify oil.

All of these amazing
things were started

because people like Paul

brought that to
the culture at large

and young people now
have taken up the cause

and are really
expanding our insights

into what the world of
mushrooms can do for us.

Hi, my name's Peter

and I'm with the
radical mycology project.

I recently trained a mushroom

to digest used
cigarette filters.

Paul Stamets's book
Mycelium Running

got my mind sort of in a whirl.

That was when I
first discovered that

there was much more to mushrooms

than just food.

If you would have seen me

when I dropped
out of high school,

I was just making rap music.

I knew very little
about the natural world.

I had never even went
on a hike until I was 18,

but finding Paul
Stamets's TED talk video

was one of the biggest
inspirations that pushed me

into the wonderful
world of mycology.

My first mushroom book

was The Mushroom Cultivator

by Paul Stamets.

I will be eternally
thankful to him

for showing me that it's
okay to be mushroom mad.

We really don't even
know most fungi.

We're discovering new
species on a daily basis

and you don't have to
go to exotic locations

to discover them.

Anybody can add to the science,

from identifying a new species

to developing a new
micro-mediation protocol.

There is a great need for
more people to study fungi

and there's lots
of opportunities.

It's amazing what we don't
know about mushrooms.

They really are a
frontier of knowledge.

They probably can help us
solve all sorts of problems

if we look a little deeper.

Anyone, anyone can help

by going and
walking in the woods

and contributing to mycology.

You may have found a species
that has never been found.

We need these mushrooms.

We work together as a
community to solve problems.

We could be the community
that heals the planet.

It's been estimated
two-thirds of our food supply

is bee-pollinated-dependent.

Unfortunately, we're
losing bees across the world

in a dramatic die-off
that is very dangerous

for the biosecurity
of this planet.

So I started exploring
ways to help save the bees

and I noticed in the summertime

there's a continuous
convoy of bees

going from my
beehives to my mycelium.

But then it dawned on me,

maybe the bees are benefiting
from the mycelial extracts

because they have
antiviral properties.

And so I cultured the
most aggressive strains

and then submitted them.

We started testing the
effects of these extracts

in helping bees survive.

Some of these fungal
extracts are really good

at reducing viral
levels in the bee.

So here we have a fungus

that is helping fight viruses

in an insect.

We're using mushrooms to create

an entirely new
class of materials

which are totally compostable
at the end of their lives.

The researchers found that

when they heated

a portobello mushroom skin

to roughly 2,000
degrees Fahrenheit,

it became a lattice
of carbon nano ribbon

that could be used
in battery design

because it allows a good
amount of surface area

for storing energy.

You can filter water.

You can create medicinal
compounds almost on demand.

We've worked in Haiti,

and they look at you
like I have super powers.

Well, I tell them, I said,

"You are about to
have superpowers too."

Coming from the background
of not having any training,

getting myself into the
lab was very empowering.

I felt like a superhero. I
felt like I could do anything.

You're officially a
mushroom farmer.

Sporulating. Sporgasm.

I see my species as
part of a larger whole.

Rather than being at
the top of the pyramid,

being one of the organisms
with inside the circle.

and the circle is
made up of mycelium,

holding us all together.

We've always thought of
plants as these inert objects,

these things that don't
actually interact with each other

and build things,

and what my work is showing,
and other people's work as well,

it's saying actually,
they need each other.

They need each other
to grow in a community

so that they can
start sharing the load.

You do this, I'll do
that, and together,

we can make a beautiful
resilient community.

They have incredible capacity

to make things change
very, very quickly.

So if we can work with them,

if we get it, you
know? If humans get it,

we can change
this thing really fast.

So I am super hopeful.

We just got to get busy
and help nature do its thing.

Evolution never stops.

There's not one
point that it happens

and then it doesn't
happen again.

It's continuously happening.

The core concept of evolution

is that through
natural selection,

the strongest and
the fittest survive.

But moreover,

communities survive
better than individuals.

Communities rely
upon cooperation,

and I think that's the
power of goodness.

Evolution is based

on the concept
of mutual benefit,

and the extension of generosity.

When we see it,
we understand it.

And when we understand
it, we care about it.

And when we care about it,

we'll do something
to help save it.

We need to have a paradigm
shift in our consciousness.

What will it take
to achieve that?

We are not an individual.

We are a vast network

of molecules and
energies and wavelengths.

The interconnectedness
of being is who we are.

This world of ours
is always changing,

not for the better
or for the worse,

but for life.

If the storms come
and the water rises,

if fire scorches the land,

or darkness descends,

we will be here

working,

as we always have.

Extending the network.

Building community.

Restoring balance.

One connection at a time.

It may take a million years,

or a hundred million,

but we will still be here.

Lieutenant Paul Stamets.

I became an astral
mycologist because of awe.

Awe at the miracle of life.

How did you feel

seeing a fictional
character on Star Trek

that is inspired
by your science?

I'm super honored.

I tuned into Star Trek when
I was about 12 years old.

Spores by their nature
travel through the cosmos.

When they germinate,
some mushrooms form.

Some magic mushrooms
help you bend time and space.

So, uh, if I were
to visit you...

could we have some of
these magic mushrooms?

Nature provides. I don't.