Psychedelic Psilocybin Mushroom Manifesto

Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into the topic of magic mushrooms, the psychedelic experience, and spiritual transformation.

I’ll be sharing some of my personal experiences of far out trips in which I saw beyond separation and death.

I’ve also got some interesting insights and some basic guidelines for how to approach the mushrooms, and how to work on integrating the things they might show you.

Before I get into it, let me just share a quick disclaimer here.

I’m not a shaman, nor am I an expert on hallucinogens. I’m just here with some of my own experiences, insights, and perspectives to share with you.

Personally, I have benefited greatly from the mushrooms as a tool for spiritual expansion, healing, and insight.

But I’m not here to say that you should or must use them yourself.

I don’t believe they’re absolutely necessary for spiritual transformation.

I know people that have been completely transformed for the better, by the mushrooms. I’m one of them.

I also know people that have used them without reporting any spiritual insights or implications.

So do whatever you feel inspired to do. Just be mindful of your safety, the safety of those around you, and the law.

As a spiritual teacher, I want to be open and honest with you. Some of my experiences with mushrooms have been some of the most transformative spiritual experiences of my life.

By not sharing a little about them with you, I feel it’s like I’m pretending that my spiritual development is solely the result of my sober practices. The fact is, that it’s not.

There are many spiritual teachers out there, that have definitely tripped and benefited from hallucinogens, but speak very little about it.

I can understand why they may hold back, but to me, it sometimes seems like they’re pretending that they got to where they are solely because of their meditation practice or sadhana.

I think psychedelics deserve some credit, at least for the way they’ve helped me. So this is my attempt at sharing openly about them while at the same time trying to not come across as ‘that crazy magic mushroom guy’.

So, psychedelic mushrooms, magic mushrooms. I first heard about them in grade six. A cop came to my school and he gave us a talk about saying no to drugs.

As a visual support for his speech, he had a poster board with about 40 different substances on it.

These weren’t just pictures of these substances, but literal, physical objects laminated tightly to his board.

It was meant to give us an idea of what all these drugs looked like so that we could say no if we were ever offered them.

Well, when I saw the magic mushrooms on that poster board, I became very intrigued.

My young mind wondered, how could a mushroom be a drug?

Fast forward to my early teenage years. I’m in the midst of a dark depression and I’ve just discovered spirituality, mindfulness, and the practice of being in the present moment, thanks to Eckhart Tolle’s work.

The spiritual path has consumed me at this point. Spiritual transformation, whatever that means, is my top priority.

I came across some reading online, about magic mushrooms serving as a catalyst for spiritual awakening, deep healing, and insight.

Knowing that many drugs can be addictive and can be dangerous if taken in high amounts, I looked into how addictive and dangerous the mushrooms were.

It turns out that they’re not addictive at all and the lethal dosage is so high that it’s nearly impossible to actually ingest that much, let alone get your hands on it.

So I read trip report after trip report. Countless people were claiming to have had incredible spiritual experiences while tripping.

People spoke about feeling, knowing, and experiencing a sense of unity with all of existence. Being completely present in the moment. Feeling unconditionally loving and loved.

I then went on to understand that many cultures throughout history have used plant medicines, like magic mushrooms, as spiritual initiations.

By this point, I was convinced. I did my homework and I was ready to find out about the mushrooms for myself.

So I went with the flow and ended up on my first trip. It was beautiful and perfect. I won’t bore you with all the details of it. I’ll just share a few quick things.

I saw that nature is expressing itself in a perfectly choreographed dance, eternally. And I understood that I was not separate from nature, and that all that was unfolding within me and through me was part of that perfect dance.

This brought a sense of surrender, gratitude, connection, love, and wonder to me. Over a decade later, though these feelings ebb and flow, they have remained to some degree, ever since.

At this point in my life, I was dealing with loneliness, rejection, and depression. This suffering is what drew me towards spirituality in the first place. Overcoming this suffering was my aim.

At the peak of my trip, I found myself alone, wrapped up in a blanket, safe and cozy in a bed, in the dark. I put my headphones in, closed my eyes and began to listen to my favourite album of all time, Tool’s Lateralus.

This album is the first spiritual teaching that I was ever exposed to. It explores deep themes of forgiveness, intuition, immortality, being in the present moment, and transcending the ego. Definitely check it out, start to finish, if you feel called. I highly recommend it.

If you’re familiar with the visionary artist, Alex Grey, the most famous psychedelic artist, well, he’s done most of Tool’s artwork. They’re definitely a spiritual band.

As a side note, I have natural synesthesia. Synesthesia is the fusion of one or two senses. It seems to be the result of some wiring being crossed within the brain. So some people can taste sounds, for example.

For me, within my mind's eye, I see sounds. I always have. They look kind of like those Windows Media Player visualizations from way back. It’s involuntary, uncontrollable. It just happens. I thought everyone had it until I mentioned it in school and everyone thought I was crazy.

Anyway, on psychedelics, people are known to sometimes experience synesthesia. This is common on mushrooms. Well during this trip, while listening to this album by Tool, my synesthesia was enhanced a thousandfold.

