The Beginner’s Guide to Psilocybin Mushrooms

One of the most promising aspects of the intentional and responsible use of psilocybin is its potential to spur personal growth. In early trials where psychedelics were given to healthy adults under supportive conditions, many participants reported lasting beneficial changes in their personality, behaviors, values, and attitudes.^[17], ^[18] More recent studies have also mirrored these early findings. About 40% of participants in laboratory studies involving psilocybin reported positive, long-term changes in their aesthetic experience and relationship to nature.^[19]

Anecdotal reports have long supported these initial findings. After a psilocybin experience, people often report a greater appreciation of music, art, and nature along with more tolerance for others and increased creativity and imagination.

A 2011 study also found that more than a year after participants had a single psilocybin experience, their self-reported measures of openness remained significantly elevated, which researches in this study and beyond attribute to a somewhat mysterious but powerful aspect of a mushroom trip: the mystical experience.

In this case, a mystical experience is defined as “feelings of unity and interconnectedness with all people and things, a sense of sacredness, feelings of peace and joy, a sense of transcending normal time and space, ineffability, and an intuitive belief that the experience is a source of objective truth about the nature of reality.” The religious identification of people who have reported having a mystical-type experience during a mushroom trip span the spectrum, but interestingly the profundity of such experiences don’t seem to correlate to religious belief—even atheists have reported the importance of their psilocybin-induced mystical experiences. Additionally, research has shown that the more intense the mystical experience, the greater the positive, long-term changes a person sees.^[20]

These subjective effects, such as feelings of interconnectedness, are likely a result of psilocybin’s ability to decrease the interconnectivity of integration hubs in the brain.^[21] In plain speak, that means psilocybin allows for more “cross-talk” between regions of the brain that are typically segregated. Researchers speculate that this enables a state of “unconstrained cognition,” meaning the ways we typically organize, categorize, and differentiate the aspects of conscious experience are broken down, and thinking becomes more flexible. ^[22] To understand how this might be beneficial, it helps to know that similar brain activity patterns are also observed during various states of meditation. For more about this, see our blog post about combining psychedelics and meditation.

It might not surprise you, then, to learn that research has shown that psilocybin can be used to enhance one’s spiritual practice. In a recent study, 75 participants engaged in a six-month spiritual course involving meditation, awareness, and self-reflection. During the course, participants were given either a low or high dose of psilocybin. At the end of the six months, the participants given the high dose of psilocybin showed significantly greater improvements in measures of spirituality such as interpersonal closeness, life meaning, death transcendence, and forgiveness.^[23]

With all this in mind, many people believe psilocybin (and other psychedelics) could be a key component of self-improvement and self-optimization. By occasioning the experience of feeling connected to the universe (in whatever individual form that takes) and confronting the deepest part of yourself, many believe psilocybin can help you take the necessary steps to become the best version of yourself you can be.

Considering a psilocybin experience for personal growth? Check out Third Wave’s vetted guide of psilocybin retreat centers around the world.

Are Psilocybin Mushrooms Legal?

Attending Legal Psilocybin Retreats

Third Wave has created its own psychedelic provider directory for you to find curated, legal psilocybin retreats. All retreats listed have either been verified or rigorously vetted by the Third Wave team, so you can feel confident knowing that these options are worth considering in this vulnerable and transformative experience.

Buying Psilocybin Mushrooms

Psilocybin has been illegal in most countries for decades, so make sure to familiarize yourself with local laws before buying psilocybin mushrooms. In the Netherlands, for example, it’s possible to purchase “magic truffles” that contain psilocybin without breaking the law due to a legal loophole. Psilocybin in some form is also legal in Brazil, the British Virgin Islands, and Jamaica.

On May 7, 2019, citizens of Denver, Colorado, voted to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms.^[24] This means it’s no longer a punishable offense for adults aged 21 and older to possess them for personal use. This doesn’t make them legal, though. If you’re caught selling or otherwise distributing psilocybin mushrooms, and possibly even growing them, you could still face criminal charges. The law remains unchanged for the rest of Colorado—at least for the time being.

