1
00:00:00,265 --> 00:00:03,265
(suspenseful music)

2
00:00:13,804 --> 00:00:16,221
(calm music)

3
00:00:18,750 --> 00:00:20,300
- [Narrator] There's a feeling,

4
00:00:23,110 --> 00:00:25,163
the pulse of eternal knowledge.

5
00:00:29,060 --> 00:00:31,374
When you sense the oneness,

6
00:00:31,374 --> 00:00:33,783
(calm music)

7
00:00:33,783 --> 00:00:35,016
you are with us.

8
00:00:35,016 --> 00:00:37,530
(water gushing)

9
00:00:37,530 --> 00:00:39,113
We brought life to Earth.

10
00:00:45,730 --> 00:00:50,173
You can't see us, but we
flourish all around you.

11
00:00:51,690 --> 00:00:55,283
Everywhere, in everything,

12
00:00:59,300 --> 00:01:01,011
and even inside you,

13
00:01:01,011 --> 00:01:02,890
(bright orchestral music)

14
00:01:02,890 --> 00:01:04,993
whether you believe in us or not.

15
00:01:08,670 --> 00:01:11,697
From your first breath, to your last.

16
00:01:14,410 --> 00:01:16,713
In darkness, and in the light.

17
00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,700
We are the oldest, and youngest.

18
00:01:21,700 --> 00:01:25,450
We are the largest, and smallest.

19
00:01:25,450 --> 00:01:28,523
We are the wisdom of a billion years.

20
00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:31,200
We are creation.

21
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,810
We are resurrection,
condemnation, and regeneration.

22
00:01:35,810 --> 00:01:36,840
(ascending orchestral music)

23
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:38,620
We are mushrooms.

24
00:01:56,547 --> 00:01:59,510
- Mushrooms are very clandestine

25
00:01:59,510 --> 00:02:01,643
and very much the trickster.

26
00:02:03,170 --> 00:02:04,973
So, they're hiding from you all the time.

27
00:02:06,218 --> 00:02:08,635
(calm music)

28
00:02:09,470 --> 00:02:11,143
We're in Agarikon territory now,

29
00:02:12,067 --> 00:02:13,967
there's some big living stags up here.

30
00:02:16,650 --> 00:02:19,440
It's always interesting and exhilarating

31
00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:20,460
to be in the old growth forest,

32
00:02:20,460 --> 00:02:23,670
but not always rewarding in
accomplishing our mission

33
00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:25,643
to find a new Agarikon strain.

34
00:02:26,690 --> 00:02:30,892
But nevertheless, it
beats being in the office.

35
00:02:30,892 --> 00:02:33,309
(calm music)

36
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,130
Fungi are the grand molecular
decomposers of nature.

37
00:02:38,130 --> 00:02:38,963
Now, what does that mean?

38
00:02:38,963 --> 00:02:40,980
Well, they break down wood.

39
00:02:40,980 --> 00:02:42,660
And here I'm laying in the forest,

40
00:02:42,660 --> 00:02:45,140
haven't peeked yet, but
here's a piece of wood

41
00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:46,770
laying down on the ground.

42
00:02:46,770 --> 00:02:48,770
If I were laying down on
the ground, and I died,

43
00:02:48,770 --> 00:02:51,713
fungi would leap up to recycle me

44
00:02:51,713 --> 00:02:52,926
and that's the way of nature.

45
00:02:52,926 --> 00:02:55,676
(mystical music)

46
00:03:05,260 --> 00:03:10,260
Mushrooms represent rebirth,
rejuvenation, regeneration.

47
00:03:15,790 --> 00:03:20,063
Fungi generate soil that gives life.

48
00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:24,570
The task that we face today

49
00:03:24,570 --> 00:03:27,330
is to understand the language of nature.

50
00:03:27,330 --> 00:03:29,310
My mission is to discover the language

51
00:03:29,310 --> 00:03:30,840
of nature of the fungal networks

52
00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:32,640
that communicate with the ecosystem.

53
00:03:35,530 --> 00:03:37,973
And I believe nature is intelligent.

54
00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:45,110
The fact that we lack the language skills

55
00:03:45,110 --> 00:03:48,290
to communicate with nature does not impugn

56
00:03:48,290 --> 00:03:50,600
the concept that nature's intelligent.

57
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,919
It speaks to our inadequacy
for communication.

58
00:03:53,919 --> 00:03:57,252
(calm orchestral music)

59
00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:07,070
If we don't get our act together

60
00:04:07,070 --> 00:04:08,740
and come in commonality and understanding

61
00:04:08,740 --> 00:04:11,400
with the organisms that sustain us today,

62
00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:14,340
not only will we destroy those organisms,

63
00:04:14,340 --> 00:04:15,840
but we will destroy ourselves.

64
00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,820
- Mushroom, it's not like a vegetable

65
00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:32,093
and it's not like a animal,
but it's somewhere in between.

66
00:04:34,610 --> 00:04:37,855
The fungus is it's own
kingdom all together.

67
00:04:37,855 --> 00:04:40,438
(serene music)

68
00:04:47,932 --> 00:04:50,682
There's over 1.5 million species.

69
00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:54,690
That's six times more than plants.

70
00:04:54,690 --> 00:04:57,530
Of all those species of fungi,

71
00:04:57,530 --> 00:05:01,320
about 20,000 produce mushrooms,

72
00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:04,850
and mushrooms come in
an incredible diversity

73
00:05:04,850 --> 00:05:08,823
of shapes and sizes and
colors and lifestyles.

74
00:05:10,070 --> 00:05:12,673
There are even bioluminescent mushrooms.

75
00:05:18,380 --> 00:05:21,645
A lot of people are afraid of mushrooms.

76
00:05:21,645 --> 00:05:24,395
(mystical music)

77
00:05:25,630 --> 00:05:28,270
People associate mushrooms and fungi,

78
00:05:28,270 --> 00:05:31,773
you know, mold, with death
and decay, which makes sense.

79
00:05:34,970 --> 00:05:38,080
You know, there's a lot of
fear because of fungi's role

80
00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:39,593
in the cycle of life.

81
00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:46,420
They decompose dead and dying organisms

82
00:05:46,420 --> 00:05:49,683
and move all those nutrients
back into the cycle.

83
00:05:51,430 --> 00:05:54,510
They kind of are at the very end of stuff,

84
00:05:54,510 --> 00:05:56,210
but they're also at the beginning.

85
00:05:57,138 --> 00:06:00,360
(majestic music)

86
00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:03,323
- Once you start working with
mushrooms, you get drawn in.

87
00:06:04,350 --> 00:06:07,120
A really important difference
between plants and fungi

88
00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:10,013
is that plants have
evolved to catch your eye.

89
00:06:13,750 --> 00:06:16,010
When a tomato gets red it is saying,

90
00:06:16,010 --> 00:06:17,703
hey, I'm ready, come get me.

91
00:06:19,750 --> 00:06:21,889
The mushrooms don't give a shit.

92
00:06:21,889 --> 00:06:22,722
(laughs)

93
00:06:22,722 --> 00:06:26,093
They're doing their own thing
and a lot of them are hiding.

94
00:06:29,670 --> 00:06:31,410
Every time you pick up a mushroom,

95
00:06:31,410 --> 00:06:34,000
you are faced with the omnivore's dilemma.

96
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:35,750
Do I know enough to eat this?

97
00:06:35,750 --> 00:06:37,293
Should I eat this?

98
00:06:37,293 --> 00:06:38,880
Will this kill me?

99
00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:40,340
- And that's one of the reason why people

100
00:06:40,340 --> 00:06:42,670
are freaked out about
mushrooms, because, yeah,

101
00:06:42,670 --> 00:06:44,460
there are ones that can kill you.

102
00:06:44,460 --> 00:06:46,940
There are some that
will take out your liver

103
00:06:46,940 --> 00:06:49,760
or your kidneys, but to be
honest with you there's berries

104
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:51,440
in the woods that can kill you, too.

105
00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:54,076
So it's, it's really a matter
of knowing your mushrooms.

106
00:06:54,076 --> 00:06:55,480
(woman laughing)

107
00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,890
There's a huge subculture of mycofiles,

108
00:06:58,890 --> 00:07:01,180
of people who are
fascinated with mushrooms.

109
00:07:01,180 --> 00:07:02,480
They hunt mushrooms together

110
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:03,920
and they eat mushrooms together,

111
00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:06,310
and they are sort of
bloated pleasure seekers

112
00:07:06,310 --> 00:07:07,680
with a scientific bent.

113
00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:09,393
You know, really my kind of crowd.

114
00:07:10,438 --> 00:07:11,987
- [Man] Is that tricholoma?

115
00:07:11,987 --> 00:07:13,992
- [Eugenia] Grifola frondosa.

116
00:07:13,992 --> 00:07:16,906
- [Man] This is Cortinarius (mumbles).

117
00:07:16,906 --> 00:07:18,720
- [Eugenia] Agaricus bisporus.

118
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:20,990
- That's a Cladonia lichen.

119
00:07:20,990 --> 00:07:23,440
- So I started attending
these festivals and forays

120
00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:25,030
and learning more and more.

121
00:07:25,030 --> 00:07:27,453
It changed the way I saw everything.

122
00:07:28,460 --> 00:07:31,980
Mushrooms actually were
the window by which

123
00:07:31,980 --> 00:07:34,253
I came to understand
nature in a deeper way.

124
00:07:36,030 --> 00:07:37,860
- If we didn't have Fungi,

125
00:07:37,860 --> 00:07:40,210
we would get this build up of plant matter

126
00:07:40,210 --> 00:07:42,410
that would choke the Earth.

127
00:07:42,410 --> 00:07:44,380
I mean they really are the key.

128
00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:46,620
They break down plant
life and make it usable

129
00:07:46,620 --> 00:07:49,020
for new plant life and for animal life.

130
00:07:51,020 --> 00:07:54,433
- They are the digestive
tracks of the forest.

131
00:07:56,310 --> 00:08:00,640
One of the lifestyles of
fungi is the decomposers

132
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,423
called saprobres, or rotters, if you want.

133
00:08:06,010 --> 00:08:08,910
The yeasts and molds used in making beer

134
00:08:08,910 --> 00:08:12,520
and wine and cheese are all saprobes.

135
00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:14,680
That's actually a penicillin mold

136
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:16,563
in Gorgonzola and Roquefort.

137
00:08:17,670 --> 00:08:20,073
Bourbon is fungi fermented corn.

138
00:08:21,260 --> 00:08:26,040
But this ability to break
things down is a talent,

139
00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:30,660
if you will, that can be
harnessed to help us deal

140
00:08:30,660 --> 00:08:33,963
with some of our problems like pollution.

141
00:08:35,340 --> 00:08:39,893
These rotters, they can break
down anything that's natural.

142
00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:42,170
That's what they have evolved to do,

143
00:08:42,170 --> 00:08:44,480
anything that's hydrocarbon based.

144
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:47,233
So that includes stuff like oil spills.

145
00:08:48,220 --> 00:08:49,600
Pollutant problems.

146
00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:51,940
That's kind of the truth of it.

147
00:08:51,940 --> 00:08:54,930
- I was a part of this experiment.

148
00:08:54,930 --> 00:08:57,340
There were four piles
saturated with diesel

149
00:08:57,340 --> 00:08:58,790
and other petroleum waste.

150
00:08:58,790 --> 00:09:02,830
One was a control pile, one
pile was treated with enzymes,

151
00:09:02,830 --> 00:09:05,360
one pile, treated with
bacteria and our pile

152
00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:07,750
we inoculated with mushroom spores.

153
00:09:07,750 --> 00:09:10,800
The fungi absorbs the oil.

154
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:13,620
The fungi is producing
enzymes for oxidases

155
00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:16,280
that break carbon hydrogen bonds.

156
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:17,160
These are the same bonds

157
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:19,180
that hold hydrogen carbons together,

158
00:09:19,180 --> 00:09:21,770
so the fungi becomes
saturated with the oil.

159
00:09:21,770 --> 00:09:24,130
And then, when we
returned six weeks later,

160
00:09:24,130 --> 00:09:25,240
all the tarps were removed,

161
00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:27,300
all the other piles were
dead dark and stinky.

162
00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:28,590
We come back to our pile and it's covered

163
00:09:28,590 --> 00:09:31,030
with hundreds of pounds
of oyster mushrooms.

164
00:09:31,030 --> 00:09:32,453
Some of these mushrooms
are very happy mushrooms,

165
00:09:32,453 --> 00:09:34,520
they're very large.

166
00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:36,550
They're showing how much
nutrition that they could obtain,

167
00:09:36,550 --> 00:09:40,220
but something else happened
which is an epiphany in my life.

168
00:09:40,220 --> 00:09:43,253
They sporulated, the
spores attract insects,

169
00:09:44,300 --> 00:09:47,610
birds then came, bringing
in seeds and our pile

170
00:09:47,610 --> 00:09:48,810
became an oasis of life.

171
00:09:49,894 --> 00:09:52,311
(calm music)

172
00:09:55,460 --> 00:09:59,080
- Mushrooms are the
fruiting bodies of fungi,

173
00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,360
so the mushroom is like the apple.

174
00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,730
The bulk of the organism
is growing underground

175
00:10:04,730 --> 00:10:08,560
and it's composed of these long threads.

176
00:10:08,560 --> 00:10:11,080
These threads grow one cell at a time

177
00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,490
and then they branch and re-branch,

178
00:10:13,490 --> 00:10:15,530
growing in every direction they can,

179
00:10:15,530 --> 00:10:17,640
even three dimensionally.

180
00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:22,640
And that mass of threads
is called a mycelium.

181
00:10:22,895 --> 00:10:24,920
- [Paul] A stick falls onto the ground,

182
00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:27,123
you pull it up and there's mycelium.

183
00:10:28,994 --> 00:10:30,563
It is virtually everywhere.

184
00:10:31,470 --> 00:10:33,890
- A mycelium has more
networks than our brain

185
00:10:33,890 --> 00:10:38,060
has neural pathways, and
works in much the same way,

186
00:10:38,060 --> 00:10:40,573
with electrolytes, electrical pulses.

187
00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:43,610
They're the most common species on Earth,

188
00:10:43,610 --> 00:10:44,560
they're everywhere.

189
00:10:46,270 --> 00:10:48,490
- Just to give you an
idea of how much fungi

190
00:10:48,490 --> 00:10:50,140
are in the forest, as
you're walking through,

191
00:10:50,140 --> 00:10:52,510
there's about 300 miles of fungi,

192
00:10:52,510 --> 00:10:54,460
under every footstep that you take

193
00:10:54,460 --> 00:10:57,216
and that's all over the world.