As I relaxed into the bed, I left my body and began to fly through a vortex of dancing visuals and colours that were moving to the music. It was immaculate.

The themes in the music were touching me deeply. And then finally, it seemed as if there was a light at the end of the vortex.

I came out of this vortex and was in what I understood to be outer space. That light was the Earth. What I saw was many different people on the earth. At each of their feet was a flame that reached up to their heads. On the ground, this flame crawled, like a grid, between each person, connecting them all.

I understood this to represent unity. There is no separation. We are all one.

In this moment, my feelings of loneliness, depression, and rejection seemed unfounded.

As the trip came to an end, I was transformed. Intuitively though, I understood that what I had seen and experienced would fade away into a memory, and then a memory of a memory.

I knew that I had to work on what I was shown. The mushroom trip wasn’t a quick fix. I had to actively work to integrate my insights so that I could embody the oneness and unconditional love that I was shown.

More than ten years later, that practice of integration and embodiment continues.

So of course, it’s true, at the right dosage, mushrooms will cause you to hallucinate. You may see all sorts of things, like how I flew through a vortex of dancing colours and patterns.

But one of the most powerful revelations that the mushrooms offer is the clear seeing beyond the illusion of separation.

To me, this is actually the opposite of a hallucination.

I feel that the mushrooms can make us hallucinate, to see things that perhaps aren’t really there, but they can also make us stop hallucinating, to stop seeing things that aren’t actually there, like separation.

Separation is a real hallucination. We experience it when we’re sober. But it’s not real.

The mushrooms allow us to see beyond it.

So don’t feel as if the mushrooms are all about hallucinations and crazy visuals. Their most powerful offering is the revelation of oneness.

So over the years, I’ve had many different mushroom trips. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things about tripping with the intention of spiritual development that I’d like to share with you. Of course, this is just my perspective and opinion. Your relationship with the mushrooms is ultimately up to you.

To have a meaningful trip that actually transforms your perspective is quite simple. You have to treat the mushrooms as you would any teacher - with respect.

A good teacher doesn’t need their student’s respect. To be a good student, however, one needs to respect the teacher.

Respect for the teacher is not really for the teacher, it is for the student. As a student, when you respect your teacher, you humble yourself before them, you put aside the ego and you open yourself up to learning what the teacher has to teach.

This is why respecting the teacher is actually really about respecting yourself.

This applies to all student/teacher relationships, especially the mushrooms.

They can show you some incredible things and they can teach you things beyond words. Respect them and use them for that purpose.

Remember, you don’t hang out and joke around with your teachers, you go to them to learn. The same applies to the mushrooms. That should be the general approach.

Set clear intentions about why you plan on tripping. Intend to see things from a new perspective. Be ready and expect to face yourself for perhaps the first time in your life.

Acknowledge that just as the mushrooms may show you beauty, they can also show you darkness that needs to be brought to the light of your awareness. This can be incredibly challenging.

If there are a few areas of your life which you want to examine from a different perspective, keep them in mind. Don’t get too specific or logical about any of your problems or hangups.

Most of the time, whatever you need to see will be so obvious that you will wonder why you made it such a big deal to begin with.

Allow the mushrooms to lead your experience, to show you what you need to see, to guide you along your trip. On a trip, you aren’t the leader. You’re a follower. Surrender to the mushrooms, and trust.

Just enjoy the ride as a passenger.

When using any psychedelics, there are two main factors to consider, known as set and setting.

Set refers to your mindset. Generally speaking, you should be excited and willing to explore the mushrooms. It’s best to be in an overall good headspace during a time when you feel generally stable. This is a subjective point that you need to discern for yourself.

It’s true that some people that are very depressed experience a mushroom trip and have their depression dissolve, with lasting effects. For others, sometimes the mushrooms can amplify negative experiences and make things worse.

The general idea here is that you shouldn’t go into the trip feeling terrified of what might happen or seeing the trip as an escape from the challenges in your life.

It’s interesting that some people that are opposed to hallucinogens sometimes refer to them as an escape from reality. In my experience, it’s actually the opposite.

Psychedelics enhance your reality to the point where the things you have been denying become incredibly clear - whether you’re denying that you’ve got some issues or that you’re one with the Divine. In some way or another, your denial will be exposed.

So that’s why having a good mindset is key.

The second important factor is your setting. Where are you and who are you with? Is it a safe, positive, comfortable environment? Are the people that you’re with the type that you can be vulnerable around?

Perhaps you need a sober guide, a sitter, to oversee that all is well. Whatever it is, do not neglect your setting or your mindset.

Trip with people that you trust and enjoy and make it clear to them about why you are tripping.

If they aren’t interested in a life changing experience, find someone that is or get them

interested by telling them about what these substances are capable of showing them.

Make sure that they are in a good headspace as well. If they have doubts or fears, don’t encourage them to trip. You will have to deal with their anxieties when they start coming out during the trip and that’s not fun, especially when you’re high too.

Make sure that you will be able to get some time alone in a comfortable place to just sit with yourself. Close your eyes and take a look inside.