In June the same year, Oakland, California, followed suit with an amendment of its own: Council members voted unanimously to decriminalize not just psilocybin mushrooms but all “entheogenic plants” containing indoleamines, tryptamines, and phenethylamines. Like in Denver, this only applies to adults aged 21 years and older and doesn’t include synthetic substances derived from plants or fungi, such as LSD. However, unlike in Denver, it also decriminalizes (or rather deprioritizes for law enforcement) the cultivation and distribution of the specified psychedelics—which includes psilocybin mushrooms.^[25][26] Oakland is implementing a “Grow, Gather, Gift” framework for legalization, which encourages people to grow their own, gather their own, and gift their own plant medicines rather than establishing a for-profit market.

Read our article on the legality of psilocybin mushrooms.

Before sourcing legal mushrooms, it’s important to consider how you want to consume them. To help you decide, read more about the differences between mushroom capsules, edibles, teas, and raw forms in our recent article. Then check out, Third Wave’s Ultimate Guide to Sourcing Psychedelic Medicines for specific vendor recommendations, legal alternative options, and access to our entire library of psychedelic guides.

Psilocybin Mushrooms in the US

Psilocybin mushrooms may be federally banned in the US, but you can legally possess magic mushrooms in certain cities and states around the country. Voters in the 2020 elections were more vocal than ever–they want to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and make them available for therapeutic use.

Check out the most recent US ballot votes in our 2021 Psilocybin News article.

Growing and Harvesting Psilocybin Mushrooms

While psilocybin is illegal at the federal level in the U.S., psilocybin mushrooms were deemed legal to grow and possess (as long as they’re not dried) in New Mexico in 2005. In 1978, the Florida supreme court ruled that harvesting wild psilocybin mushrooms was effectively legal until the state legislature said otherwise. So far, no new laws have been passed to regulate the harvest of wild-picked psilocybin mushrooms.

With the exception of three states, psilocybin mushroom spores are perfectly legal to possess in the U.S., as the spores don’t contain psilocybin or psilocin, the chemicals that are specifically regulated by federal law. However, despite the spores being legal, growing mushrooms from the spores is still considered an illicit activity.

Brief history

Archaeological evidence from the Sahara desert suggests that humans have been using psychedelic mushrooms for 7,000 years or more and mushrooms are represented in prehistoric art across many geographic regions.^[27] In most cases, they’re thought to be religious symbols, often in the context of ceremonies celebrating rights of passage. It’s thought among some that if our ancestors did use mushrooms, the experience may have influenced prehistoric culture, from art to religion to social values that regulated everyday life.

Listen to our podcast episode with Jerry Brown talking about Were Early Christians Tripping On Psilocybin Mushrooms? or Click here to read the transcript

Some take this theory pretty far. In the 90s, ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna posited the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis,” which suggests that when early humans or pre-human hominids ingested psychedelic mushrooms, it triggered intellectual advancements that lead to evolutionary benefits—include the mind as we know it today. It should be noted that the scientific community regards this hypothesis with skepticism due to a lack of evidence support some of its assumptions.

There are, however, extensive accounts of pre-Columbian psilocybin use among the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mesoamerica, namely in Mexico and Guatemala. After conquering these areas in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Spanish forbade psychedelic mushroom use by indigenous peoples, regarding it as a savage and uncivilized cultural practice. Despite this, the indigenous shamans ignored Spanish law in secret for over 400 years and continued to use and administer these mushrooms to preserve their cultural heritage.

The first reliable account in the West of “intoxication” with psilocybin mushrooms came in 1799 when four children were accidentally fed Psilocybe semilanceata, a species of psychedelic mushroom, which their father had unknowingly gathered and cooked into a stew.

The famous Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann (who synthesized LSD) first isolated psilocybin in the lab in 1957 from Psilocybe mexicana, a species of mushroom found primarily in Central America. A year later, it was produced synthetically for the first time.^[28]

Gordon Wasson, former vice president of J.P. Morgan & Company, apparently had a fascination with psilocybin mushrooms, which grew into an obsession. In 1955, he traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, to meet mushroom shaman Maria Sabina, a member of the indigenous Mazatec Indian tribe, who introduced him to psilocybin mushrooms. On his first mushroom trip, he reported feeling as if his soul had been scooped out of his body. ^[29] Wasson effectively kickstarted the psychedelic mushroom movement in the West when, in 1957, Time Magazine published his photo essay, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” in which he detailed his experiences.

