Here in Britain, the autumn—season beloved of poets and witches—has arrived. For many people, myself included, the rapidly changing amount of natural light (and particularly the disappearance of direct sunshine) can come as something of a shock. As the dark rises, and we scurry into the new academic year, the romantic melancholia of the season can feel difficult, even oppressive. We may describe our feelings simply as being ‘under the weather’,  we may declare ourselves ‘depressed’ or medicalize our emotions as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Me and Damh the Bard are on the same page when it comes to our love of the sunshine. But Dave is a Leo (check his luxurious mane of hair) whereas I’m (predictably) a sex-drugs-occult obsessed Scorpio. So while the autumn does sometimes drag me down, with its blank grey days, there is also excitement as the dark rises; anticipation of Halloween and the following day, my birthday! Autumn brings those mists and mellow fruitfulness, and in all that fruiting  there is an additional excitement. The appearance of a wonderful medicine that can help us address, amongst other things,  the psychological challenges of the dwindling light. Appearing at just the right time to support our seasonal wellbeing, as if planned by Nature Herself ;). I am of course talking about that most magical of plants (okay, yes I known it’s not technically a plant…) the liberty cap mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata.

Food of the Gods

One of the most potent forms of psilocybe mushroom, the magical elf caps of Psilocybe semilanceata start to sprout at this time of the year. One can find them throughout the British Isles, notably on the damper, western side of the country. Of course without a licence it would be illegal to pick and use these mushrooms, even for the purposes of helping to mitigate one’s depression or SAD. Though arrests for psychedelic mushroom foraging are uncommon, there are cases of people being prosecuted for doing so (for instance the recent bust of Paul Lee Corbett, a 63-year-old man from Washington State facing a charge punishable by five years in prison).

What makes the current legal situation with mushrooms even more insane is that, thanks to the scientists at the cutting edge (or should that be ‘gently waving and breathing’ edge?) of the Psychedelic Renaissance, we now know that this is a very valuable medicine. It can get you high, it can be enjoyable, it can be challenging and it can definitely help you. Psilocybin, in addition to being a remarkably safe substance (arguably safer even than LSD) can catalyze many capacities within humans; this substance can help us problem solve, it can help us deal with our end of life anxiety, it can help us address psychosomatic illness, it can help us unpick our addictions to other substances or debilitating behaviors, it can reliably trigger mystical experience. It’s about as close to a panacea as you can get.

Mushrooms in your mind – Placebo vs Psilocybin

Psychedelic mushrooms can be found growing in the depths of many cultures and have, since the mid 20th century, rapidly sprouted in the consciousness of modern Western culture. From Maria Sabina, sharing her mycophilic mystery with Valentia Wasson and her daughter, through to Terence McKenna’s inspirational, and maybe even partly true, Stoned Ape Theory These days, even with legal limitations on our use of them, mushroom culture is alive and well and now boasts it’s own special day which is coming up soon!

Adding to the now traditional pro-cannabis celebrations of 4/20, advocates of mycelial magic have, over the last few years, been promoting the festival of ‘9/20’ (the 20th of September). Using a variety of tactics the 920 Coalition want to encourage appreciation of and dialogue about the beneficial use of psychedelic mushrooms. Meanwhile, The Psychedelic Society are doing their bit with a petition to change the classification of psilocybin in British law. There are also ways you can get down and dirty with mushrooms by cultivating your own. In Europe the irrepressible Darren Springer has been running workshops helping people learn how to cultivate delicious oyster mushrooms.

Putting a cap on September

As the autumn rains begin to fall across the Northern Hemisphere people are out and about searching the hills, as perhaps their ancestors did, for the sacred magical mushrooms. Mushrooms that bring us laughter, healing, ecstasy and communion with the spirits. (I’m not sure why ayahuasca has such prominence these days when a large dose of mushrooms will have a very similar visionary and healing effect).

It is indeed the case that harvesting psychedelic mushrooms is prohibited in many places. In that respect I would simply like to quote what I heard recently from the awesome mushroom advocate Kilindi Iyi. Speaking as an African-American he pointed out that black people in the USA didn’t get the vote by voting for it. They had to break the law, reminding me of that Thomas Jefferson quote: “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”

Happy Mushroom Season All!

Julian Vayne

PS I’m facilitating a Magical Mushroom Ceremony next month in London, same date time and venue as Darren’s Shroomshop growers workshop. See Darren for production tips or come to my workshop and ceremony for ideas on how to hold and explore psychedelic mushroom space. Follow this link for tickets. Hope you can join us!

Ahoy!