Psychedelic therapy Netherlands

Magic truffles

Magic truffles can be used as drugs or medicine. The setting determines how it is used and what purpose it gets.

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Read more about magic truffles as therapy here

Magic truffles are actually not truffles but sclerotia. Unlike mushrooms, they grow underground, between the fungal threads. Mushrooms normally grow from a system of fungal threads, also known as a mycelium or mycelium, but sometimes the conditions for this are not optimal. At that point, the mycelium begins to produce sclerotia to store nutrients for better times. Because certain mushrooms produce psilocin and psilocybin, the substances that make you hallucinate, these substances are also stored in the sclerotia, creating the so-called magic truffles.

That sclerotia is a "survival technique" of the mushroom can also be seen when it is exposed to heat. At that point, the sclerotia wants to start producing mycelium to continue the mushroom life cycle. Because the mycelium starts as a soft white layer on the sclerotia it is often mistaken for a fungus, but fortunately sclerotia on which mycelium grows are completely safe to eat.

To be able to cultivate sclerotia, the situation described above must be simulated, this is done by placing the mycelium in an almost closed space. As a result, the growing conditions can be perfectly controlled, so that the mycelium starts to form sclerotia instead of mushrooms. This process takes several months, after which the sclerotia are harvested, washed and further processed in batches.

How do they work?

Magic truffles contain, just like shrooms / magic mushrooms, the psychoactive substances psilocybin and psilocin.

Psilocybin

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic (entheogenic, psychedelic) indole of the tryptamine family. It is produced by hundreds of fungal species, including the genus Psilocybe, such as Psilocybe cubensis and Psilocybe semilanceata, and has reportedly been isolated from dozens of other fungi as well. The collective name is psilocybin mushrooms, but they are commonly referred to as “sacred mushrooms,” “magic mushrooms,” or simply “magic mushrooms.” Possession and in some cases use of psilocybin or psilocin has been outlawed in most countries around the world. Proponents of its use consider it an entheogen and a complementary aid to various types of transcendence practices, including meditation, psychonautics, and psychedelic psychotherapy like with one truffle ceremony . Intensity and duration of the entheogenic effects of psilocybin mushrooms vary widely, depending on mushroom species or cultivated variety, dosage, individual setting, and environmental factors.

Once ingested, psilocybin is immediately converted into psilocin, which then acts partly as an antagonist on the 5-HT2A– and 5-HT1A serotonin receptors in the brain. The typical mind-altering effects of psilocybin last between 3 and 8 hours, although for people under the influence of psilocybin those effects seem to last much longer because the drug can also alter the sense of time.

Toxicity

The toxicity of psilocybin is minor; in rats, the oral LD50 is 280 mg/kg, approximately one and a half times that of caffeine. The lethal dose in psilocybin intoxication, stimulant use and medicinal use is unknown and has never been documented; a 2008 report stated “Death from ingestion of psilocybin alone is unknown, when used as a stimulant or drug.” Psilocybin makes up about 1% of the weight of the Psilocybe cubensis mushroom and truffles, so it would take about 1.7 kilograms of dried or 17 kilograms of fresh mushrooms to reach the rat's LD50 of 280 mg/kg in a 60 kg bodyweight person. reach. People taking lithium should be careful with psilocybin, as the combination has been reported to lead to seizures, according to several reports. Magic truffle ceremonies are therefore safer than ayahuasca.