After reading of Wasson’s experiences and then traveling to Oaxaca to experience psilocybin mushrooms for themselves, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, researchers at Harvard University, founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project, which got them fired shortly after. So they did what any jobless, charismatic academics would have done in 1962: they started a psychedelic movement. Psilocybin mushrooms were quickly adopted into the 1960s counterculture.

In 1971, psilocybin was listed in the UN’s Convention on Psychotropic Substances as a Schedule I drug in the U.S., making it illegal for all purposes. ^[30] However, psilocybin mushrooms were not part of the UN convention, which, to this day, allows countries who have signed the convention (essentially a treaty) to regulate mushrooms that naturally contain psilocybin as they see fit. However, psilocybin mushrooms are illegal in most countries today, although there are exceptions.

Current Usage

• Psilocybin mushrooms are the most commonly used psychedelics among people ages 34 and younger.^[31]
• A 2012 study of 409 university students in the northeast U.S. found that nearly 30% had tried psilocybin mushrooms at least once.^[32]
• A report from data collected in the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that, compared to other drugs, psychedelics—which include LSD, PCP, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA—were used by about 1.2% of the population of people 12 years of age and older within the past month. Interestingly, “psychotherapeutics” (such as prescription antidepressants and antipsychotics) are reportedly used illegally at a rate nearly six times that of psychedelics.
• Surveys in 12 E.U. member states found that the use of psilocybin mushrooms among people aged 15–24 ranges from less than 1% to 8%.
• In the UK, almost 340,000 people aged 16–59 had used psilocybin mushrooms in the last year as of 2004/2005, right before they were made completely illegal in the U.K.

Types of Mushrooms

Of the 180+ known types of psychedelic mushrooms, the most widely known and consumed species are:

• Psilocybe cubensis: The most well-known and widely cultivated of psilocybin mushrooms.
• Psilocybe cyanescens: Less well-known compared to psilocybe cubensis, but no less cultivated. These are slightly smaller and slightly more psychoactive.
• Psilocybe azurescens: Discovered by world-renowned mycologist Paul Stamets in the mid-90s, this is likely the most potent psilocybin mushroom in the world.
• Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric): A red and white mushroom containing the psychoactive elements ibotenic acid and muscimol. This mushroom was regularly used in shamanic tradition by indigenous Siberian and Baltic cultures.

While magic mushrooms are typically from the genus Psilocybe, these are not the only species that contain active compounds–by far. Check out our recent article to learn about Panaeolus, Gymnopilus, Inocybe, and Conocybe mushrooms, to name a few.

How to Identify Psychedelic Mushrooms

Of course, when you first begin mushroom hunting, heed caution. Aside from distinct strains like Penis Envy, there are many types of similar-looking mushrooms with varying levels of toxicity, and usually, only well-trained mushroom hunters can differentiate between species. If you know what to look for, choosing a deadly mushroom is unlikely, but it’s important to be aware of what you’re doing. Misidentified mushrooms can cause sickness or (though rarely) even death when consumed.

That said, psilocybe cubensis grows in abundance in tropical zones throughout the world. They are classic stubby-stemmed parasol-shaped mushrooms with predominantly light-to-golden-brownish caps that are bulbous before fruiting, and flat and wide in diameter when fully mature. The most popular cubensis variety is Golden Teachers, known for medium-strength effects and profoundly insightful journeys.

Psilocybe azurescens, on the other hand, is endemic to the West Coast of the United States and appear slimmer and more convex. Read more about how to identify psychedelic mushrooms.

How to Grow Psychedelic Psilocybin Mushrooms

Disclaimer: Growing psilocybin mushrooms for consumption is a potentially illegal activity, and we do not encourage or condone this activity where it is against the law.

Growing your own psilocybin mushrooms is a good alternative to the potentially dangerous practice of collecting them. As well as providing a reliable, year-round supply, home cultivation eliminates the risk of misidentifying mushrooms in the wild. For many growers, it’s also a fun, low-cost hobby.

While there are ready-made mushroom kits available online, it’s usually best to start from scratch. The kits do contain a living mycelium substrate (the material underlying mushroom growth), which you need to grow your own mushrooms, but making your own substrate is not only more consistent, it’s also less prone to contamination. For more information on how to start your own psilocybin grow, check out our guide here.