Collective Mycosis and the Magic Mushroom Boom. Are hallucinogenic mushrooms the new bitcoin?
Original article published by RETINA Tendencias
After decades of rejection, mushrooms are coming back as a miraculous figure capable of treating conditions such as depression, replacing meat and eliminating plastic that suffocates us in the form of packaging. Even Netflix is overflowing with informative content about their fascinating properties. Are we experiencing a collective mycosis?
It may surprise you, but there is a new surge related to the consumption and use of magic mushrooms. Yes, reader friend, as you hear it, we have returned to the brilliant decade of 1960, with a hallucinating and a bit hallucinogenic return of psychedelia in all its forms. In a very short time, ideas, products and theories have sprung up everywhere around psilocybin mushrooms and their wonders.
Now there are scientific theories that explain that the earth’s ecosystem is based largely on an ancestral network of mushrooms that connect Pachamama, to the most advanced studies for treating psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression through the supply of psychoactive microdoses.
It’s still too early to know if this is going to be a great trend in the coming years or just another attempt to sell us the latest extravagance of the moment. After the NFT bubble and the collapse of cryptocurrencies, the mycelium boom arrives. But we’re not talking about boletus or death trumpets, but a business that grows excessively into a fungal empire.
Magic mushrooms are the new pig. Nothing is thrown away, everything is used. Soon, even the bristles of a brush will be made of mushrooms. Word of the guru. The latest discovery is to produce biodegradable and sustainable packaging as an alternative to plastic and oil dependence. What the COP27 could not solve, a millennia-old microorganism that controls everything will resolve.
Neither kefir had gone that far. The euphoria for these new discoveries is ascending to a higher level, that there are Silicon Valley workers who are already hooked on microdoses to increase their productivity. Taking mushrooms to work more. Mother of beautiful love. Not in the worst nightmares of the Merry Pranksters, creators of the LSD punch with which they drugged half the United States in the 1970s.
I imagine a post-capitalist sect of neo-hippies and workaholics (people who work hard and multitask) planning the return to magic mushrooms, lobbying and financing documentaries on Netflix. And the streaming platform has become a well of information on neopsycodelia. Series like Midnight Gospel (which, by the way, is a tremendous pass) and documentaries like Fantastic Fungi and How to Change Your Mind form the endless entertainment proposals that promote and defend how well a few well-taken mushrooms can feel.
There are a huge number of stories that support the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms and that go against the beliefs we had until very recently about paranoia and the possibility of going crazy and ending up locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Only a documentary dedicated to recycling is missing, but, like everything, it will arrive soon.
A FUNGUS YOU ARE, AND INTO A FUNGUS YOU WILL BE
In a society where, back in 2008, Starbucks promised to eradicate plastic cups by 2015 with a complete failure, at what moment have we put our consumerist destiny in the hands of a fungal system that until recently was the enemy of humanity?
We have grown up in terror of infections such as candidiasis and the tear-jerking images that Google showed us every time we searched for symptoms. But now, it seems that we have returned to nature as the essence of self-serving principles not only for our body, but for our mind and the entire society. Perhaps it is the whitewashing of something that in the past caused us so much harm as drugs and that has now become a source of solutions to all the world’s problems.
The resurgence of the Fungi kingdom is such that some even claim that human evolution is due to an interaction with an alien mushroom that we made contact with thousands of years ago. It could easily be the beginning of a new religion. A sacred book could even be created, starring a new messiah who came to save humanity thanks to an intoxication from mushrooms from another reality, brought to Earth by the hand of God, a new god who would be called Primycelium, the primordial mushroom. Spielberg has already bought the rights for the biggest blockbuster in history.
Jokes aside, research on mushrooms and fungi is expanding rapidly and, in addition to their positive impact on depression and other disorders, the trend in 2023 will be related to sustainable packaging design, the biggest plague of the 21st century. If you think about it, it makes sense. We always try to combat a plague with another. It is a very valid principle in our society.
In recent years, many initiatives have emerged that make nature the most important source for creating alternatives to plastic and other materials that infest our oceans and are the origin of the end of the world as we know it. Companies like Magical Mushroom Company® and Ecovative — the mycelium technology company are investigating and creating biodegradable packaging based on mycelium and mushroom cultivation to produce lightweight, resistant materials that can disappear without leaving a trace.
Our little friends from the undergrowth have many powers and properties that could be transformed into a solid reality. There are clear signs, such as one of the latest packaging for the Adidas OZLUCENT sneakers, a collaboration between the English studio Black Ink Studio Black Ink Projects and Magical Mushroom Company.
The packaging is amazing, as are the sneakers themselves, which look like they’re from another planet. It’s a brutalist aesthetic both in appearance and material. For design lovers, it’s an incredible project that also has a double value related to the idea of not contaminating. In fact, the packaging can last several years if it doesn’t come into contact with water or other substances that can damage it. But it only takes about 50 days to decompose in the soil, leaving a load of nitrates that enrich the substrate.
And it’s not the only project of this kind. More and more companies are betting on solutions like this, and they’re not limited to packaging design, because miracle mushrooms are everywhere. This year, The New York Times designated psychedelic mushrooms as the product of the year. They act as the main ingredient in both vegan burgers and snacks, as well as in treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans. It’s a proliferation of rooted ideas and proposals about the wonders of mycelium.
It’s the golden age of mushrooms, as an artist like Björk screams to the four winds, who has made her latest album a true ode to mushrooms and the world of psychedelia. As Janis Joplin said, “what makes you feel good can’t cause any harm.”
