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[narrator]
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.

lf 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.

[Michael Pollan] 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.

[Gary Lincoff]
This is a tricholoma.

[Bone]
Grifola frondosa.

[Lincoff] This is
Cortinarius [indistinct].

[Bone]
Agaricus bisporus.

That's a Cladonia lichen.

[Bone] 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.

[Stamets]
lf 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.

[Bone] 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.

[Stamets] 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 taros 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.

[Bone] 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.

[PollanI]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.

[Simard] 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.

[Stamets] 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.

[Pollan] 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.

[Harman] 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.

[Paul Stamets] 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.

[wind blowing]

[narrator]
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.

[P. Stamens] 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.

[Pollan] 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.

[Bone] 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.

[Harman]
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.

[reporter] 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.

[reporter 2] 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.

[man] Climate change is one

of the biggest threats
to our present world,

to the future of our planet.

[Simard] 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.

[narrator]
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.

[P. Stamets] 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 Weill.

[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."

[Charles Grob] 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.

[Dennis McKenna]
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?

[P. Stamens]
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.

[McKenna]
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.

[McKenna] 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.

[P. Stamens] 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,

“Fm 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...

[imitating lightning strikes]

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.

[electronic rap playing
in the truck]

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.

[Pollan] 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.

[P. Stamens] 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 werre 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.

[narrator]
In a world of invention,

the answer
to our greatest problems

may be hiding right
under our feet.

[Bone] 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 wouldnt get
an infection.

[P. Stamens] 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 Il.

Alexander Fleming then received
the Nobel Prize in 1945,

in recognition
of the huge impact

that penicillin had
on human health.

[Bone] 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.

[Weil] 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.

[P. Stamets]
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.

[man] 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.

[P. Stamets] 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.

[P. Stamets]
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.

[Weil] 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.

[P. Stamets]
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.

[Weil] 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.

[P. Stamets] 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.

[Sanchez-Ramos]
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.

[narrator] 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.

[Harman]
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.

[Nicholas Cozzi] 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...

[P. Stamets] 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 lvy 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.

[Ross] 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.

[Grob] 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.

[Pollan]
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.

[Timothy Leary] The kids who take psychedelics
aren't going to fight your wars.

They're not going to join
your corporations,

they wont buy it.

[Bill Richards] A lot was going on
back in the '6Os.

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.

[Richards]
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.

[Ross] 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.

[Richards] 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.

[P. Stamets] 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.

[Bob Jesse] 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.

[Richards] 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.

[Tony Head] I had been diagnosed
with prostate cancer.

My diagnosis was so bad
that...

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

[Judith Goedeke] My diagnosis
was kidney cancer.

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

[Head] 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.

[Head] 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.

[Griffiths] 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."

[Goedeke] 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.

[Griffiths] 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,

Il 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.

[Head] The most glorious part
was that

it made me feel more comfortable
with living,

you know,
because, uh...

you're not afraid of dying.

[Griffiths] Frankly,
I'm just a laboratory scientist

and I wasn't prepared for that.

[Richards] 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.

[Anthony Bossis] 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.

[Jesse] 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.

[Richards] 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.

[Pollan]
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 tt.

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.

[Richards] 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.

[Griffiths]
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.

[P. Stamets] 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.

[Bossis] 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?

-[phone vibrating]
-[Stamets] You guys hear that?

-You didn't?
-[man] 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.

[cheering and applause]

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?

[P. Stamets] 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.

[man] It is my great honor...

to introduce Paul Stamets.

[cheering and applause]

I have brought
a fungal friend of mine

from the old-growth forest

and I present to you...
agarikon.

[cheering and applause]

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.

[Lincoff]
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 [he Mushroom Cultivator

by Paul Stamets.

I will be eternally thankful
to him

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

[Lori Cariss] We really don't
even know most fungi.

We're discovering new species
on a daily basis

and you dont have to go
to exotic locations

to discover them.

[McCoy]
Anybody can add to the science,

from identifying a new species

to developing
a new micro-mediation protocol.

[Cariss] There is a great need
for more people to study fungi

and there's lots
of opportunities.

[Cotter] 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.

[P. Stamets] 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.

[Nicholas Naeger] 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.

[man] We're using mushrooms
to create

an entirely new class
of materials

which are totally compostable
at the end of their lives.

[woman]
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.

[Cotter]
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."

[Brown] 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.

[Lincoff] 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.

[Simard] 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?
lf 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.

[Simard] 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 tt 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.

[narrator] 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.

[TV host] 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.

[TV host] So, uh,
if I were to visit you...

could we have some
of these magic mushrooms?

[P. Stamets] Nature provides.
I don''t.

[laughter]

♪ ♪