Fungi Academy

The short version: Some fungi and lichens can survive the raw vacuum of space, and fungal spores can stay viable for hundreds of millions of years. That has led some thinkers to a wild idea called panspermia: that life did not begin on Earth at all, but arrived from space, possibly as fungi. Here is my favourite far-out take on it, where the...

The short version: Psilocybin is the molecule behind the magic mushroom experience. Once eaten, your body converts it into psilocin, which binds to serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in the brain and quiets the default mode network, the filter that builds our everyday sense of reality. Below I walk through where psilocybin came from, which mushrooms...

The short version: In his 1992 book Food of the Gods, Terence McKenna argued that psilocybin mushrooms could be the key to humanity’s massive leap in consciousness. It is a wild, hotly disputed idea, but recent findings give it a little more foothold than you might expect. Here is my personal take on the Stoned Ape Theory, the evolu...

There’s a moment in mushroom growing that no video can quite hand you — the first time you pour a jar of healthy grain spawn into substrate and feel how it should look, smell, and crumble. Hands-on courses exist for exactly that moment. Below is a directory of teachers and farms around the world running in-person mushroom cultivation workshops, organised by region so you can ...

Quick answer: Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) is a colourful bracket fungus that grows on dead hardwood all over the world. It’s one of the most-researched immune-supporting medicinal mushrooms — used as a tea or a double-extracted tincture, never eaten whole, because the fruiting body is far too tough and leathery to chew.