194
00:10:57,216 --> 00:11:00,630
(majestic music)

195
00:11:00,630 --> 00:11:02,560
And they form these massive links,

196
00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:06,533
it's like a big web just
growing through the forest.

197
00:11:06,533 --> 00:11:08,950
(calm music)

198
00:11:18,020 --> 00:11:22,060
- Mycelium that can grow
out even just this big

199
00:11:22,060 --> 00:11:25,540
can have trillions, literally
trillions of end branchings.

200
00:11:25,540 --> 00:11:27,870
Almost everyone knows about
the computer Internet.

201
00:11:27,870 --> 00:11:30,523
The mycelium shares the
same network design.

202
00:11:35,430 --> 00:11:36,520
- [Michael] Trees are communicating

203
00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:39,050
using the mycelium as pathways.

204
00:11:39,050 --> 00:11:41,240
They are connecting one tree to another.

205
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,040
They're using the mycelium,
too, to feed one another,

206
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,920
in other words one tree can swap nutrients

207
00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:50,777
with another tree using
mycelium as the passage way.

208
00:11:50,777 --> 00:11:53,194
(calm music)

209
00:12:05,300 --> 00:12:07,210
- So we often think of kin recognition

210
00:12:07,210 --> 00:12:08,840
as an animal behavior.

211
00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:10,550
Humans, you know, we love our babies,

212
00:12:10,550 --> 00:12:11,530
we know it's our baby

213
00:12:11,530 --> 00:12:13,400
and we're gonna look after that baby.

214
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:15,600
Well, we never thought
that plants could do that,

215
00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:17,940
but we're finding in
our research that plants

216
00:12:17,940 --> 00:12:19,690
can recognize their own kin.

217
00:12:19,690 --> 00:12:21,830
So these mother trees recognize their kin

218
00:12:21,830 --> 00:12:23,680
through their mycorrhizal networks.

219
00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,540
The mother tree and the baby
seedlings are sending signals,

220
00:12:26,540 --> 00:12:27,991
talking to each other.

221
00:12:27,991 --> 00:12:30,574
(serene music)

222
00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:37,680
When they're connected together and carbon

223
00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:39,120
is moving between plants,

224
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,940
the trees are supporting the weaker ones.

225
00:12:41,940 --> 00:12:43,740
If she knows that there's pests around

226
00:12:43,740 --> 00:12:45,050
and that she's under danger,

227
00:12:45,050 --> 00:12:47,210
she will increase her
competitive environment

228
00:12:47,210 --> 00:12:50,570
towards her own babies so that
they regenerate further away.

229
00:12:50,570 --> 00:12:54,050
It's a magical thing,
and this could not happen

230
00:12:54,050 --> 00:12:55,384
without the fungi.

231
00:12:55,384 --> 00:12:57,801
(calm music)

232
00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,540
- I'm not the super-idealist tree hugger.

233
00:13:07,540 --> 00:13:08,830
I do hug trees occasionally.

234
00:13:08,830 --> 00:13:10,990
I do confess to that, but I was a logger.

235
00:13:10,990 --> 00:13:12,646
I cut the woods.

236
00:13:12,646 --> 00:13:15,646
(chainsaw whirring)

237
00:13:20,856 --> 00:13:22,070
(trees thud)

238
00:13:22,070 --> 00:13:25,630
- Damn, we got a two for one on that one!

239
00:13:25,630 --> 00:13:28,600
Cutting down these trees and
we're going to let them rot!

240
00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:30,050
But we're letting them rot with a purpose.

241
00:13:30,050 --> 00:13:31,820
We're letting them rot
with shiitake mushrooms,

242
00:13:31,820 --> 00:13:34,325
which are delicious and medicinal.

243
00:13:34,325 --> 00:13:35,207
Yes!

244
00:13:35,207 --> 00:13:39,410
- September '74, Paul was working
as a logger in Darrington.

245
00:13:40,420 --> 00:13:41,730
I went up to visit him one weekend

246
00:13:41,730 --> 00:13:43,550
and we were out walking in the woods

247
00:13:43,550 --> 00:13:45,780
and I start showing him
all these mushrooms.

248
00:13:45,780 --> 00:13:47,570
You know, he said, "What are those?"

249
00:13:47,570 --> 00:13:49,650
And I said, "Looking at
mushrooms, for the first time."

250
00:13:49,650 --> 00:13:50,680
We came around the corner

251
00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:52,150
and there's this purple mushroom,

252
00:13:52,150 --> 00:13:53,960
I'd never seen one like that before,

253
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:55,530
and it was just like a huge epiphany.

254
00:13:55,530 --> 00:13:58,020
Like, woo woo woo woo woo, you know?

255
00:13:58,020 --> 00:14:00,870
And that's where it began,
he just never stopped.

256
00:14:00,870 --> 00:14:04,040
- These are old red bell hood polypores.

257
00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:05,614
Elegant Polyporus.

258
00:14:05,614 --> 00:14:06,657
It's got a free stem.

259
00:14:06,657 --> 00:14:09,310
This is a delicious
shrimp russula mushroom.

260
00:14:09,310 --> 00:14:10,730
Edible in choice.

261
00:14:10,730 --> 00:14:12,680
It grows here in the old-growth forest.

262
00:14:14,660 --> 00:14:18,723
- It's rare in science you
have such powerful amateurs.

263
00:14:19,649 --> 00:14:21,580
The meaning of the word
amateur is a lover.

264
00:14:21,580 --> 00:14:23,600
And, he loves his mushrooms.

265
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,090
And he's proven that amateurs can do

266
00:14:26,090 --> 00:14:28,440
really credible, important research.

267
00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:30,570
And that used to be the
case, the 19th century,

268
00:14:30,570 --> 00:14:33,390
obviously, you know, was full
of great amateur naturalists,

269
00:14:33,390 --> 00:14:34,640
Darwin being one of them.

270
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:43,630
- He's handed over to this
universal consciousness.

271
00:14:43,630 --> 00:14:45,563
That's where genius comes from.

272
00:14:47,110 --> 00:14:50,860
Every magnificent thing that
humans have ever achieved

273
00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:52,253
comes from that place.

274
00:14:59,710 --> 00:15:03,430
- I grew up in a small town
called Columbiana, Ohio.

275
00:15:03,430 --> 00:15:06,120
Very conservative, very religious.

276
00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,134
And my brother John went to Yale,

277
00:15:09,134 --> 00:15:10,560
and my brother Bill went to Cornell,

278
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:12,813
so we were an academic family.

279
00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:18,630
But I had a severe stuttering
habit that greatly interfered

280
00:15:18,630 --> 00:15:21,090
with my ability to express myself.

281
00:15:21,090 --> 00:15:23,800
I went through six
years of speech therapy.

282
00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:26,360
I could not speak a single sentence

283
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:28,173
without stuttering profusely.

284
00:15:29,090 --> 00:15:31,623
And nothing in speech
therapy could help me.

285
00:15:34,340 --> 00:15:38,040
I couldn't look at people in
their eyes, so all my life,

286
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:39,570
I stared at the ground.

287
00:15:39,570 --> 00:15:42,340
Anybody came up to me,
I'd stare at the ground.

288
00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:44,153
I found fossils and mushrooms.

289
00:15:44,153 --> 00:15:48,070
(dramatic instrumental music)

290
00:15:56,135 --> 00:15:58,718
(bright music)

291
00:15:59,810 --> 00:16:02,393
- [Narrator] We are all of the stars.

292
00:16:03,690 --> 00:16:06,410
My kingdom was borne from the heavens

293
00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:08,933
four and a half billion years ago.

294
00:16:11,670 --> 00:16:13,173
We are the pioneers.

295
00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:18,190
We climbed out of the sea
to create the fertile soil

296
00:16:20,370 --> 00:16:24,333
and set the stage for all of life.

297
00:16:26,884 --> 00:16:29,134
(rumbling)

298
00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:33,810
- In South Africa in the sediments of lava

299
00:16:33,810 --> 00:16:36,810
they have found fungus like organisms,

300
00:16:36,810 --> 00:16:39,020
mycelium fossils in the lava.

301
00:16:39,020 --> 00:16:42,090
2.4 billion years old.

302
00:16:42,090 --> 00:16:43,820
This is the oldest record

303
00:16:43,820 --> 00:16:47,053
of a multicellular organism on Earth.

304
00:16:48,830 --> 00:16:51,220
This year, another fossil was found

305
00:16:51,220 --> 00:16:52,830
in the sediments of Brazil,

306
00:16:52,830 --> 00:16:55,390
it's 113 million years old,

307
00:16:55,390 --> 00:16:57,641
and it's a perfectly shaped mushroom.

308
00:16:57,641 --> 00:17:00,490
(majestic music)

309
00:17:00,490 --> 00:17:04,423
We divided from Fungi about
650 million years ago.

310
00:17:05,290 --> 00:17:09,593
One branch led to Fungi, the
other branch led to animals.

311
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:13,790
We chose a path of
encirculating our nutrients

312
00:17:13,790 --> 00:17:15,950
in a cellular sack, our stomach.

313
00:17:15,950 --> 00:17:18,440
The mycelium remained underground,

314
00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:20,949
externally digesting its nutrients.

315
00:17:20,949 --> 00:17:23,699
(mystical music)

316
00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:26,500
- Biodiversity surged

317
00:17:33,070 --> 00:17:36,600
until we had these great
cataclysmic extinction events,

318
00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:38,907
when the asteroids
impacted the Earth, kebam,

319
00:17:39,770 --> 00:17:41,790
enormous amounts of debris was jettisoned

320
00:17:41,790 --> 00:17:42,740
into the atmosphere.

321
00:17:42,740 --> 00:17:44,163
Sunlight was cut off.

322
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:47,823
Plants die, animals die.

323
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:51,943
And Fungi inherited the Earth.

324
00:17:57,090 --> 00:18:01,020
From those great extinction
events there's one lesson,

325
00:18:01,020 --> 00:18:04,763
those organisms that
paired with fungi survived.

326
00:18:07,020 --> 00:18:09,250
We are more closely related to fungi

327
00:18:09,250 --> 00:18:10,900
than we are to any other kingdom.

328
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:15,640
What this means is that we
are descendants of mycelium.

329
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,696
Mycelium is the mother of us all.

330
00:18:18,696 --> 00:18:21,196
(calm music)

331
00:18:26,700 --> 00:18:28,340
- [Michael] Living creatures like fungi

332
00:18:28,340 --> 00:18:31,020
are intelligent in the
sense that they respond

333
00:18:31,020 --> 00:18:32,430
to their environment,

334
00:18:32,430 --> 00:18:35,010
they seek out food and
they defend themselves,

335
00:18:35,010 --> 00:18:38,033
they solve problems,
and that's intelligence.

336
00:18:41,217 --> 00:18:43,717
(calm music)

337
00:18:47,185 --> 00:18:50,810
- A mycelium can
theoretically live forever

338
00:18:50,810 --> 00:18:53,440
as long as it has food to grow into

339
00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:56,610
which is why the oldest and largest

340
00:18:56,610 --> 00:18:59,480
organism on earth is a fungus.

341
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,200
It lives on top of a mountain on Oregon.

342
00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:04,010
It's like thousands of acres

343
00:19:04,010 --> 00:19:05,763
and it's thousands of years old.

344
00:19:09,810 --> 00:19:14,240
The mushroom is the organ
of sexual reproduction,

345
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,493
for the spore of the fungus.

346
00:19:18,390 --> 00:19:21,053
Fungi don't have seeds, they have spores.

347
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,340
The spores are extremely tiny, little,

348
00:19:26,340 --> 00:19:29,483
lightweight gene carrying systems.

349
00:19:30,690 --> 00:19:33,480
When they land on something they can eat,

350
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,860
they break down the food that they're on,

351
00:19:35,860 --> 00:19:38,360
and then reabsorb the nutrients,

352
00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,110
because you need to move on and find

353
00:19:40,110 --> 00:19:42,563
another place where there's food.

354
00:19:46,530 --> 00:19:50,760
The mushroom releases zillions of spores

355
00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:52,990
into the atmosphere.

356
00:19:52,990 --> 00:19:56,993
There's so many spore, I
mean, you take one breath,

357
00:19:58,330 --> 00:20:00,990
you just breathed in 10 fungal spore.

358
00:20:00,990 --> 00:20:02,930
So they are everywhere.

359
00:20:02,930 --> 00:20:04,293
We evolved with them.

360
00:20:06,410 --> 00:20:08,570
- When you see what mushrooms do,

361
00:20:08,570 --> 00:20:11,890
it's kind of spooky in
the most wonderful way,

362
00:20:11,890 --> 00:20:14,260
I mean they correct everything on Earth.

363
00:20:14,260 --> 00:20:15,320
They support life.

364
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:16,460
They convert life.

365
00:20:16,460 --> 00:20:18,380
They carry life.

366
00:20:18,380 --> 00:20:19,893
They're remarkable beings.

367
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:24,970
If humans become extinct,

368
00:20:24,970 --> 00:20:27,670
what's the next species that
will take over the Earth?

369
00:20:28,900 --> 00:20:32,270
Maybe mycelium already
are the dominant species,

370
00:20:32,270 --> 00:20:33,970
not just because they're the most common

371
00:20:33,970 --> 00:20:36,610
species on Earth, they're everywhere.

372
00:20:36,610 --> 00:20:37,570
I mean, you look at humans.

373
00:20:37,570 --> 00:20:38,610
There's seven billion of us

374
00:20:38,610 --> 00:20:39,970
but we're just one little creature

375
00:20:39,970 --> 00:20:41,710
wandering around incredibly vulnerable

376
00:20:41,710 --> 00:20:44,683
and don't survive easily
if we're assaulted.

377
00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:48,640
- [Newscaster] Hurricane Harvey
has started to make landfall

378
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:50,560
here on the Texas coast.

379
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,300
More than 30,000 people are without power

380
00:20:53,300 --> 00:20:55,460
And things are only expected to get worst.

381
00:20:55,460 --> 00:20:57,810
- Granted we've always had the worst storm

382
00:20:57,810 --> 00:21:01,510
in about a century, and it
is struggling to understand

383
00:21:01,510 --> 00:21:04,473
the new normal of months
ahead without basic services.

384
00:21:05,470 --> 00:21:08,040
- [Man] Climate change is
one of the biggest threats

385
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,740
to our present our world,
to the future of our planet.

386
00:21:11,827 --> 00:21:14,244
(calm music)

387
00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:20,493
- C02 is our biggest greenhouse gas.

