How Psilocybin Can Save the Environment
Last week, biologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake introduced Nautilus readers to Paul Stamets, a mycologist who preaches that mushrooms can save the world. “Give him an insoluble problem and he’ll toss you a new way it can be decomposed, poisoned, or healed by a fungus,” Sheldrake writes. Sheldrake focused on Stamets’ solution for colony collapse disorder, feeding bees a fungal potion that can squelch a virus they may carry from environmental toxins. Some of Stamets’ other mushroom remedies dissolve petroleum waste and transform cardboard boxes into tree seeds. Stamets is fast at work on how a fungal extract might treat COVID-19.
After reading Sheldrake’s profile, we got to wondering how Stamets’ magic mushrooms could improve the consciousness of Earth’s most damning species: humans. We’ve all read, and perhaps experienced, how psilocybin rewires our brains, and so were anxious to hear what the “fungal evangelist” had to say about the environmental impact of tripping.
