Shroom hunting SWIM's Communication with Dr Peele

[Lobsang]

Stephen Peele is the foremost authority on psilocybin in the world most likely. It was a privilege to have had a correspondence with him for SWIM...God Damn it to fucking hell it was.



Dear Dr. Peele:

I have a question and I am unable to find the answer. I live in Alaska. In southeast Alaska in a rainforest. We pick the Giant Bolete mushrooms in the fall. I am very familiar with them and did not make an identification error. Of this I am sure. So we picked them and had a good amount with a late dinner. Then my wife and I went bed. After a while we both realized that we were tripping. I used psilocybin mushrooms many times in my younger years as well as other alkaloids. So I am very familiar. So I mean this was psilocybin or something very close.

So what the heck happened here assuming no identifications error? Was there some supra fungus that contains psilocybin on the Giant Boletes? I just do not get it. I cannot find a reason for this. And I am very sure we did not fabricate this in our minds. We have eaten the mushrooms for years with never an experience like this. And we would have never confused a psilocybin mushroom that grows in the region with a Bolete of any type.

I hope you do not think the question is too stupid or an imposition on your valuable time. But I just do not know who to ask and I have respected your work for years. And i figured if anyone knows it would be you.

Thanks.

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Dave........I have seen reports like this before. One time, during research on how an Oyster mushroom could produce a poisonous affect, I discovered something. There are reasons why I don't discuss it much, as I am still researching this. Sometimes, when a specific media, not usually there, is available to a mushroom, it uses bio-pathways not normally seen. Having good healthy digestive enzymes, also allows this phenomenon to occur. As with the oysters that were growing on a large tree that had fallen across a creek. Coons, possums, and probably other animals, were using the tree to cross the creek. There were large deposits of animal dung on the tree. Oyster mushrooms use wood, and do not normally grow in areas where there would be dung. However, when the mushroom took in parts from the dung, this allowed the mushroom to produce new toxins, not normally present, and for the most part, never seen in oyster mushrooms. What I give as maybe an answer to your question, there was some other media in the area that the collected mushrooms don't usually have available to them. When they were able to get this, it allowed the mushrooms to produce compounds not normally produced. Perhaps thinking back, or going back to the area, might reveal something. Maybe there would still be signs of animal dung, wood shavings, or anything in the area that would be considered out of place............maybe even acid rain can cause this, as we have gotten interesting results from some tests we ran with sulfuric acid. If there are any ponds around the area, were there any fish kills during the time the mushrooms were picked? Try to find this out. That would point to acid rain. That's my 2 cents.

Thank You, for your interest in FMRC! Highest Regards, Stephen L. Peele, Curator FMRC

I will use this in #26 TEO Mushroom Journal, November 2008, under Mail Call. I will only use Dave for the name.








Dear Dr. Peele:

Well thank you very much. As far as re-tracking back to find the locality where they grew. It would just be impossible. You see in our area in the fall the King Bolete are found quite randomly in the forest. So you just go foraging into the woods. So I just would never be able to retrace. On a hunt you could bring home many pounds. But they seem to grow in quite different places. From mossy places to dirt and that makes things hard to retrace. And there are so many of them. It is a virtual mushrooms hunters dream. Southeast Alaska is a very rich place for mushrooms. A cool wet rainforest. And the Red Amanitas are everywhere though they come not at the same time as the King Bolete.

And the thing is that I was not even thinking about tripping. And I really have not taken any psychedelics in years. But. I will tell you that I have taken many and I am perceptive and a student of them. Though I really no longer use them. But I can easily distinguish for example. Mescaline, LSD and psilocybin. Each has unique attributes. Acting differently on the brain. In different regions. We see in mescaline the form constants due to the centers they activate. Geometric forms of specific types. And so goes it with the others. So what I am saying is that I am sure this was psilocybin or something very close. We were totally sober and went to bed. In a short time we both said virtually at the same time we were tripping. These were the visions of psilocybin. For what it is worth I am subjectively sure of it. Not another different alkaloid.

And as far as the oyster type mushrooms you mention. I do not no much about them. But there is this young guy I know who took me into the forest and was picking mushrooms off of the fallen birch trees. I did not trust the kid so I did not eat any. I was later told by a native that is quite intimately tied to nature and knows the forest well to never eat them. His simple explanation was that sometimes they would make you sick because of what they took in from the wood they were growing on. That the condition of the wood was tied to this.

Oh yes. One last thing. It was quite humorous what happened in our small Alaskan town a number of years ago. I have a friend who is a woman in her mid seventies. She is a quite intelligent and eccentric soul. So she decides she wants to experience Amanita Muscaria. She picks a bunch and makes a stir fry of a large amount. She then proceeds to the local radio station to do her late night sixties music show. In small town Alaska locals have their own shows. Now here she was in the radio station in the middle of the night. People in town notice that she stops broadcasting and there is dead air. So they get concerned and find her passed out in the studio. She is rushed to the town clinic. She recovers as expected. But here is the funny thing. A few days later our local town newspaper has the story. And there is an interview with a physician that works at the clinic. In the interview she sounds very scholarly. Quoting statistics on death from amanitas. She warned of the deadly amanitas and how most people would die. And how this woman's recovery was in essence a miracle. And how liver dysfunction would take place. You see the doctor had asked the woman what she took. The reply was "amanitas". So the Doc looked in her textbooks and read about the deadly amanitas. She thought they were the same thing. But what was humorous was how authoritarian she sounded in the article. As far as I know there has never been a death from mushrooms in Alaska. That is what is said. But I thought you might find the small town mushroom drama entertaining.

But anyway I really appreciate you helping me. And thank you for your contributions to the study of mycology.

Reputation Comments on this post:

great post and a nice effort to uncover the truth