388
00:21:21,370 --> 00:21:23,450
As plants photosynthesize,

389
00:21:23,450 --> 00:21:27,403
they literally inhale CO2
while exhaling oxygen.

390
00:21:32,790 --> 00:21:35,177
CO2 is what plants photosynthesize

391
00:21:35,177 --> 00:21:36,910
and they take that carbon

392
00:21:36,910 --> 00:21:38,330
and they put it in different places,

393
00:21:38,330 --> 00:21:40,170
they put it in their
leaves, in their trunks,

394
00:21:40,170 --> 00:21:43,909
but they put 70% of it, we
are finding, below ground.

395
00:21:43,909 --> 00:21:46,409
(calm music)

396
00:21:49,980 --> 00:21:53,860
And the root systems trade
that carbon for nutrients.

397
00:21:53,860 --> 00:21:56,640
That carbon ends up in
the fungal cell walls

398
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:57,823
where it's stored.

399
00:22:04,470 --> 00:22:07,000
This fuels the microbial community

400
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:08,740
and all the other parts of the food web,

401
00:22:08,740 --> 00:22:10,260
like the mites and the nametodes,

402
00:22:10,260 --> 00:22:12,240
and they start cycling nutrients

403
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:13,833
through that eating process.

404
00:22:15,300 --> 00:22:16,810
So the fungi are really important

405
00:22:16,810 --> 00:22:20,200
in stabilizing carbon in soils.

406
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:22,050
Once the carbon is stable

407
00:22:22,050 --> 00:22:24,793
it can stay there stored
for thousands of years.

408
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:28,430
We know for example that carbon

409
00:22:28,430 --> 00:22:29,710
can move from plant to plant

410
00:22:29,710 --> 00:22:33,920
and it evens out the distribution
of carbon in that system.

411
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:35,780
They're working really hard.

412
00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:39,170
If we maintain the plants, the forest,

413
00:22:39,170 --> 00:22:40,670
and the natural fungal community,

414
00:22:40,670 --> 00:22:42,250
we've got a natural engine

415
00:22:42,250 --> 00:22:44,260
that's storing carbon below ground.

416
00:22:44,260 --> 00:22:45,513
So, it's essential.

417
00:22:46,420 --> 00:22:48,110
You know, it's there for us, right?

418
00:22:48,110 --> 00:22:49,879
It's right in front of us.

419
00:22:49,879 --> 00:22:53,080
(calm music)

420
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,423
- [Narrator] We do more
than make mushrooms.

421
00:22:57,050 --> 00:22:59,490
We have the ability to do so much more

422
00:22:59,490 --> 00:23:01,273
than just break down matter.

423
00:23:04,350 --> 00:23:06,240
Like the fruit of our labor,

424
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:07,810
most of you have only scratched

425
00:23:07,810 --> 00:23:09,853
the surface of our usefulness.

426
00:23:13,100 --> 00:23:15,453
We are the changers.

427
00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:26,950
- I was 14 or 15 years of age, I believe,

428
00:23:26,950 --> 00:23:29,100
when my brother, John, gave me a book

429
00:23:29,100 --> 00:23:32,380
called "Altered States of Consciousness".

430
00:23:32,380 --> 00:23:34,870
And within that book,
Andy Weil was referenced

431
00:23:34,870 --> 00:23:37,520
on expanding consciousness,
and I got really excited.

432
00:23:40,300 --> 00:23:43,050
I was going to charismatic
christian revival meetings

433
00:23:43,050 --> 00:23:44,810
and seeing people being saved,

434
00:23:44,810 --> 00:23:47,170
but it kind of was cool
from my perspective

435
00:23:47,170 --> 00:23:48,003
that they were achieving

436
00:23:48,003 --> 00:23:49,070
this altered states of consciousness.

437
00:23:49,070 --> 00:23:51,870
So I thought that was part
of all of the same idea here.

438
00:23:52,870 --> 00:23:55,463
I really owe credit to Andrew Weil.

439
00:23:57,700 --> 00:23:59,960
- I think he read one of my early books

440
00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:01,840
in which I wrote about mushroom hunting,

441
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,010
and psychodelic mushrooms

442
00:24:04,010 --> 00:24:06,890
and made some reference to
medicinal mushrooms as well.

443
00:24:06,890 --> 00:24:08,450
- It was like a turning point, you know,

444
00:24:08,450 --> 00:24:10,250
like, I certainly was awakened.

445
00:24:10,250 --> 00:24:13,750
Other people were thinking
about expanding consciousness.

446
00:24:13,750 --> 00:24:16,900
And so I gave this book to
my friend, Ryan Schneider.

447
00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:19,420
So, Ryan took it home,
and a few days later,

448
00:24:19,420 --> 00:24:21,070
I said, "Ryan, where is my book?"

449
00:24:21,070 --> 00:24:23,313
He told me his dad had burned it.

450
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:28,460
I said, "He burned my book?"

451
00:24:28,460 --> 00:24:31,430
Rather than giving it back
to me or calling my parents,

452
00:24:31,430 --> 00:24:34,063
he actually took the
initiative to burn this book.

453
00:24:36,670 --> 00:24:41,050
I owe Ryan Schneider's father
a deep debt of gratitude,

454
00:24:41,050 --> 00:24:46,050
because that single act
galvanized my interest.

455
00:24:46,070 --> 00:24:48,247
Saying, "If this is so
powerful to cause a person

456
00:24:48,247 --> 00:24:50,377
"to do such a bizarre act,

457
00:24:50,377 --> 00:24:54,198
"then I should examine what
this subject is all about."

458
00:24:54,198 --> 00:24:56,698
(calm music)

459
00:24:57,870 --> 00:25:00,120
- Human existence on this Earth

460
00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:04,310
goes back an extraordinary
long period of time,

461
00:25:04,310 --> 00:25:09,150
most of which we have no
identifiable information.

462
00:25:09,150 --> 00:25:11,180
It's entirely plausible,

463
00:25:11,180 --> 00:25:13,740
given that the indigenous
people all around the world

464
00:25:13,740 --> 00:25:16,020
know intimately all the plant life,

465
00:25:16,020 --> 00:25:18,760
and will know the different
combination of plant life,

466
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,180
that our prehistoric ancestors,

467
00:25:21,180 --> 00:25:25,233
they had come across the plants
that do alter consciousness.

468
00:25:27,090 --> 00:25:29,050
- In about two million years,

469
00:25:29,050 --> 00:25:31,977
the human cortex tripled in size,

470
00:25:31,977 --> 00:25:34,240
and the brain exploded

471
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,333
over a ridiculously short
span of evolutionary time.

472
00:25:39,330 --> 00:25:42,900
Two million years is nothing
when it comes to evolution.

473
00:25:42,900 --> 00:25:44,640
What triggered that?

474
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,140
- [Paul] In the late
1970s, Terrence McKenna

475
00:25:47,140 --> 00:25:48,510
and his brother Dennis McKenna

476
00:25:48,510 --> 00:25:52,820
were the first that proposed
the Stoned Ape hypothesis.

477
00:25:52,820 --> 00:25:55,290
It is known now that 22 primates,

478
00:25:55,290 --> 00:25:58,713
23 including us, consume mushrooms.

479
00:25:59,732 --> 00:26:01,320
And the idea is our ancestors,

480
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,130
they came out of the trees
and went across the Savannah,

481
00:26:03,130 --> 00:26:05,533
would be tracking
animals that are pooping.

482
00:26:07,150 --> 00:26:08,340
Well, in the sub tropics,

483
00:26:08,340 --> 00:26:11,020
the most common mushroom
coming out of those cow patties

484
00:26:11,020 --> 00:26:13,620
is psilocybe cubensis dung,
a potent magic mushroom.

485
00:26:14,660 --> 00:26:15,647
- [Dennis] One thing that mushrooms

486
00:26:15,647 --> 00:26:17,870
and other psychedelics do reliably

487
00:26:17,870 --> 00:26:20,313
is they induce synesthesia.

488
00:26:21,740 --> 00:26:23,950
Synesthesia is the perception

489
00:26:23,950 --> 00:26:26,560
of one sensory modality in another.

490
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,074
Hearing colors for
example, or seeing music.

491
00:26:31,074 --> 00:26:33,491
(calm music)

492
00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:44,030
You have these profound experiences

493
00:26:44,030 --> 00:26:47,860
and you have to put
yourself in their place

494
00:26:47,860 --> 00:26:49,460
and imagine what the impact

495
00:26:49,460 --> 00:26:52,513
of such an experience must
have been on an early hominid.

496
00:26:53,790 --> 00:26:55,220
- [Paul] These magic mushrooms open up

497
00:26:55,220 --> 00:26:57,463
the flood gates of
information you receive.

498
00:26:58,790 --> 00:27:01,090
Basically, you can think
of it as a contact fluid

499
00:27:01,090 --> 00:27:03,830
between synapses within the brain.

500
00:27:03,830 --> 00:27:05,920
Wow, what a competitive advantage.

501
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,320
Especially if you're
working with the geometry

502
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,530
of weapons or having to
put together something

503
00:27:09,530 --> 00:27:11,880
that will give you a
better chance of survival.

504
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,970
The fact that this happened
not once, not twice,

505
00:27:16,970 --> 00:27:20,590
but millions and millions of
times over millions of years,

506
00:27:20,590 --> 00:27:23,030
is a very plausible explanation

507
00:27:23,030 --> 00:27:26,430
for the tripling of the
brain two million years ago.

508
00:27:26,430 --> 00:27:27,980
- It's not so simple to say

509
00:27:27,980 --> 00:27:30,070
that they ate psilocybin mushrooms

510
00:27:30,070 --> 00:27:31,700
and suddenly the brain mutated.

511
00:27:31,700 --> 00:27:33,620
I think it's more complex than that.

512
00:27:33,620 --> 00:27:35,183
But I think it was a factor.

513
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,050
It was like a software to program

514
00:27:39,050 --> 00:27:41,700
this neurologically modern hardware,

515
00:27:41,700 --> 00:27:46,300
to think, to have
cognition, to have language,

516
00:27:46,300 --> 00:27:48,830
because language is
essentially synesthesia.

517
00:27:48,830 --> 00:27:50,530
Language is just association

518
00:27:50,530 --> 00:27:52,710
with inherently meaningless sound,

519
00:27:52,710 --> 00:27:56,013
except that it's associated
with a complex of meaning.

520
00:27:57,050 --> 00:28:00,610
A great deal of the brain's
real estate, you might say,

521
00:28:00,610 --> 00:28:02,730
is devoted to the generation

522
00:28:02,730 --> 00:28:05,590
and/or the comprehension of language.

523
00:28:05,590 --> 00:28:09,110
Those neural structures are
not found in our ancestors.

524
00:28:09,110 --> 00:28:10,360
That's a human trait,

525
00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,980
to have so much physiology devoted

526
00:28:12,980 --> 00:28:15,183
to generating and understanding language.

527
00:28:15,183 --> 00:28:18,310
And that's a reflection
of evolutionary events

528
00:28:18,310 --> 00:28:20,053
that made us what we are.

529
00:28:25,370 --> 00:28:28,370
- I couldn't get these
mushrooms for the longest time.

530
00:28:28,370 --> 00:28:31,000
When I was in Ohio I actually purchased

531
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,120
a bag of magic mushrooms.

532
00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:36,190
But I had no guide, I
had no recommendations

533
00:28:36,190 --> 00:28:38,210
for how much to consume.

534
00:28:38,210 --> 00:28:39,810
So I had a bag about this big,

535
00:28:39,810 --> 00:28:43,000
so I thought well that's
probably one dose,

536
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:44,563
so I consumed the bag.

537
00:28:45,430 --> 00:28:46,523
Now for those of you who don't know,

538
00:28:46,523 --> 00:28:48,450
this is like 10 times more

539
00:28:48,450 --> 00:28:50,423
than you probably need to consume.

540
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,270
It was a warm summer day,

541
00:28:53,270 --> 00:28:58,010
and there was a beautiful
big, big tree, an oak tree.

542
00:28:58,010 --> 00:29:00,880
And then I noticed black
clouds on the horizon

543
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,210
and I realized there was a storm coming,

544
00:29:03,210 --> 00:29:04,413
and I thought, "This is great,

545
00:29:04,413 --> 00:29:06,200
"I will have this great
visual of the storm coming."

546
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,577
And I thought, "Well, I am going to climb

547
00:29:07,577 --> 00:29:08,410
"to the top of the tree."

548
00:29:08,410 --> 00:29:10,180
So I'm starting to feel the effects.

549
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,350
I am getting waves where the air

550
00:29:20,350 --> 00:29:23,778
becomes a liquid. and woosh,

551
00:29:23,778 --> 00:29:25,390
you have this distortion field

552
00:29:25,390 --> 00:29:27,589
go through the visual landscape.

553
00:29:27,589 --> 00:29:29,800
I've never seen that before.

554
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,107
I went, "Oh wow, this is what
they were talking about."

555
00:29:33,107 --> 00:29:35,890
And I see the boiling
clouds are coming closer,

556
00:29:35,890 --> 00:29:37,900
but they're looking angry now.

557
00:29:37,900 --> 00:29:41,092
And then the lightning strikes would go.

558
00:29:41,092 --> 00:29:42,960
(lightning crackles)

559
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,330
And then all these geometrical fractals

560
00:29:45,330 --> 00:29:47,660
would emanate out of
the lightning strikes.

561
00:29:47,660 --> 00:29:50,010
And pretty soon I had
these overlying mosaics

562
00:29:50,010 --> 00:29:53,170
of mathematical patterns
and geometric figures

563
00:29:53,170 --> 00:29:55,410
of multiple colors that are swimming

564
00:29:55,410 --> 00:29:56,590
in this field of vision

565
00:29:56,590 --> 00:29:58,920
that these waves were flying through.

566
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,496
I've never in my life seen
anything like that before.

567
00:30:02,496 --> 00:30:03,733
(lightning crackles)

568
00:30:03,733 --> 00:30:05,900
The winds increasing,
then the rains would come

569
00:30:05,900 --> 00:30:08,150
and I became extremely scared.

570
00:30:08,150 --> 00:30:10,540
And then also I realized
I am at the top of a hill,

571
00:30:10,540 --> 00:30:12,820
during a lightning storm,
in the tallest tree,

572
00:30:12,820 --> 00:30:14,240
not the best place to be

573
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,490
when you're gonna choose
a spiritual experience.

574
00:30:16,490 --> 00:30:18,977
And so, I held on to
the tree for dear life.

575
00:30:18,977 --> 00:30:21,887
And that tree was my pillar
back into the core of the Earth.

