Hello, and a warm welcome back and happy 2021 to you our readers, from us here at The New Health Club!
I took the time over the holidays to reflect on 2020 and yes, it was a really challenging year. It was also a year of great acceleration for our “Club”, and not always an easy path. But what I did realise in 2020, was just how important the potentiality of psychedelics has become. Did you know that “mental health” was one of the most Googled words in 2020? Tellingly, this will only increase in 2021.
I recently listened to Tim Ferris podcast with the Shopify Founder Harley Finkelstein and they discussed how digital shopping has been exponentially fast tracked due to Covid-19.
I feel the same way when I look at mental health and psychedelics: 2020 has also been a fast track year for this industry and their creators, because we became aware how important our mental health is, how we really need to treat it like our physical bodies, i.e. with the same amount of care and respect.
In 2021, The New Health Club will grow. And soon we have news for you about that. But however we will grow, we will go on to show you new ways of looking at psychedelics, both as modern tools and your friends for a lifetime.
But now back to our first guest in 2021, ta-da!
Meet Paul Stamets, my new favourite Mr. Mushroom. Paul is an American mycologist and entrepreneur. He is an author and advocate of the “medicinal” fungi. Stamets runs Fungi Perfecti, a family-owned, environmentally friendly company specializing in using mushrooms to improve the health of the planet and its people. Fungi Perfecti has become synonymous with cutting-edge mycological research and innovative mycological solutions. Stamets has been talking about these “Mycological solutions” for years and since the movie Fantastic Funghi that everyone should watch, one could call Stamets the most passionate advocate of mushrooms. And yes, also Magic Mushrooms, such as the ones that changed Paul's life a long time ago. He often talks about his experience with Magic Mushrooms and he is pretty well known for his mushrooms microdosing protocol. But Paul is not a big fan of using magic mushrooms in any other way than thoughtful and purposeful. And FYI, he loathes the word “shrooms”!
Paul is an incredible mind, a perfect guest with millions of stories. One of them is that Stamets once was the German name Steinmetz from Bavaria and we ended our conversation with me promising Paul to look for his ancestors in Bavaria. So, hey, let’s hear about all things mushrooms from the man himself!
A Research Round-Up by Ewan Waddell.
To kick off the return of the Research Round-Up - in true Paul Stamets style - today we thought we’d focus on positive news in the psilocybin space.
In collaboration news: Leading psychedelic company COMPASS Pathways is partnering with one of the world’s leading mental health research institutes, Sheppard Pratt, to create the “clinic of the future” in Baltimore, USA.
What will they be working on? Just about everything psychedelic. They’ll be operating as a research facility and innovation lab generating evidence to shape future psilocybin therapy models for mental health care, using COMPASS’ patented COMP360 psilocybin. They’ll be training and certifying psychedelic therapists, conducting clinical trials including proof-of-concept studies, and prototyping digital solutions to enhance the patient experience. Wow.
In religion and psilocybin news: Our friends over at DoubleBlind Mag recently published an article outlining a new psilocybin-centric church formed by an ex-mormon. They believe that “each individual can directly commune with the Divine through the psilocybin sacrament.”
But isn’t that illegal? Probably, yes (depending on where you live). However, The Divine Assembly doesn't directly state that their members must take part in psilocybin sacraments to worship with them, and they promote safe and responsible use for the ones that do. Learn more at their website.
In psilocybin research news: In a first of its kind study broken down by the Psychedelic Science Review, it was successfully demonstrated that psilocybin can enhance emotional empathy.
Does that mean it makes you a better person? It’s complicated... While the researchers did conclude that emotional empathy was enhanced, what they found wasn’t affected was cognitive empathy and moral behaviour. But while psilocybin might not turn criminals to preachers, the new evidence of how to develop emotional empathy could prove extremely valuable in the treatment of dysfunctional social disorders.
Exciting news all-round. Talk next week!
🍄 #48 - Paul Stamets - Mushrooms Are Spiritual Medicines for Everyone