Mushrooms, Mycology & Medicine

Paul Stamets Wants to Save Us: Mushrooms, Mycology & Medicine

Paul Stamets is standing on stage at the Exponential Medicine conference dressed in comfortable jeans and an amadou hat. It’s like he was plucked right out of the enchanted forest where he’s wandered for the past 50 years,…
Becoming a Magic Mushroom Trip Sitter

Interested in Becoming a Magic Mushroom Trip Sitter?

Being a good trip sitter isn’t all that different from being a good babysitter. You must be responsible — no fireworks or switchblades around the children — and you must be trustworthy. If you can be both, you’re more than halfway to…
Growing Psilocybin Mushrooms Isn’t Magic

Growing Psilocybin Mushrooms Isn’t Magic

It’s a weekend in July and I’m sitting outside a Starbucks in Los Angeles to interview a magic mushroom cultivator for Psychedelic Spotlight. It’s been set up by a third party. I don’t know the name of the man I’m about to meet. I’ve…

MMA Star Goes From Hitting People to Healing People

Psychedelic advocacy is filled with all sorts of healers: therapists, PHDs, psychiatrists, shamans and scientists. Also this one guy who can easily choke you unconscious. Ian McCall is a mixed martial artist, a former professional fighter,…
A Servant of the Mushroom Kingdom

A Servant of the Mushroom Kingdom

The debut commercial featuring Nike’s famous slogan “Just Do It” starred Walt Stack, an 80-year-old marathon runner in San Francisco who ran 17 miles every morning. “People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering in the wintertime,”…
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix Show Makes Magic Mushrooms Goopy

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix Show Makes Magic Mushrooms Goopy

“The Goop Lab,” is a new Netflix docuseries, inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow’s “modern lifestyle brand” website, Goop. And I’m reviewing it for Psychedelic Spotlight because the first episode is called “The healing Trip” and features…
Have a Good Trip

‘Have a Good Trip’ is worth the trip

Rapper A$AP Rocky has one of the most memorable stories in the new Netflix documentary, “Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics.” He warns us that the anecdote is “a bit vulgar and raunchy,” and goes on to describe an amorous…