576
00:30:21,887 --> 00:30:24,973
And I felt secure as long
as I held on to the tree.

577
00:30:25,940 --> 00:30:28,260
Lightning strikes all
around, thunder claps.

578
00:30:28,260 --> 00:30:29,557
You know, one second
between a lightning strike

579
00:30:29,557 --> 00:30:30,450
and a thunder clap,

580
00:30:30,450 --> 00:30:32,049
you knew it was coming closer and closer.

581
00:30:32,049 --> 00:30:33,610
(lightning crackles)

582
00:30:33,610 --> 00:30:36,113
I was terrified that I wouldn't survive.

583
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,510
And through this terrorific experience,

584
00:30:40,510 --> 00:30:42,530
terrifying and terrific at the same time,

585
00:30:42,530 --> 00:30:43,777
I am up in this tree and I'm saying,

586
00:30:43,777 --> 00:30:45,864
"What should I focus on?"

587
00:30:45,864 --> 00:30:47,787
And I said, "Well, Stamet's,
you know, you're not stupid,

588
00:30:47,787 --> 00:30:49,417
"but you stutter all the time."

589
00:30:50,420 --> 00:30:53,377
And so I thought, "I
need to stop stuttering."

590
00:30:54,500 --> 00:30:56,837
And so I said to myself, "Stop stuttering.

591
00:30:56,837 --> 00:30:59,700
"Stop stuttering now."

592
00:30:59,700 --> 00:31:02,457
A little inner voice in
my head, "Can you hear me?

593
00:31:02,457 --> 00:31:04,210
"Stop stuttering now."

594
00:31:04,210 --> 00:31:06,517
And then I started saying
that, "Stop stuttering now."

595
00:31:06,517 --> 00:31:07,430
"Stop stuttering now."

596
00:31:07,430 --> 00:31:09,843
Hundreds, hundreds,
hundreds, thousands of times.

597
00:31:15,550 --> 00:31:18,620
After the storm had passed,
I came down from the tree,

598
00:31:18,620 --> 00:31:20,860
drenched, soaked to the bone,

599
00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:24,100
you know, in love with life, with nature,

600
00:31:24,100 --> 00:31:25,130
in love with that tree.

601
00:31:25,130 --> 00:31:27,450
That tree was so important to me.

602
00:31:27,450 --> 00:31:31,800
And I went home and I went
to bed, I didn't see anybody.

603
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,440
And the next morning I woke up

604
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,820
and there was a really attractive
lady that I liked a lot,

605
00:31:37,820 --> 00:31:39,720
but I could never stare at her in the eyes

606
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,000
because I was afraid to
stutter and embarrass myself.

607
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,950
So better to avoid social
contact than have social contact,

608
00:31:44,950 --> 00:31:47,030
even though I was really attracted to her.

609
00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:48,760
And she liked me, but I was,

610
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:50,910
didn't know what to do with
it, with that attention.

611
00:31:50,910 --> 00:31:52,640
And so she was walking past me

612
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,270
and she looked at me and she
said, "Good morning, Paul."

613
00:31:55,270 --> 00:31:56,390
And for the first time,

614
00:31:56,390 --> 00:31:58,547
I looked her straight
in the eye and I said,

615
00:31:58,547 --> 00:32:00,440
"Good Morning, how are you?"

616
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,195
And I stopped stuttering in one session.

617
00:32:03,195 --> 00:32:05,695
(calm music)

618
00:32:13,353 --> 00:32:14,654
♪ The old scrounge rapping hard ♪

619
00:32:14,654 --> 00:32:18,654
(upbeat electronic dance music)

620
00:32:24,783 --> 00:32:27,680
This is the newest thing my
employees are listening to.

621
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,760
So my employees are the
best source of new music.

622
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,910
We love loud music for the
mushrooms in the laboratories.

623
00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:37,729
It causes everyone to be synchronized.

624
00:32:37,729 --> 00:32:40,208
We have a lot of nonverbal
communication in laboratories.

625
00:32:40,208 --> 00:32:43,130
You know, when we talk,
your mouth spreads bacteria.

626
00:32:43,130 --> 00:32:44,800
So we try to minimize talking.

627
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,740
So a lot of it is done
by gestures and knowing.

628
00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:49,273
So why not have loud music?

629
00:32:52,660 --> 00:32:53,970
My dad was a businessman.

630
00:32:53,970 --> 00:32:56,100
I swore I'd never become one,

631
00:32:56,100 --> 00:32:58,110
but I wanted to be independent

632
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:00,970
so I created a little mail order business

633
00:33:00,970 --> 00:33:02,760
in order to supply myself and other people

634
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:04,560
who had like interests in mushrooms.

635
00:33:06,150 --> 00:33:07,580
When we started the business,

636
00:33:07,580 --> 00:33:09,487
it was extremely difficult back then,

637
00:33:09,487 --> 00:33:11,540
and we didn't have the resources.

638
00:33:11,540 --> 00:33:12,810
We were putting little advertisements

639
00:33:12,810 --> 00:33:14,830
in Organic Gardening Magazine,

640
00:33:14,830 --> 00:33:17,353
back when there was only
three television stations.

641
00:33:19,790 --> 00:33:20,980
I invented this business

642
00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:23,903
so I could buy equipment
for my laboratory wholesale.

643
00:33:28,420 --> 00:33:31,130
Amazing to me, we have
nearly 100 employees,

644
00:33:31,130 --> 00:33:33,403
and thousands of media outlets.

645
00:33:35,510 --> 00:33:37,790
These mushrooms were so powerful to me

646
00:33:37,790 --> 00:33:39,990
that I realized that I
wanted to study them.

647
00:33:40,910 --> 00:33:43,880
This mushroom is known reishi or lingzhi,

648
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:46,000
the mushroom of immortality.

649
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,830
And it's one of the most
amazing and interesting

650
00:33:48,830 --> 00:33:50,430
mushrooms that we've ever grown.

651
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,470
This mushroom helps the immunity

652
00:33:53,470 --> 00:33:55,855
of not only people but bees.

653
00:33:55,855 --> 00:33:57,901
(calm music)

654
00:33:57,901 --> 00:34:00,901
(seagull squawking)

655
00:34:08,740 --> 00:34:12,000
Up this hill here we have a
quarter section of property,

656
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:17,000
160 acres, and we have a
large micrological experiment.

657
00:34:17,260 --> 00:34:21,107
We planted 33,000 trees,
half with mycorrhizal fungi

658
00:34:21,107 --> 00:34:22,490
tapped to the roots, half without.

659
00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:25,240
And this is year nine.

660
00:34:25,240 --> 00:34:27,740
So we are putting into
an Excel spreadsheet

661
00:34:27,740 --> 00:34:32,740
or have put in 1,000 trees
to compare the treatments.

662
00:34:32,750 --> 00:34:37,040
I came into (mumbles) from
licensing one of my patents.

663
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,770
And so when the political
climates in the United States

664
00:34:39,770 --> 00:34:42,560
changed to be adverse
to environmentalists,

665
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:43,810
we bought land in Canada.

666
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:49,260
- I think the fact that he didn't come up

667
00:34:49,260 --> 00:34:51,180
on a conventional academic pathway

668
00:34:51,180 --> 00:34:52,600
is part of the reason he's as willing

669
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,793
to really explore ideas that
are not on anyone else's radar.

670
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,100
- I'm really honored that I discovered

671
00:35:01,100 --> 00:35:03,530
a few things that no one
else had yet discovered

672
00:35:03,530 --> 00:35:07,540
so I have now five patents
on entomopathogenic fungi.

673
00:35:07,540 --> 00:35:10,100
These are fungi that infect insects

674
00:35:10,100 --> 00:35:12,560
and, in particular, termites.

675
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,640
The biggest problem in
the commercialization

676
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,950
of bio-pesticides from fungi

677
00:35:16,950 --> 00:35:19,270
has been the spore repellency property.

678
00:35:19,270 --> 00:35:21,800
The insects avoid the
spores of these fungi.

679
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,370
In fact, so concerned are termites

680
00:35:23,370 --> 00:35:25,750
that if a worker goes out
and encounters this fungus,

681
00:35:25,750 --> 00:35:27,920
when the worker returns back to the nest,

682
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:29,920
guards, they'll capture that worker

683
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,520
that's infected with these spores,

684
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,670
take the worker to a graveyard

685
00:35:33,670 --> 00:35:36,200
and they cut off the worker's head

686
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,330
and then the two guards commit suicide.

687
00:35:38,330 --> 00:35:39,590
They're trying to protect the queen

688
00:35:39,590 --> 00:35:42,050
and the nest and colony from infection.

689
00:35:42,050 --> 00:35:44,790
And I discovered
something that no one else

690
00:35:44,790 --> 00:35:46,960
had ever reported in the
scientific literature.

691
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,980
I found a biological switch
that delayed sporulation,

692
00:35:49,980 --> 00:35:52,810
and then the insects were not repelled,

693
00:35:52,810 --> 00:35:54,940
but they were super-attracted.

694
00:35:54,940 --> 00:35:58,220
Which means one finds the fungus
now and the others follow,

695
00:35:58,220 --> 00:36:00,040
and it ends up being a Trojan Horse.

696
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,110
The same fungi now are
taken past the guards,

697
00:36:03,110 --> 00:36:04,040
given to the queen,

698
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,760
the queen feeds it to the brood,

699
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:07,810
the whole colony becomes like mummified

700
00:36:07,810 --> 00:36:10,310
with this mycelium and whoosh,

701
00:36:10,310 --> 00:36:13,890
the whole colony is infected and dies.

702
00:36:13,890 --> 00:36:16,070
And then the spore repellency properties

703
00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:18,450
protects your house from
subsequent invasions.

704
00:36:18,450 --> 00:36:20,840
This is a huge discovery.

705
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,810
And then I tried it with carpenter ants,

706
00:36:22,810 --> 00:36:25,990
with fire ants, fungus
gnats and then mosquitoes.

707
00:36:25,990 --> 00:36:27,860
Now we're working with bed bugs

708
00:36:27,860 --> 00:36:30,513
and we've had successes across the board.

709
00:36:36,318 --> 00:36:40,570
The entire ecosystem
is infused with fungi.

710
00:36:40,570 --> 00:36:44,623
So I see these deep reservoirs
of the ecology all around us.

711
00:36:52,830 --> 00:36:54,880
- [Narrator] In a world of invention,

712
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:56,990
the answer to our greatest problems

713
00:36:56,990 --> 00:37:00,123
may be hiding right under our feet.

714
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,120
- There are mushrooms that have been used

715
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,810
in Western medicine.

716
00:37:05,810 --> 00:37:09,863
Penicillin for example is a
really effective antibiotic.

717
00:37:11,090 --> 00:37:13,500
Before it was synthesized,
during the Civil War,

718
00:37:13,500 --> 00:37:15,970
when a solider would get wounded,

719
00:37:15,970 --> 00:37:17,820
they would slap a piece of moldy bread

720
00:37:17,820 --> 00:37:22,560
on his wound to benefit from
those antibiotic properties.

721
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,660
You know, so he wouldn't get an infection.

722
00:37:26,350 --> 00:37:30,170
- [Paul] Alexander Fleming
discovered Penicillin in 1927.

723
00:37:30,170 --> 00:37:32,520
The problem was that they
couldn't find strains

724
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:33,890
that could be commercialized,

725
00:37:33,890 --> 00:37:35,090
that could produce enough of it

726
00:37:35,090 --> 00:37:37,083
in a commercially economic fashion.

727
00:37:38,460 --> 00:37:42,550
We fast forward and in
1942 a group of researchers

728
00:37:42,550 --> 00:37:44,550
in Chicago went shopping.

729
00:37:44,550 --> 00:37:46,690
And a lab assistant found a cantaloupe

730
00:37:46,690 --> 00:37:49,173
that was rotting with a
beautiful golden mold,

731
00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:53,260
and from that strain

732
00:37:53,260 --> 00:37:56,423
we got the first hyper
producing strain of penicillium.

733
00:37:59,020 --> 00:38:01,720
Penicillin literally
saved tens of thousands

734
00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:03,610
of soldiers lives.

735
00:38:03,610 --> 00:38:05,900
The Brits had this but the Germans

736
00:38:05,900 --> 00:38:07,150
and the Japanese did not.

737
00:38:09,660 --> 00:38:11,800
It has been suggested that the discovery

738
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,740
of this hyper-producing
strain of penicillin

739
00:38:13,740 --> 00:38:16,770
was a significant influence
in winning World War II.

740
00:38:16,770 --> 00:38:20,350
Alexander Fleming then received
the Nobel Prize in 1945

741
00:38:20,350 --> 00:38:23,020
in recognition of the huge impact

742
00:38:23,020 --> 00:38:25,023
that penicillin had on human health.

743
00:38:30,859 --> 00:38:33,040
(calm music)

744
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:34,850
- [Eugenia] Here's how medicinal mushrooms

745
00:38:34,850 --> 00:38:35,993
are thought to work.

746
00:38:37,170 --> 00:38:41,010
A fungus will produce
all kinds of enzymes,

747
00:38:41,010 --> 00:38:42,590
it's like a chemical warfare,

748
00:38:42,590 --> 00:38:46,060
in order to fight off
competition for food,

749
00:38:46,060 --> 00:38:51,060
like, other microbes, other
fungi, bacteria, virus.

750
00:38:51,740 --> 00:38:53,803
That's what makes antibiotics work.

751
00:38:54,890 --> 00:38:57,580
Chemicals that are produced by fungus,

752
00:38:57,580 --> 00:39:00,300
like the one that penicillin is made from,

753
00:39:00,300 --> 00:39:01,510
the fungus produces it

754
00:39:01,510 --> 00:39:04,150
to kill bacteria that are competition.

755
00:39:04,150 --> 00:39:07,433
And, when we take penicillin,
it kills our bacteria.

756
00:39:08,950 --> 00:39:10,950
- [Andrew] There's a long
tradition of using mushrooms

757
00:39:10,950 --> 00:39:13,960
as medicines in East
Asia, especially in Korea,

758
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:15,850
China and Japan.

759
00:39:15,850 --> 00:39:19,220
They appear to be able
to enhance and protect

760
00:39:19,220 --> 00:39:22,480
the body's innate defensive mechanisms.

761
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,280
The uses for them filled niches for which

762
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,110
we really don't have anything
in Western pharmacology.

763
00:39:28,110 --> 00:39:30,150
In Western medicine, all of our effort

764
00:39:30,150 --> 00:39:34,040
is on identifying agents of
disease and eliminating them.