Sensory deprivation alone is known to induce mystical states of consciousness, deep meditations, visions, hallucinations and more, all when sober.

The most ideal way to get the full benefit of the mushrooms is to experience them alone in silent darkness.

If you remember when I spoke about my first trip, I mentioned that I spontaneously ended up in the bed, in the dark.

This was like a sensory deprivation experience, with music. It was for this reason that I was able to leave my body and fully let go into the experience.

You will probably see cool colours and stuff but that’s just the icing on the cake. The flashy light shows and crazy patterns are just for show.

Hallucinating is really something special, but it is secondary in importance. What comes

first is the alternate perspectives of your idea of yourself, your beliefs, your culture, your creativity, your fears, your thinking, and so on. That’s what really counts.

I’m making it sound like this is serious business, and it really is. But at the same time, tripping is one of the funniest, most exciting, emotional things you could ever do. If you want to have the best experience, you have to approach it with a little bit of seriousness though.

Have no expectations about your trip. You might meet aliens or you might not. Let go of all expectations and your trip will be far better than anything you could have expected.

Now I want to share an interesting experience I had with the mushrooms one time.

When you use them, it’s quite clear that they have an intelligence. They have a personality. They communicate with you, if you’re in a position to hear them. The mushrooms are incredibly sagely, witty, and profound in their messages.

In North America, mushrooms have been considered an illegal substance since like the 70s.

This was something that perplexed me. Considering how transformative my experiences with them were, how could God, or the Universe, or Source, have allowed magic mushrooms to be illegal?

In some ways, I saw the mushrooms as a potential solution to much of the world’s suffering. People could use them for healing and insight. We could see, really see, that we’re actually all connected.

Why then, are they illegal?

Well I asked the mushrooms.

And they told me that at the moment, they want to be illegal.

They said that no man or woman that is part of any government can actually govern over them. The mushrooms themselves decide who will experience them, when, and how.

Through synchronicity, they govern themselves.

So I asked, why do you want to be illegal?

And they explained to me that they wish to be illegal because what they have to offer, in terms of insights and self-knowledge, is only available to those that are willing to cross the line.

Crossing the line and breaking the law is their requirement. Only free thinking people interested in reclaiming their sovereignty are worthy of the insights they have to offer.

If someone isn’t willing to break the law in exchange for the unfathomably invaluable insights that the mushrooms have to offer, then they are simply undeserving.

Something interesting to think about.

I have one more personal story that I’d like to share with you.

Following the wisdom of Terence McKenna, I ingested 5 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and sat in silent darkness. This is known as the heroic dose.

Terence McKenna would say that such a high dosage combined with sensory deprivation was the way to truly experience the mushrooms.

Often, people would take a very low dosage, in an environment filled with stimuli, that wouldn’t allow them to fully experience the trip. And then they would report that nothing meaningful happened.

Well, his rebuttal was to try the heroic dose.

So I did that.

I was shown all of existence. Everything. Nothing was not included. It was all one. There was no separation.

And then the mushrooms asked me -

Do you see death anywhere in this picture?

I answered no.

There is no death. There is only life. Eternal life. One life. Death is a lie.

Since processing and integrating this experience, the concept of death, of no longer existing, has completely dissolved. I do not fear death. I am immortal and eternal. As you are too.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t flinch if you point a gun at me. I probably will. I still exist within a body that’s programmed for survival.

But the idea of non-existence, of death, has completely fallen away. I exist. I always will. The same goes for you.

I really believe that the Universe, God, Source, has a great sense of humor.

The mushrooms are one of the greatest teachers on the planet. They can show you God which exists both inside and outside of you. Their teaching is prestigious.

And yet they grow on cow turds. Can you believe that? They actually grow on poop. That’s where you find them in nature. On cow poop.

You’ve got to be real humble and curious to be willing to learn from something that grows on poop. When working with the mushrooms, arrogance is best left behind.

The mushrooms will show you incredible things. But it’s absolutely necessary to integrate what you’ve seen and realized into your everyday life.

You must contemplate, process, love yourself, meditate, and have patience.

Personally, for every trip I’ve had, I’ve spent countless hours in meditation, in devotion, in love, and in surrender, working on integrating what I experienced into my everyday state of consciousness.

This is a long process. There are no shortcuts. If you take mushrooms, or any other hallucinogens, they are not a magic pill. They show you a thing or two, and then you need to put in the work.

If you’re not willing to put in the work, don’t bother.

When you’re tripping, remember that it’s just a trip and it won’t last. Whether you’re having a good time or a bad time, it’s not going to last.

It’s just another fleeting experience.

When you come down, you’re more or less going to return to who you once were.

You will probably be changed a little, but don’t expect much. Change takes place over time as you live out what you learned on the trip.

Don’t be attached to any experiences, realizations, insights or epiphanies as if they are complete. You have to live them out in your everyday life.

Your experiences while tripping will turn into memories and from there they will just fade away. What lasts is the result of the work that you put in after being inspired by your psychedelic trips.

Enjoy the ride. Much love.