Mendocino ‘Magic’

An entire fascinating article on mushrooms recently appeared in the AVA with nary a mention of those particular types prone to causing intoxication, visions, hysteria, revelation, even vomiting. Kind of a glaring omission, considering how many folks have visited the great California Northwest in search of same. So, herewith a sort of addendum…

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Driving up Highway 101, late 1970s, hitchhikers at regular intervals and when they saw my VW van they would start jumping up and down with anticipation of a ride. I picked up one of the less deranged-looking guys and we had a nice chat as we entered Humboldt and the redwoods. It turned out he was a student at Humboldt State too, although a bit older than I — one of those on the ten-year plan courtesy of the post-Vietnam GI Bill funding. I'll call him Tim, a sort of wild but also no-nonsense guy as ex-Marines tend to be.

“You looking for 'shrooms?” he asked at one point, casually and apropro of nothing. I felt a tinge of paranoia, wondering if I'd picked up a narc, a dealer, or both. “Me? Now why would you ask such a thing?” I replied, and we laughed, and I felt reassured. Maybe it was the Grateful Dead cassette playing in my van. “Nah. I wouldn't have a clue what to look for,” I confessed.

“Well, if you do decide you want some, here's what you need to know and do,” he replied, helpfully. “Wait until after a rain, which happens all the time up here. Look for a cow pasture, sometimes right off the road. If there are cows, stop. If there are no cows, look for a VW van like yours, and then some hippie butts sticking up in the air as they bend over to pull the little 'shrooms out of the cow pies. Wash the cowshit off the things before you eat them. That's it!”

I thought about this a bit as we rolled along at the blazing VW speed of 50 MPH (on flats or downhill). I was just an undergrad at Humboldt State, no knowledge of deeper pharmacological concepts such as dosage, purity, etc., but still thought to ask my new friend “But... how big, and how do you know how much or how many to take?”

“Oh you just gotta try it and see, you know, trial and error,” my adviser replied. Even before I underwent professional study and training in the drug and addiction field, this seemed dubious advice. And being the cautious sort, I wound up declining to self-experiment. But I found the whole ethos of mushroom-triggered psychic alterations fascinating, and over the years read much on the topic, from arcane scientific publications to the fanciful and fascinating ruminations of the likes of the late Terrence McKenna, who posited that psychoactive spores and 'shrooms were the source of human religion, spirituality, even cultural evolution. Native Americans and traditional cultures around the planet used mushrooms in religious ceremonies. Humans in remote Asia drank the urine of mammals who had fed on vision-producing mushrooms. Tim Leary and his cohort began with mushrooms even before they hit on LSD. And so on. But then there were the burnouts populating the post-sixties California coast, not to mention the rare but continual reports of unsuspecting people dying from liver toxicity after harvesting the wrong type of mushroom. I chickened out, even though I learned that a lethal overdose of “magic” or psilocybin mushrooms was near impossible — although not completely, as the founder of the legendary Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the initially idealistic acid evangelists with outposts in Mendocino and beyond, had pushed it too far with a liquid mushroom concentrate that had indeed killed him. I was more worried about lasting brian damage, or even just becoming a bit too enamoured of the Grateful Dead's music, and winding up like one of the concertgoers we took care of backstage at their shows, man of whom, once we'd gotten them out of their freaked-out state and asked them what they'd ingested, said “Well, I took a few mushrooms, and then a half an hour later nothing was happening....” “So you took a few more,” we'd complete their story, and be correct. They all survived, but did not seem to be having much fun and certainly not much enlightenment, and I did not envy them.

Not so with Tim. He and I stayed in touch through the years. It was touch-and-go for a decade or so for him, as he flirted with the burnout mode via copious adventures with all manner of psychedelic drugs, especially mushrooms, his avowed favorite. He'd pass through wherever I was living enroute from one exotic place to another, keeping me up all night with his stories before passing out on the couch near dawn and then vanishing again. But then he did a 180-degree turn and wound up a wealthy, semi-famed professional who traveled the world, building things and taking beautiful photos of other things. He retired to Mendocino, having recalled the beauty of the region from his college years and now having the resources to enjoy it via an oceanfront estate, owned free and clear with legal cash. During my last visit, talking over a bottle of wine, I asked him what his most memorable mushroom “trip” was, and without hesitation here is what he recalled:

“Well, there was one Dead show in Santa Barbara where I drank 'shroom-laced apple juice and not only heard but felt the music bouncing off the sky and mountain and sea, but there were too many sunburned hairy fat naked hippies there even for me. So this was it: I once hiked the entire Lost Coast, from the mouth of the Mattole in the north to Highway One in the south while on magic mushrooms, honey, and nothing else other than water, which I got from creeks. It was a sort of weeklong psychedelic walking fast. I had tons of energy and probably could have done it in three days, but wanted to savor the experience. I met a bear on the beach north of Shelter Cove and we sat and stared at each other for the better part of the day until he decided I did not look very appetizing or threatening; I hopped over big rattlesnakes on Big Flat while laughing at their rattling; I stripped naked and bodysurfed huge waves in cold water, feeling as if immersed in nature like never before. I saw only a few people and spoke to none, just nodding and smiling. I bet they thought I was nuts, but that's not unusual in those parts and nobody bothered me. At night the stars were awe-inspiring, and shooting all over the heavens.

“I lost about fifteen pounds that week, got a great tan, and felt fantastic, but even without that physical benefit, it was the most memorable week of my life so far. And when I got home, I had a much better grasp on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life — after downing a giant smoothie filled with every fruit I could think of, yogurt, honey, and a bit of rum, too, of course. And then also a good beer.”

Alcohol is dangerous, of course, but his story made me feel that maybe I'd been a bit too cautious after all.