765
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,410
That has its place but
we do almost nothing

766
00:39:36,410 --> 00:39:37,710
about supporting the good.

767
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,390
- [Paul] Shamans would treat patients

768
00:39:45,390 --> 00:39:47,160
and the diseases were thought to be

769
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:48,883
elements of the spirit world.

770
00:39:49,900 --> 00:39:52,610
Well, physicians today treat infections

771
00:39:52,610 --> 00:39:54,850
and their spirits are bacteria

772
00:39:54,850 --> 00:39:57,460
that are pathogenic, or are viruses.

773
00:39:57,460 --> 00:39:59,820
So whether the shamans called them spirits

774
00:39:59,820 --> 00:40:02,750
or whether the scientists
called them microbes,

775
00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:04,660
with the invention of microscopes,

776
00:40:04,660 --> 00:40:07,890
we get to see the microscopic
universe and landscape

777
00:40:07,890 --> 00:40:11,410
that we thunder upon with every footstep.

778
00:40:11,410 --> 00:40:13,840
The fact that these fungal networks

779
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:15,100
are seemingly invisible

780
00:40:15,100 --> 00:40:16,820
but then represent themselves in a big,

781
00:40:16,820 --> 00:40:19,290
flourishing mushroom in
a matter of a few days,

782
00:40:19,290 --> 00:40:22,530
give us a window into
the invisible landscape

783
00:40:22,530 --> 00:40:23,966
underneath our feet.

784
00:40:23,966 --> 00:40:26,383
(calm music)

785
00:40:40,350 --> 00:40:42,160
Fungal networks have defended themselves

786
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,310
against vectors of disease
for millions of years.

787
00:40:45,310 --> 00:40:48,013
Viral pandemics occur periodically.

788
00:40:48,860 --> 00:40:53,510
Between 1347 and 1353, one third

789
00:40:53,510 --> 00:40:56,483
of the European population
died from the Black Plague.

790
00:40:58,210 --> 00:41:01,132
The great flu pandemic of 1918,

791
00:41:01,132 --> 00:41:03,340
2% of the world population died.

792
00:41:03,340 --> 00:41:04,990
Millions upon millions of people.

793
00:41:07,250 --> 00:41:08,620
I think everyone is aware

794
00:41:08,620 --> 00:41:11,080
of the threat potentially
of bio-terrorism.

795
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,700
But few people may know that Europeans

796
00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:16,810
were actively involved,
consciously or unconsciously,

797
00:41:16,810 --> 00:41:19,140
in bio-terrorism against
indigenous peoples

798
00:41:19,140 --> 00:41:22,460
especially in The New
World, in Meso-America.

799
00:41:22,460 --> 00:41:24,120
They brought in diseases.

800
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:25,550
And when you are extremely sick,

801
00:41:25,550 --> 00:41:27,593
you can't fight off an invader.

802
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,960
It's an irony of history
that now the U.S. government

803
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,910
is interested in protecting
people from viral pandemics.

804
00:41:35,910 --> 00:41:38,730
- [Man] Paul Stamets cultured
numerous strains in his lab

805
00:41:38,730 --> 00:41:40,830
in prepared natural extracts.

806
00:41:40,830 --> 00:41:43,490
He then submitted samples
to the Defense Department's

807
00:41:43,490 --> 00:41:45,940
Bioshield Program for testing.

808
00:41:45,940 --> 00:41:48,830
- And Ironically, I owe a debt
of gratitude to Dick Cheney,

809
00:41:48,830 --> 00:41:50,970
and George W. Bush.

810
00:41:50,970 --> 00:41:52,670
- It is vital that our nation discuss

811
00:41:52,670 --> 00:41:56,000
and address the threat
of pandemic flu now.

812
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:57,750
- Their funding of that research led

813
00:41:57,750 --> 00:41:59,370
to some very novel discoveries

814
00:41:59,370 --> 00:42:01,170
which we're still elaborating today.

815
00:42:02,940 --> 00:42:04,550
What we know about these mycelial networks

816
00:42:04,550 --> 00:42:06,630
is they're learning membranes.

817
00:42:06,630 --> 00:42:09,780
They are self-learning and
network-based organisms

818
00:42:09,780 --> 00:42:12,440
that can share and store knowledge.

819
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,890
The mycelium is vaccinating itself

820
00:42:14,890 --> 00:42:17,240
against pathogens in the ecosystem.

821
00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:18,730
We can capitalize on this,

822
00:42:18,730 --> 00:42:21,100
because many of the
same bacterial pathogens

823
00:42:21,100 --> 00:42:24,690
that infect fungi also can infect animals.

824
00:42:24,690 --> 00:42:28,580
We found novel molecules, highly
active against pox viruses,

825
00:42:28,580 --> 00:42:31,060
novel molecules highly active against HPV,

826
00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:32,453
the human papilloma virus.

827
00:42:33,570 --> 00:42:35,930
Many scientists are trying to come up

828
00:42:35,930 --> 00:42:39,170
with the next antibiotic,
the next penicillin.

829
00:42:39,170 --> 00:42:41,490
But we have barely tapped
into the fungal genome,

830
00:42:41,490 --> 00:42:43,943
especially of the mushroom growing fungi.

831
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,290
Think of it, our old growth forest

832
00:42:48,290 --> 00:42:51,830
that contain these ancient
fungi are deep reservoirs

833
00:42:51,830 --> 00:42:55,150
of potential compounds that
can fight pandemic viruses.

834
00:42:55,150 --> 00:42:57,040
We should save the old growth forests

835
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,524
as a matter of national defense.

836
00:42:59,524 --> 00:43:02,107
(water gushes)

837
00:43:05,543 --> 00:43:07,960
(calm music)

838
00:43:09,720 --> 00:43:11,580
- I recommend mushrooms
and mushroom products

839
00:43:11,580 --> 00:43:13,950
frequently to patients
and I teach other doctors

840
00:43:13,950 --> 00:43:15,143
about their uses.

841
00:43:16,060 --> 00:43:19,600
Mushrooms have molecules not
found elsewhere in nature.

842
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,070
There's some that have
totally unusual properties

843
00:43:22,070 --> 00:43:23,933
like Lion's Mane mushroom.

844
00:43:25,490 --> 00:43:27,920
- [Paul] The Lion's Mane
mushroom is a globular

845
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,300
cascading icicle formed mushroom,

846
00:43:30,300 --> 00:43:32,330
tastes like lobster or
shrimp when you cook it.

847
00:43:32,330 --> 00:43:35,470
But a researcher in Japan
by the name of Kawagishi

848
00:43:35,470 --> 00:43:38,100
discovered it around 1993.

849
00:43:38,100 --> 00:43:40,890
And I don't have the foggiest
idea how he discovered this,

850
00:43:40,890 --> 00:43:42,950
but he discovered that this mushroom

851
00:43:42,950 --> 00:43:45,730
stimulates nerves to re-grow.

852
00:43:45,730 --> 00:43:47,280
And he postulated it could be

853
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,543
an effective treatment
against Alzheimer's.

854
00:43:50,870 --> 00:43:52,470
- Since we don't have
anything for Alzheimer's

855
00:43:52,470 --> 00:43:55,920
and since this is non-toxic,
we should test it.

856
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,080
Mushrooms are completely unusual organisms

857
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,230
and they're ignored by so many people

858
00:44:00,230 --> 00:44:04,995
and yet they're a vital interface
between all forms of life.

859
00:44:04,995 --> 00:44:07,412
(calm music)

860
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,650
- At the University of Southern Florida,

861
00:44:13,650 --> 00:44:16,160
a very interesting study came out.

862
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:18,600
Mice were trained to have a
conditioned fear response,

863
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,470
and so when there's a sound
that is associated with pain,

864
00:44:21,470 --> 00:44:25,058
later on when they heard the
sound they cowered in fear.

865
00:44:25,058 --> 00:44:27,013
(upbeat music)
(mice squeaks)

866
00:44:27,013 --> 00:44:28,920
But they treated the mice with psilocybin,

867
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,080
the compound in magic mushrooms,

868
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,510
the mice disassociated that link.

869
00:44:33,510 --> 00:44:36,573
The mice overcame that
fear condition response.

870
00:44:37,530 --> 00:44:38,840
- We started with very low doses

871
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,140
to as high a dose as one
milligram per kilogram.

872
00:44:41,140 --> 00:44:43,300
Now what was interesting,

873
00:44:43,300 --> 00:44:45,320
if you look at double labeled cells,

874
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:46,800
in other words the birth of new neurons,

875
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,630
we saw an increase in neurogenesis.

876
00:44:50,630 --> 00:44:53,390
- Neurogenesis literally
means neuro for nerves,

877
00:44:53,390 --> 00:44:56,400
and genesis, rebirth or beginning of.

878
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,223
The re-growing of neurons.

879
00:45:01,090 --> 00:45:03,620
They were not using the
same neurological pathways

880
00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:05,050
they have in the past.

881
00:45:05,050 --> 00:45:07,780
This is really exciting
because it means that

882
00:45:07,780 --> 00:45:10,630
the brain has a plasticity about it,

883
00:45:10,630 --> 00:45:13,010
it's able to heal, it's able to grow,

884
00:45:13,010 --> 00:45:14,910
it just needs the right compounds

885
00:45:14,910 --> 00:45:18,133
to help it develop new
neurological pathways.

886
00:45:19,390 --> 00:45:20,680
We're all getting older,

887
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,504
we'll all suffer some degree of dementia.

888
00:45:23,504 --> 00:45:25,921
(calm music)

889
00:45:27,910 --> 00:45:29,770
What compounds can we take

890
00:45:29,770 --> 00:45:32,393
that enhances and preserves neurogenesis?

891
00:45:37,070 --> 00:45:39,830
I know many many people who would not dare

892
00:45:39,830 --> 00:45:41,680
take a psilocybin mushroom trip.

893
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:45,420
But the concept of them
taking 1/50th of a dose,

894
00:45:45,420 --> 00:45:47,236
something like that,

895
00:45:47,236 --> 00:45:49,610
and it causes neurogenesis and
it might make them smarter,

896
00:45:49,610 --> 00:45:51,360
or in a better mood or happier?

897
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,183
That's a whole different subject.

898
00:45:54,056 --> 00:45:56,473
(calm music)

899
00:45:57,460 --> 00:46:00,360
- [Narrator] We are on a never
ending search for partners.

900
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,693
Life affirming relationships.

901
00:46:07,630 --> 00:46:09,550
Or, at the very least,

902
00:46:09,550 --> 00:46:11,843
nourishment for the
next leg of our journey.

903
00:46:13,940 --> 00:46:17,193
We have flourished side
by side with your species,

904
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,403
symbiotically, for centuries.

905
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,390
- Many shamanic cultures
relied on mushrooms

906
00:46:28,390 --> 00:46:31,240
for their transcendental experiences.

907
00:46:31,240 --> 00:46:34,693
This is pre-religion, all over the world.

908
00:46:35,850 --> 00:46:38,070
It was all about the
individual's connection

909
00:46:38,070 --> 00:46:39,750
to the spiritual world

910
00:46:39,750 --> 00:46:43,563
or the mystery that is
our context for living.

911
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,170
- These are ancient artifacts
from the Mayan culture.

912
00:46:50,170 --> 00:46:52,450
These are called mushroom stones.

913
00:46:52,450 --> 00:46:54,110
This may be the largest collection

914
00:46:54,110 --> 00:46:55,940
of mushroom stones in the world.

915
00:46:55,940 --> 00:46:58,660
The Mayan culture was very mycophilic,

916
00:46:58,660 --> 00:47:02,000
and they revered mushroom
stones for divination,

917
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,610
for spirituality, also
to be able to predict

918
00:47:05,610 --> 00:47:09,002
incoming armies and how to
strategize against them.

919
00:47:09,002 --> 00:47:11,419
(calm music)

920
00:47:17,810 --> 00:47:22,260
A great ethnomycologist by
the name of R. Gordon Wasson

921
00:47:22,260 --> 00:47:24,670
came up with the phrase mycophilia,

922
00:47:24,670 --> 00:47:27,200
the love of mushrooms
that the Mayans shared.

923
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,340
Mycophobia was, classically,

924
00:47:29,340 --> 00:47:31,340
the English who had a fear of mushrooms,

925
00:47:31,340 --> 00:47:33,260
because they were enigmatic.

926
00:47:33,260 --> 00:47:35,350
You know, these mushrooms
can get you high,

927
00:47:35,350 --> 00:47:38,090
they can heal you, they can can
feed you, they can kill you.

928
00:47:38,090 --> 00:47:41,520
And so, that which is so
powerful is naturally feared.

929
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,890
- Wasson was an amateur mycologist,

930
00:47:43,890 --> 00:47:46,210
a person who studies mushrooms,

931
00:47:46,210 --> 00:47:51,060
and was invited to
participate in a ceremony

932
00:47:51,060 --> 00:47:56,060
by a curandera; Maria Sabina in 1955.

933
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,680
He took these mushrooms and
had a psychedelic experience.

934
00:48:04,540 --> 00:48:05,960
- And when R. Gordon Wasson came out

935
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:07,250
with his research that was published

936
00:48:07,250 --> 00:48:09,603
in Life Magazine in 1957,

937
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,090
that was basically a field
guide to psilocybin mushrooms

938
00:48:16,090 --> 00:48:18,950
delivered to tens of millions of Americans

939
00:48:18,950 --> 00:48:22,033
on their doorstep during
the peak of the Cold War.

940
00:48:22,940 --> 00:48:26,340
This, then, was quickly
noticed by academics at Harvard

941
00:48:26,340 --> 00:48:30,670
and other Ivy League schools
and then the cognoscente,

942
00:48:30,670 --> 00:48:33,150
including Timothy Leary,

943
00:48:33,150 --> 00:48:35,943
Ram Dass and Dr. Andrew Weil.

944
00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:39,310
- Why do mushrooms produce molecules

945
00:48:39,310 --> 00:48:42,440
that fit receptors in
the human brain and body?

946
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:43,290
What does that say?

947
00:48:43,290 --> 00:48:44,123
What does that mean?

948
00:48:44,123 --> 00:48:45,400
I mean, does that mean that we're supposed

949
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:46,743
to be using these things?

950
00:48:48,070 --> 00:48:51,270
- Psychedelics during the '50s and '60s

951
00:48:51,270 --> 00:48:53,740
were the cutting edge
of psychiatric research.

952
00:48:53,740 --> 00:48:55,530
There were remarkable studies

953
00:48:55,530 --> 00:48:58,683
with very, very promising findings.

954
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,387
- Psychedelics became part of research

955
00:49:02,387 --> 00:49:04,350
and psychiatry for 30 years,

956
00:49:04,350 --> 00:49:06,960
and there were several very
interesting indications

957
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,440
that they were researched.

958
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,150
The best data was actually for alcoholism.

959
00:49:11,150 --> 00:49:13,870
- We found that having
a mystical experience

960
00:49:13,870 --> 00:49:15,540
during the course of one session

961
00:49:15,540 --> 00:49:18,430
was the strongest predictor
of positive outcome

962
00:49:18,430 --> 00:49:20,470
meaning maintaining sobriety

963
00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:23,150
over the long follow-up period.

964
00:49:23,150 --> 00:49:24,763
It was very impressive.

965
00:49:25,980 --> 00:49:27,120
- Some of these drugs, you know,

966
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:30,158
they had escaped the
lab as the phrase goes.

967
00:49:30,158 --> 00:49:31,640
("Fortunate Son")

968
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:33,560
Millions of people were using them

969
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:34,980
and you have to realize

970
00:49:34,980 --> 00:49:39,008
that this was a radical
force unleashed on the West.

971
00:49:39,008 --> 00:49:41,841
("Fortunate Son")

972
00:49:45,620 --> 00:49:46,990
- [Man] The kids who take psychedelics

973
00:49:46,990 --> 00:49:48,800
aren't gonna fight your wars.

974
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:51,180
They're not going to
join your corporations.

975
00:49:51,180 --> 00:49:52,080
They won't buy it.

976
00:49:52,998 --> 00:49:55,870
- A lot was going on back in the '60s.

977
00:49:55,870 --> 00:49:59,360
It was a time of rapid cultural change.

978
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,430
There was irrational fears

979
00:50:02,430 --> 00:50:05,930
about too much cultural change too fast.

980
00:50:05,930 --> 00:50:08,620
President Nixon called Timothy Leary

981
00:50:08,620 --> 00:50:11,440
the most dangerous man in America.

982
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:13,180
- We must wage what I have called

983
00:50:13,180 --> 00:50:16,210
total war against public enemy number one

984
00:50:16,210 --> 00:50:19,493
in the United States, the
problem of dangerous drugs.

985
00:50:19,493 --> 00:50:22,050
♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪

986
00:50:22,050 --> 00:50:24,050
- When everyone says shrooms to me,

987
00:50:24,050 --> 00:50:27,470
it invokes this whole idea
to use psilocybin mushrooms

988
00:50:27,470 --> 00:50:28,810
as a party drug.

989
00:50:28,810 --> 00:50:32,193
They are so much more important
than just getting high.

990
00:50:33,973 --> 00:50:36,260
♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪

991
00:50:36,260 --> 00:50:39,290
- The movement to marginalize

992
00:50:39,290 --> 00:50:42,507
the major psychedelics
is incredibly complex.

993
00:50:42,507 --> 00:50:46,410
and it plugged into a
counterculture movement,

994
00:50:46,410 --> 00:50:50,283
an anti-war movement, an
anti-establishment movement.

995
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:55,960
But there were many, many
forces that were at play.

996
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,960
(suspenseful music)

997
00:51:02,550 --> 00:51:06,880
- Somehow the fuse blew,
and one of the victims was

998
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,853
the medical research with psychedelics.

999
00:51:10,820 --> 00:51:15,820
There's a very irrational
and anti-scientific climate

1000
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,950
that was fueled even in
government pamphlets,

1001
00:51:18,950 --> 00:51:21,600
really had distorted information

1002
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,674
that was not scientifically accurate.

1003
00:51:24,674 --> 00:51:26,358
- Get away, just get away.

1004
00:51:26,358 --> 00:51:28,773
- It's a bad trip, instant insanity.

1005
00:51:31,330 --> 00:51:33,713
- [Stephen] The research
came to a halt in 1970,

1006
00:51:33,713 --> 00:51:35,700
the war was declared on drugs,

1007
00:51:35,700 --> 00:51:37,920
the Controlled Substances Act was passed,

1008
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:39,920
and the research essentially was erased

1009
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,033
from being taught in psychiatry.

1010
00:51:43,290 --> 00:51:45,700
- I think I may have
the dubious distinction

1011
00:51:45,700 --> 00:51:50,560
of being the last to give
psilocybin to a cancer patient

1012
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,143
at the Maryland Psychiatric
Research Center.

1013
00:51:54,380 --> 00:51:57,143
And then the research
became completely dormant.

1014
00:51:58,553 --> 00:52:01,220
(birds singing)

1015
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,960
In our evolution as a species

1016
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:07,140
we're at a point of coming to terms

1017
00:52:07,140 --> 00:52:09,683
with a major paradigm change.

1018
00:52:11,290 --> 00:52:15,133
A change in how we view
what we call reality.

1019
00:52:19,410 --> 00:52:23,343
And that always evokes tension and fears.

1020
00:52:25,620 --> 00:52:30,620
The culture wants to cling to
the old view of the universe.

1021
00:52:30,947 --> 00:52:33,697
(mystical music)

1022
00:52:36,550 --> 00:52:39,030
- You realize that you've
been limited all this time

1023
00:52:39,030 --> 00:52:41,190
with your perspective of reality.

1024
00:52:41,190 --> 00:52:44,260
Had reality been known
to you at this level,

1025
00:52:44,260 --> 00:52:47,863
early on, how much more
evolved would we be as beings?

1026
00:52:49,700 --> 00:52:51,700
A lot of people would be afraid of that.

1027
00:52:55,685 --> 00:52:58,050
This is very dangerous territory.

1028
00:52:58,050 --> 00:52:59,560
People wanna give up their responsibility

1029
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:01,670
of being able to understand,

1030
00:53:01,670 --> 00:53:04,240
and because they can't
understand, then they have faith.

1031
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:05,530
And they put their faith in other people

1032
00:53:05,530 --> 00:53:06,930
who say they can understand.

1033
00:53:07,894 --> 00:53:10,840
And I think that's a situation

1034
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:12,890
that's ripe for a predatory relationship.

1035
00:53:14,031 --> 00:53:16,448
(calm music)

1036
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,200
- Anyone who's had one
of those experiences,

1037
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:27,710
in a country where it's
not legal to have them,

1038
00:53:27,710 --> 00:53:29,060
is stuck in this position

1039
00:53:29,060 --> 00:53:33,020
where something really
precious and really giving,

1040
00:53:33,020 --> 00:53:35,230
a great gift to you,

1041
00:53:35,230 --> 00:53:38,110
is not understood by the culture at large

1042
00:53:38,110 --> 00:53:40,150
and furthermore puts you or other people,

1043
00:53:40,150 --> 00:53:42,713
or and other people,
at risk of prosecution.

1044
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,870
And one response to that is to get angry

1045
00:53:48,810 --> 00:53:50,227
and to want to fight that.

1046
00:53:50,227 --> 00:53:51,990
And another response to it is to say

1047
00:53:51,990 --> 00:53:54,783
we just got to explain to
people what's going on here.

1048
00:53:55,620 --> 00:53:57,330
And when people understand it

1049
00:53:57,330 --> 00:54:00,723
then there will be
accommodation and respect.

1050
00:54:02,730 --> 00:54:05,090
There are a number of elders
living in the Bay Area

1051
00:54:05,090 --> 00:54:06,930
who've devoted some part of their career

1052
00:54:06,930 --> 00:54:09,250
in psychology or religious studies

1053
00:54:09,250 --> 00:54:10,700
who ended up being invited

1054
00:54:10,700 --> 00:54:14,300
to a small invitational
conference at Esalen

1055
00:54:14,300 --> 00:54:17,530
called the Pacific Symposium
on Psychedelic Drugs.

1056
00:54:17,530 --> 00:54:19,690
As we went around the
room making introductions,

1057
00:54:19,690 --> 00:54:21,270
most of the people who were clinicians

1058
00:54:21,270 --> 00:54:23,210
were excitedly talking about

1059
00:54:23,210 --> 00:54:25,250
what kind of clinical trial they would run

1060
00:54:25,250 --> 00:54:27,060
if they could use one of these substances

1061
00:54:27,060 --> 00:54:30,093
to treat PTSD or to treat depression.

1062
00:54:31,720 --> 00:54:33,900
- We wrote the best design we could,

1063
00:54:33,900 --> 00:54:38,420
we submitted it to the
FDA, and they approved it.

1064
00:54:38,420 --> 00:54:40,273
This is 1999.

1065
00:54:41,553 --> 00:54:44,280
And it reactivated psychedelic research

1066
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:49,280
after basically a 22-year
dormancy in the United States.

1067
00:54:49,700 --> 00:54:52,100
- It's like a Rip Van Winkle effect.

1068
00:54:52,100 --> 00:54:55,880
You know, it's waking up 20 years later.

1069
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:59,200
The methodologies, the
questions that we can ask,

1070
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,113
on so many different levels.

1071
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,240
- I have been diagnosed
with prostate cancer.

1072
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,113
My diagnosis was so bad that,

1073
00:55:15,950 --> 00:55:18,603
they weren't giving me
any chance whatsoever.

1074
00:55:19,940 --> 00:55:23,080
- My diagnosis was kidney cancer.

1075
00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:26,660
Finding out that you may wanna get

1076
00:55:26,660 --> 00:55:27,993
your affairs in order.

1077
00:55:29,370 --> 00:55:31,320
- I first found out about this study

1078
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,830
when my oncologist gave me a pamphlet.

1079
00:55:33,830 --> 00:55:36,360
He said here's something that
might be able to help you

1080
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:37,463
with the anxiety.

1081
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,310
And I was accepted into the study.

1082
00:55:41,310 --> 00:55:44,070
- The most important thing is to remember

1083
00:55:44,070 --> 00:55:46,850
that you're always safe.

1084
00:55:46,850 --> 00:55:49,720
And our recommendation is that whatever

1085
00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:52,540
is coming up that you allow it,

1086
00:55:52,540 --> 00:55:55,867
that you don't have to like
it, but you say, "Okay,"

1087
00:55:56,830 --> 00:55:59,190
rather than trying to run away from it.

1088
00:55:59,190 --> 00:56:01,900
Once a volunteer is enrolled in the study,

1089
00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:04,230
they're with us for the preparation,

1090
00:56:04,230 --> 00:56:05,590
the psilocybin sessions

1091
00:56:05,590 --> 00:56:08,253
and the integration follow-ups after.

1092
00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:14,180
I have been a guide for
around 350 psilocybin sessions

1093
00:56:14,180 --> 00:56:16,590
and then about 1,000 of the preparatory

1094
00:56:16,590 --> 00:56:18,364
and integration meetings.

1095
00:56:18,364 --> 00:56:20,936
- All right.
- Okay.

1096
00:56:20,936 --> 00:56:22,220
Now get your head up.

1097
00:56:22,220 --> 00:56:24,250
It's really just about experiencing

1098
00:56:24,250 --> 00:56:27,543
what comes up as the
psilocybin takes effect.

1099
00:56:27,543 --> 00:56:30,293
(mystical music)

1100
00:56:47,830 --> 00:56:49,900
- In the intense part of this journey,

1101
00:56:49,900 --> 00:56:53,170
this world and things that
matter to most people:

1102
00:56:53,170 --> 00:56:55,980
family and all that, that wasn't even

1103
00:56:55,980 --> 00:56:57,570
what it was about.

1104
00:56:57,570 --> 00:57:00,060
They say anything mystical
can't be explained.

1105
00:57:00,060 --> 00:57:01,020
It's something like that.

1106
00:57:01,020 --> 00:57:05,870
It's a feeling of such immense power

1107
00:57:07,140 --> 00:57:08,583
that you can't even imagine.

1108
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:11,680
I've never felt anything like it before.

1109
00:57:14,670 --> 00:57:19,000
It was about being in a
place of infinite space

1110
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,693
and just being there.

1111
00:57:27,140 --> 00:57:29,680
- There's a experience of positive mood,

1112
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,810
sometimes openheartedness, love.

1113
00:57:32,810 --> 00:57:34,750
Transcendence of time and space,

1114
00:57:34,750 --> 00:57:37,913
and then finally it's
thought to be ineffable.

1115
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:43,831
People say, "I can't
describe that experience."

1116
00:57:43,831 --> 00:57:46,581
(mystical music)

1117
00:57:48,750 --> 00:57:50,967
- In my mind I said, "Okay, hold it,

1118
00:57:50,967 --> 00:57:53,113
"if I give myself over to you,

1119
00:57:54,137 --> 00:57:57,997
"can you promise me that
I will be in at least

1120
00:57:57,997 --> 00:58:02,627
"as strong a shape as
when I entered this room?"

1121
00:58:03,770 --> 00:58:06,993
And I felt a voice that I needed to heed.

1122
00:58:08,837 --> 00:58:13,837
"Do you think I would
disrespect my own handiwork?"

1123
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:18,987
This is the voice from on high saying,

1124
00:58:18,987 --> 00:58:22,167
"Do you think I would
disrespect my child?"

1125
00:58:23,210 --> 00:58:25,893
And I felt so beautiful.

1126
00:58:27,850 --> 00:58:30,963
I felt like I have never felt before.

1127
00:58:32,290 --> 00:58:36,660
My sense of being loved, of being worthy,

1128
00:58:36,660 --> 00:58:41,660
of love, of being cared for,
of being important to someone.

1129
00:58:48,460 --> 00:58:49,975
It's huge.

1130
00:58:49,975 --> 00:58:52,392
(calm music)

1131
00:58:55,338 --> 00:58:56,701
- Keep going into it.

1132
00:58:56,701 --> 00:58:58,538
Doing beautiful.

1133
00:58:58,538 --> 00:59:00,455
(sobs)

1134
00:59:02,033 --> 00:59:04,783
(mystical music)

1135
00:59:14,350 --> 00:59:17,210
- One third of individuals in this study

1136
00:59:17,210 --> 00:59:19,410
said it's the single most

1137
00:59:19,410 --> 00:59:23,200
spiritually significant
experience of their lives.

1138
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:27,250
About 70% say it's among the five

1139
00:59:27,250 --> 00:59:30,640
most personally meaningful
experiences of their lives.

1140
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,653
And you say, well, what
does that mean, you know?

1141
00:59:34,653 --> 00:59:36,860
And initially, I thought,

1142
00:59:36,860 --> 00:59:40,453
I wonder if they don't
have pretty dull lives.

1143
00:59:41,660 --> 00:59:44,517
But no, people would say, you know,

1144
00:59:44,517 --> 00:59:48,137
"When my first born came into this world,

1145
00:59:48,137 --> 00:59:49,907
"I'll never forget that.

1146
00:59:49,907 --> 00:59:52,780
"And life has never been the same since."

1147
00:59:52,780 --> 00:59:56,987
Or, "My father passed away,
that was deeply moving to me,

1148
00:59:56,987 --> 00:59:58,880
"I'm different now in the world."

1149
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,087
They say, you know,
"It's kind of like that."

1150
01:00:04,349 --> 01:00:07,180
- The most glorious part was that

1151
01:00:07,180 --> 01:00:12,150
it made me feel more comfortable
with living, you know?

1152
01:00:12,150 --> 01:00:16,403
Because you're not afraid of dying.

1153
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,300
- Frankly, I'm just a
laboratory scientist,

1154
01:00:22,300 --> 01:00:25,070
and I wasn't prepared for that.

1155
01:00:25,070 --> 01:00:27,750
- From the memory of
the transcendental state

1156
01:00:27,750 --> 01:00:32,100
of consciousness, many
people report less anxiety,

1157
01:00:32,100 --> 01:00:36,790
less depression, less
preoccupation with pain,

1158
01:00:36,790 --> 01:00:39,800
closer interpersonal relationships.

1159
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:42,960
And perhaps most impressive they claim

1160
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,303
to be a loss of the fear of death.

1161
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:48,450
- It recalibrates how they see death.

1162
01:00:49,670 --> 01:00:53,053
It's been amazing hearing them
talk about this idea of love.

1163
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:56,580
Many of them spoke about how nature itself

1164
01:00:56,580 --> 01:00:59,333
is something like this
substance called love.

1165
01:01:01,210 --> 01:01:02,840
And having touched that,

1166
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:05,987
they've recalibrated and shaped
how they die differently.

1167
01:01:05,987 --> 01:01:08,404
(calm music)

1168
01:01:13,410 --> 01:01:15,600
- The John Hopkins
psilocybin research team

1169
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:19,100
has completed or has underway
a total of nine studies,

1170
01:01:19,100 --> 01:01:21,003
and it got the world's attention.

1171
01:01:21,985 --> 01:01:24,402
(calm music)

1172
01:01:25,900 --> 01:01:27,380
When we finally released the results

1173
01:01:27,380 --> 01:01:28,690
of our first experiment

1174
01:01:28,690 --> 01:01:31,320
in a peer reviewed scientific journal,

1175
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:32,850
it was very gratifying to see

1176
01:01:32,850 --> 01:01:35,280
how the daily press responded to it.

1177
01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:37,290
- A little bit of health news for you.

1178
01:01:37,290 --> 01:01:39,950
A single dose of
psychedelic magic mushrooms

1179
01:01:39,950 --> 01:01:42,550
can make people with severe
anxiety and depression

1180
01:01:42,550 --> 01:01:44,053
feel better for months.

1181
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:48,220
- It changes the way they view themselves,

1182
01:01:48,220 --> 01:01:53,040
other people in the world,
from a single experience,

1183
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:56,583
not Prozac that you have to
keep taking day after day.

1184
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,020
- These are not chronic drugs.

1185
01:02:01,020 --> 01:02:03,087
And that's where most of the research

1186
01:02:03,087 --> 01:02:06,580
and development in big pharma goes.

1187
01:02:06,580 --> 01:02:09,110
The treatments that are
being explored for psilocybin

1188
01:02:09,110 --> 01:02:13,850
involve one, two, maybe
three pills, that's it.

1189
01:02:13,850 --> 01:02:15,320
That's not a very good business model,

1190
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:17,325
you can't make a lot of money that way.

1191
01:02:17,325 --> 01:02:20,510
(calm music)

1192
01:02:20,510 --> 01:02:24,713
- The core of this mystical experience is,

1193
01:02:26,856 --> 01:02:28,860
is a mystery, frankly.

1194
01:02:28,860 --> 01:02:31,000
It's the existential mystery

1195
01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:33,270
of what are we really doing here?

1196
01:02:33,270 --> 01:02:36,160
What's the meaning of all this?

1197
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:40,414
And that is a very uplifting
kind of experience to have.

1198
01:02:40,414 --> 01:02:42,380
- As a whole, there's a sense

1199
01:02:42,380 --> 01:02:45,883
of being part of a larger network.

1200
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:51,633
And somehow that's more real
after a mystical experience.

1201
01:02:53,610 --> 01:02:56,040
You feel that you really are connected

1202
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:59,233
in some meaningful way with
every atom of the universe.

1203
01:03:00,810 --> 01:03:05,570
- From my perspective, this
core experience informs

1204
01:03:05,570 --> 01:03:08,700
all of the religious,
ethical, and moral traditions.

1205
01:03:08,700 --> 01:03:13,273
I mean, that is the core of
love thy neighbor as thyself.

1206
01:03:14,930 --> 01:03:17,660
If we don't get some of
these priorities straight

1207
01:03:17,660 --> 01:03:20,270
with respect to how we treat other people,

1208
01:03:20,270 --> 01:03:24,853
how we treat our environment,
we're gonna cease to exist.

1209
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:28,300
I could see this as being critical

1210
01:03:28,300 --> 01:03:31,139
to the evolution of the species frankly.

1211
01:03:31,139 --> 01:03:33,580
(calm music)

1212
01:03:33,580 --> 01:03:35,430
- [Paul] You wouldn't go hiking
up the Himalayan mountains

1213
01:03:35,430 --> 01:03:37,110
without any preparation.

1214
01:03:37,110 --> 01:03:38,313
Well, this is a journey.

1215
01:03:39,460 --> 01:03:41,050
These are sacraments and medicines

1216
01:03:41,050 --> 01:03:44,073
that should be treated
with respect and caution.

1217
01:03:44,073 --> 01:03:46,490
(calm music)

1218
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:52,713
Consider it to be like going
to your own personal church,

1219
01:03:53,618 --> 01:03:56,947
and you're going to sit
in awe of the universe.

1220
01:03:56,947 --> 01:03:59,364
(calm music)

1221
01:04:30,450 --> 01:04:32,490
- We have a new study,
which is quite remarkable.

1222
01:04:32,490 --> 01:04:33,630
It's working with religious leaders.

1223
01:04:33,630 --> 01:04:36,940
These are ordained clergy
of many traditions:

1224
01:04:36,940 --> 01:04:39,463
Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism.

1225
01:04:40,580 --> 01:04:43,040
Since these experiences are at the core

1226
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:44,670
of the major religions,

1227
01:04:44,670 --> 01:04:48,860
why not bring in religious
leaders who spent their careers

1228
01:04:48,860 --> 01:04:52,602
studying this landscape
to have the experience?

1229
01:04:52,602 --> 01:04:55,019
(calm music)

1230
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:09,270
(phone vibrates)

1231
01:05:09,270 --> 01:05:10,830
- You guys hear that?

1232
01:05:10,830 --> 01:05:12,110
You didn't?
- Vibrating.

1233
01:05:12,110 --> 01:05:14,390
- Vibrating, phone call was coming in.

1234
01:05:14,390 --> 01:05:15,223
There she goes.

1235
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:17,913
Message from mom.

1236
01:05:18,820 --> 01:05:20,600
Inbound message from mother.

1237
01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:23,020
I think I had the best of all mothers.

1238
01:05:23,020 --> 01:05:25,492
My mother was extremely kind.

1239
01:05:25,492 --> 01:05:28,678
(calm music)

1240
01:05:28,678 --> 01:05:31,261
(crowd cheers)

1241
01:05:32,740 --> 01:05:36,780
So another mushroom
empowers the immune system

1242
01:05:36,780 --> 01:05:38,580
and this is Turkey Tails.

1243
01:05:38,580 --> 01:05:40,340
And Turkey Tail mushrooms have been used

1244
01:05:40,340 --> 01:05:42,460
for more than 1,000 years.

1245
01:05:42,460 --> 01:05:47,300
This hit home to me very
personally in June of 2009

1246
01:05:47,300 --> 01:05:50,327
when my 84-year-old mother
called me up and says,

1247
01:05:50,327 --> 01:05:53,190
"Paul, I have something very
serious to talk to you about."

1248
01:05:53,190 --> 01:05:55,057
She says, "My right breast is five times

1249
01:05:55,057 --> 01:05:57,087
"the size of my left.

1250
01:05:57,087 --> 01:06:00,830
"I have six swollen lymph
glands the size of walnuts,"

1251
01:06:00,830 --> 01:06:02,120
and her voice started shaking,

1252
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:04,810
and I'm not ashamed to
admit that I started crying.

1253
01:06:04,810 --> 01:06:07,160
She had stage 4 breast cancer.

1254
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:09,557
But then the doctor said, "You're too old

1255
01:06:09,557 --> 01:06:10,747
"to have radiation therapy,

1256
01:06:10,747 --> 01:06:12,827
"you can't have your breasts removed,

1257
01:06:12,827 --> 01:06:15,447
"but there's an interesting
study on Turkey Tail mushrooms

1258
01:06:15,447 --> 01:06:16,617
"at Bisteria Medical School.

1259
01:06:16,617 --> 01:06:18,940
"You might want to try taking those."

1260
01:06:18,940 --> 01:06:22,240
And my mother goes, "Well,
my son is supplying those."

1261
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,850
So she was put on Taxol and
Herceptin, wonderful drugs,

1262
01:06:26,850 --> 01:06:29,570
and she started taking eight
Turkey Tail capsules a day,

1263
01:06:29,570 --> 01:06:32,640
four in the morning,
and four in the evening.

1264
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,930
And that was in June of 2009.

1265
01:06:35,930 --> 01:06:40,930
And today my mother has
no detectable tumors.

1266
01:06:41,130 --> 01:06:42,986
And I'd like to bring my mother up.

1267
01:06:42,986 --> 01:06:46,009
(crowd applauds)

1268
01:06:46,009 --> 01:06:48,426
(calm music)

1269
01:06:56,860 --> 01:06:59,223
- You have to live
through it to believe it.

1270
01:07:01,060 --> 01:07:02,730
- By the way, thank you
for giving birth to me,

1271
01:07:02,730 --> 01:07:03,980
I really appreciate that.

1272
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:06,573
- You haven't thanked me lately?

1273
01:07:06,573 --> 01:07:08,656
(laughs)

1274
01:07:10,250 --> 01:07:12,070
- It has been reported in literature

1275
01:07:12,070 --> 01:07:14,720
that medicinal mushrooms like turkey tail

1276
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:17,030
help chemotherapeutic agents work better.

1277
01:07:17,030 --> 01:07:19,180
And I think she's a
living example of that.

1278
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:30,310
One can argue with me on the statistics,

1279
01:07:30,310 --> 01:07:31,950
but my mother is alive

1280
01:07:31,950 --> 01:07:34,310
and all the doctors that saw her

1281
01:07:34,310 --> 01:07:37,056
did not believe that she would survive.

1282
01:07:37,056 --> 01:07:39,473
(calm music)

1283
01:07:51,330 --> 01:07:56,175
- It is my great honor to
introduce Paul Stamets.

1284
01:07:56,175 --> 01:07:58,758
(crowd cheers)

1285
01:08:01,750 --> 01:08:03,010
Keep going, bud.

1286
01:08:03,010 --> 01:08:04,820
- I brought a fungal friend of mine

1287
01:08:04,820 --> 01:08:06,520
from the old growth forest.

1288
01:08:06,520 --> 01:08:08,601
And I present to you

1289
01:08:08,601 --> 01:08:09,609
(woman screams)

1290
01:08:09,609 --> 01:08:10,442
agarikon.

1291
01:08:10,442 --> 01:08:13,025
(crowd cheers)

1292
01:08:16,982 --> 01:08:18,945
Agarikon was described in 65 AD

1293
01:08:18,945 --> 01:08:21,690
as Elixirium at longem vitum,

1294
01:08:21,690 --> 01:08:23,053
the Elixer of long life.

1295
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:29,413
So I want to take you on a
magical mushroom mystery tour,

1296
01:08:31,790 --> 01:08:34,083
And I'm gonna push the
envelope here, folks.

1297
01:08:35,340 --> 01:08:38,083
Mycodiversity is biodiversity.

1298
01:08:38,990 --> 01:08:42,950
You will decompose, I'm gonna decompose.

1299
01:08:42,950 --> 01:08:44,153
We're all gonna die!

1300
01:08:45,860 --> 01:08:50,347
That's okay, because we will
enter into the mycoverse.

1301
01:08:52,240 --> 01:08:54,960
We will forever exist together

1302
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,760
within the myco molecular matrix.

1303
01:08:57,760 --> 01:08:59,670
- When he talks the way he does,

1304
01:08:59,670 --> 01:09:04,620
he is channeling the mycelium.

1305
01:09:04,620 --> 01:09:07,180
And this is a marvelous thing.

1306
01:09:07,180 --> 01:09:11,830
- Brain neurons, mycelium,
the computer internet,

1307
01:09:11,830 --> 01:09:13,470
the organization of the universe,

1308
01:09:13,470 --> 01:09:16,000
all shares the same archetype.

1309
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:19,260
I believe matter begets life,

1310
01:09:19,260 --> 01:09:21,060
life becomes single cells,

1311
01:09:21,060 --> 01:09:25,260
single cells form chains,
chains forms branches,

1312
01:09:25,260 --> 01:09:27,900
matrices form interlocking,

1313
01:09:27,900 --> 01:09:32,260
intersecting mosaics of mycelium,

1314
01:09:32,260 --> 01:09:35,690
and mycelium-like organisms ebb and flow

1315
01:09:35,690 --> 01:09:37,210
not only on this planet,

1316
01:09:37,210 --> 01:09:38,860
on other planets into the future.

1317
01:09:39,720 --> 01:09:41,141
Thank you very much.

1318
01:09:41,141 --> 01:09:43,724
(crowd cheers)

1319
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:50,330
- Paul was wonderful about
bringing us information

1320
01:09:50,330 --> 01:09:52,223
about all these aspects of mushrooms.

1321
01:09:53,571 --> 01:09:55,630
And then it inspired
all these young people.

1322
01:09:55,630 --> 01:09:57,400
Now we have people like Trad Kotter

1323
01:09:57,400 --> 01:09:59,640
carrying on all the great
work that Paul started,

1324
01:09:59,640 --> 01:10:01,630
talking about bio-pesticides,

1325
01:10:01,630 --> 01:10:04,200
talking about the ways
you can detoxify oil.

1326
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:06,560
All of these amazing things were started

1327
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:08,520
because people like Paul brought that

1328
01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:10,200
to the culture at large.

1329
01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:11,960
And young people now
have taken up the cause

1330
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,550
and are really expanding our insights

1331
01:10:14,550 --> 01:10:17,520
into what the world of
mushrooms can do for us.

1332
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:18,367
- Hi, my name's Peter and I'm with

1333
01:10:18,367 --> 01:10:20,050
the Radical Mycology Project.

1334
01:10:20,050 --> 01:10:21,380
I recently trained a mushroom

1335
01:10:21,380 --> 01:10:23,370
to digest used cigarette filters.

1336
01:10:23,370 --> 01:10:25,000
- Paul Stamet's book "Mycelium Running",

1337
01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:27,050
got my mind sort of in a whirl.

1338
01:10:27,050 --> 01:10:28,530
That was when I first discovered

1339
01:10:28,530 --> 01:10:31,883
there was much more to
mushrooms than just food.

1340
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:35,370
- If you would have seen
me when I dropped out

1341
01:10:35,370 --> 01:10:37,030
of high school, I was
just making rap music.

1342
01:10:37,030 --> 01:10:39,370
I knew very little
about the natural world,

1343
01:10:39,370 --> 01:10:42,140
I never even went on
a hike until I was 18.

1344
01:10:42,140 --> 01:10:44,070
But finding Paul Stamets' TED talk video

1345
01:10:44,070 --> 01:10:46,350
was one of the big
inspirations that pushed me

1346
01:10:46,350 --> 01:10:49,200
into the wonderful world of mycology.

1347
01:10:49,200 --> 01:10:51,990
- My first mushroom book was
"The Mushroom Cultivator"

1348
01:10:51,990 --> 01:10:53,280
by Paul Stamets.

1349
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:55,330
- I will be eternally thankful to him

1350
01:10:55,330 --> 01:10:58,073
for showing me that it's
okay to be mushroom mad.

1351
01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:02,550
- We really don't even know most fungi.

1352
01:11:02,550 --> 01:11:05,410
We're discovering new
species on a daily basis

1353
01:11:05,410 --> 01:11:06,560
and you really don't have to go

1354
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:09,133
to exotic locations to discover them.

1355
01:11:10,270 --> 01:11:12,550
- Anybody can add to the
science from identifying

1356
01:11:12,550 --> 01:11:16,000
a new species to developing a
new myco-remediation protocol.

1357
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:17,940
- [Lori] There's a great
need for more people

1358
01:11:17,940 --> 01:11:22,150
to study fungi and there's
lots of opportunities.

1359
01:11:22,150 --> 01:11:24,300
- [Michael] It's amazing what
we don't know about mushrooms.

1360
01:11:24,300 --> 01:11:26,530
They really are a frontier of knowledge.

1361
01:11:26,530 --> 01:11:30,320
They probably can help us
solve all sorts of problems,

1362
01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:32,300
if we would look a little deeper.

1363
01:11:32,300 --> 01:11:36,400
- Anyone, anyone can help by
going and walking in the woods

1364
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:37,930
and contributing to mycology.

1365
01:11:37,930 --> 01:11:40,680
You may have found a species
that has never been found.

1366
01:11:42,260 --> 01:11:44,200
We need these mushrooms.

1367
01:11:44,200 --> 01:11:47,880
We work together as a
community to solve problems.

1368
01:11:47,880 --> 01:11:51,513
We could be the community
that heals the planet.

1369
01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:55,830
- It's been estimated
two-thirds of our food supply

1370
01:11:55,830 --> 01:11:57,363
is bee-pollinated dependent.

1371
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:00,040
Unfortunately we're losing bees

1372
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:01,790
across the world in a dramatic die off

1373
01:12:01,790 --> 01:12:04,740
that is very dangerous for the
bio security of this planet.

1374
01:12:06,020 --> 01:12:08,730
So I started exploring
ways to help save the bees.

1375
01:12:08,730 --> 01:12:09,970
And I noticed in the summertime

1376
01:12:09,970 --> 01:12:11,550
there's a continuous convoy of bees

1377
01:12:11,550 --> 01:12:14,260
going from my beehives to mycelium.

1378
01:12:14,260 --> 01:12:15,720
But then it dawned on me,

1379
01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:17,290
maybe the bees were benefiting

1380
01:12:17,290 --> 01:12:18,800
from the mycelial extracts

1381
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:21,120
because they have anti-viral properties.

1382
01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:23,690
And so I cultured the
most aggressive strains

1383
01:12:23,690 --> 01:12:25,150
and then submitted them.

1384
01:12:25,150 --> 01:12:27,700
We started testing the
effects of these extracts

1385
01:12:27,700 --> 01:12:29,543
in helping bees survive.

1386
01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:32,760
- Some of these fungal
extracts are really good

1387
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,680
at reducing viral levels in the bee.

1388
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:39,350
So here we have a fungus
that is helping fight viruses

1389
01:12:39,350 --> 01:12:40,730
in an insect.

1390
01:12:40,730 --> 01:12:42,000
- We're musing mushrooms to create

1391
01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:43,780
an entirely new class of materials

1392
01:12:43,780 --> 01:12:46,723
which are totally compostable
at the end of their lives.

1393
01:12:48,670 --> 01:12:50,230
- The researchers found
that when they heated

1394
01:12:50,230 --> 01:12:51,670
a portobello mushroom skin

1395
01:12:51,670 --> 01:12:53,580
to roughly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit,

1396
01:12:53,580 --> 01:12:55,880
it became a lattice of carbon nano ribbon

1397
01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:57,570
that could be used in battery design

1398
01:12:57,570 --> 01:12:58,850
because it allows a good amount

1399
01:12:58,850 --> 01:13:01,280
of surface area for storing energy.

1400
01:13:01,280 --> 01:13:04,810
- You can filter water, you
can create medicinal compounds

1401
01:13:04,810 --> 01:13:06,720
almost on demand.

1402
01:13:06,720 --> 01:13:08,450
We work in Haiti and they look at you

1403
01:13:08,450 --> 01:13:10,550
like I had superpowers.

1404
01:13:10,550 --> 01:13:11,857
Well, I tell them, I said,

1405
01:13:11,857 --> 01:13:14,137
"You're about to have superpowers too."

1406
01:13:15,340 --> 01:13:16,810
- Coming from the background of not having

1407
01:13:16,810 --> 01:13:18,800
any training and getting
myself into the lab,

1408
01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:21,110
was very empowering, I
felt like a superhero.

1409
01:13:21,110 --> 01:13:22,710
I felt like I could do anything.

1410
01:13:23,710 --> 01:13:26,040
You're officially a mushroom farmer.

1411
01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:28,890
- Spore Lady.
- Spore Lady and Sporegasm.

1412
01:13:28,890 --> 01:13:32,470
- I see my species as
part of a larger whole.

1413
01:13:32,470 --> 01:13:34,770
Rather than being at
the top of the pyramid,

1414
01:13:34,770 --> 01:13:37,943
being one of the organisms
with inside the circle.

1415
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:42,540
And the circle is made up of mycelium

1416
01:13:42,540 --> 01:13:44,605
holding us all together.

1417
01:13:44,605 --> 01:13:47,022
(calm music)

1418
01:13:52,130 --> 01:13:55,110
- We've always thought of
plants as these inert objects,

1419
01:13:55,110 --> 01:13:57,130
these things that don't actually

1420
01:13:57,130 --> 01:13:59,680
interact with each other and build things.

1421
01:13:59,680 --> 01:14:02,780
And what my work is showing and
other people's work as well,

1422
01:14:02,780 --> 01:14:04,830
is saying, actually they need each other.

1423
01:14:06,380 --> 01:14:08,750
They need each other
to grow in a community

1424
01:14:08,750 --> 01:14:10,883
so that they can start sharing the load.

1425
01:14:11,880 --> 01:14:13,230
You do this, I'll do that,

1426
01:14:13,230 --> 01:14:16,403
and together we can make a
beautiful resilient community.

1427
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:20,960
They have an incredible capacity

1428
01:14:20,960 --> 01:14:23,670
to make things change very, very quickly.

1429
01:14:23,670 --> 01:14:26,570
So if we can work with them,
if we get it, you know,

1430
01:14:26,570 --> 01:14:29,920
if humans get it, we can
change this thing really fast.

1431
01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:31,820
So I am super hopeful.

1432
01:14:31,820 --> 01:14:34,967
We've just got to get busy
and help nature do it's thing.

1433
01:14:34,967 --> 01:14:37,384
(calm music)

1434
01:14:40,390 --> 01:14:41,920
- Evolution never stops.

1435
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:43,550
There's not one point it happens

1436
01:14:43,550 --> 01:14:45,000
and then it doesn't happen again.

1437
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:46,433
It's continuously happening.

1438
01:14:52,260 --> 01:14:53,840
A core concept of evolution

1439
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:55,800
is that through natural selection,

1440
01:14:55,800 --> 01:14:57,733
the strongest and the fittest survive.

1441
01:14:59,030 --> 01:15:03,650
But, moreover, communities
survive better than individuals.

1442
01:15:03,650 --> 01:15:06,500
Communities rely upon cooperation.

1443
01:15:06,500 --> 01:15:08,550
And I think that's the power of goodness.

1444
01:15:10,120 --> 01:15:14,740
Evolution is based on the
concept of mutual benefit

1445
01:15:14,740 --> 01:15:17,555
and the extension of generosity.

1446
01:15:17,555 --> 01:15:20,740
(calm music)

1447
01:15:20,740 --> 01:15:24,034
- [Suzanne] When we see
it, we understand it.

1448
01:15:24,034 --> 01:15:26,000
And when we understand
it, we care about it.

1449
01:15:26,000 --> 01:15:28,850
And when we care about it,
we'll do something to save it.

1450
01:15:30,370 --> 01:15:33,180
- We need to have a paradigm
shift in our consciousness.

1451
01:15:33,180 --> 01:15:35,261
What will it take to achieve that?

1452
01:15:35,261 --> 01:15:37,678
(calm music)

1453
01:15:38,861 --> 01:15:40,980
We are not an individual.

1454
01:15:40,980 --> 01:15:44,330
We are a vast network of molecules,

1455
01:15:44,330 --> 01:15:46,710
and energies and wavelengths.

1456
01:15:46,710 --> 01:15:49,913
The interconnectiveness
of being is who we are.

1457
01:15:50,762 --> 01:15:53,179
(calm music)

1458
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,620
- [Narrator] This world of
ours is always changing,

1459
01:15:58,620 --> 01:16:00,913
not for the better, or for the worse,

1460
01:16:02,230 --> 01:16:03,393
but for life.

1461
01:16:04,510 --> 01:16:08,150
If the storms come and the water rises,

1462
01:16:08,150 --> 01:16:13,150
if fire scorches the land
or darkness descends.

1463
01:16:13,290 --> 01:16:16,343
We will be here, working.

1464
01:16:17,850 --> 01:16:19,493
As we always have.

1465
01:16:20,370 --> 01:16:23,793
Extending the network, building community,

1466
01:16:24,870 --> 01:16:26,203
restoring balance.

1467
01:16:28,270 --> 01:16:29,920
one connection at a time.

1468
01:16:33,260 --> 01:16:36,010
It may take a million years,

1469
01:16:36,010 --> 01:16:37,510
or a hundred million.

1470
01:16:38,671 --> 01:16:41,773
But we will still be here.

1471
01:16:46,781 --> 01:16:49,198
(calm music)

1472
01:16:53,442 --> 01:16:58,442
♪ There's a whole wide
world right under our feet ♪

1473
01:17:00,739 --> 01:17:05,739
♪ Watched it grow so I
hate when you leave ♪

1474
01:17:07,450 --> 01:17:12,450
♪ Connected on one leaf to a tree ♪

1475
01:17:14,503 --> 01:17:19,503
♪ From the ground this magical thing ♪

1476
01:17:20,891 --> 01:17:24,095
♪ Breathe life ♪

1477
01:17:24,095 --> 01:17:27,747
♪ And break down ♪

1478
01:17:27,747 --> 01:17:31,238
♪ Breathe in ♪

1479
01:17:31,238 --> 01:17:34,559
♪ Break out ♪

1480
01:17:34,559 --> 01:17:37,455
♪ This water, this breath ♪

1481
01:17:37,455 --> 01:17:40,955
♪ Will be how we remember ♪

1482
01:17:43,098 --> 01:17:45,990
- [Computer] Lt. Paul Stamets.

1483
01:17:45,990 --> 01:17:49,810
- I became an astromycologist
because of awe.

1484
01:17:49,810 --> 01:17:51,900
Awe at the miracle of life.

1485
01:17:51,900 --> 01:17:54,740
- How did you feel seeing
a fictional character

1486
01:17:54,740 --> 01:17:57,670
on Star Trek that is
inspired by your science?

1487
01:17:57,670 --> 01:17:58,820
- I'm super honored.

1488
01:17:58,820 --> 01:18:01,560
I tuned in to Star Trek when
I was about 12 years old.

1489
01:18:01,560 --> 01:18:04,430
Spores, by nature, travel
through the cosmos.

1490
01:18:04,430 --> 01:18:07,160
When they germinate, some mushrooms form.

1491
01:18:07,160 --> 01:18:10,637
Some magic mushrooms to help
you bend time and space.

1492
01:18:10,637 --> 01:18:12,390
(laughs)

1493
01:18:12,390 --> 01:18:14,463
- Paul, if I were to visit you,

1494
01:18:15,330 --> 01:18:17,530
could we have some of
these magic mushrooms?

1495
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:20,468
- Nature provides, I don't.

1496
01:18:20,468 --> 01:18:22,551
(laughs)

1497
01:18:23,554 --> 01:18:27,332
♪ Everywhere and everything ♪

1498
01:18:27,332 --> 01:18:32,332
♪ I am the reason you breathe in ♪

1499
01:18:33,934 --> 01:18:37,040
♪ Break down ♪

1500
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:40,481
♪ So breathe in ♪

1501
01:18:40,481 --> 01:18:44,061
♪ And breathe out ♪

1502
01:18:44,061 --> 01:18:47,163
♪ Now this water, this breath ♪

1503
01:18:47,163 --> 01:18:52,163
♪ Will be how we remember ♪

1504
01:18:53,457 --> 01:18:58,457
♪ So let it all spread around ♪

1505
01:19:00,827 --> 01:19:04,410
♪ Let it all spread around ♪

1506
01:19:11,064 --> 01:19:16,064
♪ So let me bring you back to life again ♪

1507
01:19:17,466 --> 01:19:22,466
♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪

1508
01:19:24,709 --> 01:19:29,709
♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪

1509
01:19:31,472 --> 01:19:35,972
♪ Let me bring you back to life again ♪