8 ms·

“Fungi Can Teach Us a New Way of Looking at the World”

171 points by jseliger 6y ago

rini17 6y ago
You can try mycorrhizal fungi[1] in your own garden. I added them to half of tomato plants and these were visibly healthier and did not succumb to fungal rot after wet summer. As if the good fungi defended them from the bad. [1] https://www.symbiom.cz/en/p-3-symbivit https://www.symbiom.cz/en/p-3-symbivit
chanfest22 6y ago
> "under [psychedelic mushroom's] influence I realized that most of my consciousness was unknown to me. It was as if I had spent my life in a garden until then, and now I suddenly discovered that this garden has a gate through which I can enter a strange and wonderful forest, that was largely unknown to me." Crazy that psychedelics are illegal in so many places. There certainly are risks that need to be taken seriously, but their potential seems incredible.
- virtualritz 6y ago
  > There certainly are risks that need to be taken seriously, but their potential seems incredible. The risk most people among my friends, particularly those who are generally scared of 'drugs' and who never had psychedelic experiences believe in turns out to be an urban myth: https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis-1.16968 https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedeli...
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    You can't deny that a high enough dose can pretty much be psychosis. It's temporary most of the time.
- sojournerc 6y ago
  I think what is unfortunate is that by being illegal they are driven into being recreational. There's a lot of evidence that ancient peoples knew about and consumed psychedelics, but treated them spiritually. A recent Joe Rogan interview[1] went pretty deep on it. Many have "bad trips" because of the context (and too much too soon), or because the setting involves consuming other things like alcohol and cannabis. Psychedelics should be treated with respect. I prefer to take them with loved ones in a private setting. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAQ7SklDxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAQ7SklDxo
  - drewblaisdell 6y ago
    > I think what is unfortunate is that by being illegal they are driven into being recreational. I agree in sentiment, but would replace /recreational/ with /solely recreational and often consumed unsafely/. Recreation is an important part of life and there is nothing shameful about using these substances recreationally.
    - sojournerc 6y ago
      Fair enough. It's probably a poor distinction. It's not like we sit around singing hymns in robes... We certainly have a lot of fun and laughter, and that's a huge part of the experience. To each his own, but for first-timers a more controlled environment might be best. I'm pretty introspective, so I like a environment where I can go deep with that. Too much chaos, or interruption would get in the way for me.
mirko22 6y ago
Paul Stamets has been saying this for years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets I suggest to watch his lectures on youtube, some pretty fascinating stuff.
noizejoy 6y ago
> "under [psychedelic mushroom's] influence I realized that most of my consciousness was unknown to me. It was as if I had spent my life in a garden until then, and now I suddenly discovered that this garden has a gate through which I can enter a strange and wonderful forest, that was largely unknown to me." Arguably some similar mind opening processes might be going on while dreaming. Is it just me, or does it seem that our understanding of the full chemistry of life is still in the very early parts of its evolution?
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  What are you referring to when you reference "the full chemistry of life"? I'm not sure of your scope, or focus.
  - tehchromic 6y ago
    And yet it's a compelling point in part due to the uncertainty of it's reference
zwkrt 6y ago
I have only taken psychadellic mushrooms on two occasions. But on both of those occasions I found that they clued me into the fact that all the various mental abstractions we have built for ourselves in life and society are not necessarily 'wrong', but definitely questionable. The first time I got the very intense feeling that money, societal roles, and national borders are not real and are in fact only collective delusions. The feeling was so strong and impactful it has shaped the course of my life henceforth. The second time I had an infinite sadness for my middle-manager boss at a tech company because I realized how he must lead a totally unrewarding and incredibly fear-laden life. It doesn't really surprise me that they are illegal.
- nefitty 6y ago
  I think one of the structural issues with legalizing psychedelics is that Western cultures don’t have support systems to help people integrate or even handle some of these experiences. Case in point, Amsterdam consequently banning magic mushrooms in 2008: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dutch-mushroom-idUSTRE4AR32R20081128 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dutch-mushroom-idUSTRE4AR...
  - zwkrt 6y ago
    I don’t know if there is an industrialized society on the planet which can integrate these types of experiences. Capital and spirituality* do not mix; science and spirituality* do not mix. *where “spirituality” is defined as knowing that your values and ethics come from some other place than your faculty for logical reasoning or from economic utility, however you choose to conceptualize that
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      I don't think that's necessarily true. Trade and exchange are just emergent properties of human experience. Every society has some form of it. If we could infuse our current economy of capital with "psychedelic values", there's no reason it can't be integrated. Terence McKenna pointed out that capitalism is a novelty-expanding engine. If we can use capitalism as a tool to build better societies, why not? The pipeline of logistics and labor that keeps us alive is amazing, and worth preserving. We just need to introduce a different method of thought.
uberdru 6y ago
Calling Gilles Deleuze, ftw.
- rathertrue 6y ago
  Please say more?
carapace 6y ago
I had an experience with mycelium that changed my way of looking at the world: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059654 I am coming around to the POV that soil should be thought of as a kind of organism. Check out e.g.: "Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A He talks about fungus starting around 1:20 (80 minutes in) https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A?t=4848 https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A?t=4848 Fungal to bacterial ratios...
- sebmellen 6y ago
  If you're already on to this, I highly recommend watching "Symphony of the Soil". It's a fantastic movie all about this, I really think it should be required watching in primary education. See: Symphony Of The Soil Official Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU
  - carapace 6y ago
    That was great! A little preachy in places but overall very good. Cheers!
- vram22 6y ago
  I had mentioned Gabe Brown's work here ~3 months ago: "Gabe Brown has been doing regenerative agriculture for over two decades on Brown's Ranch, over 2000 acres, in Bismarck, North Dakota successfully. Food crops plus cover crops plus livestock, all integrated. Lot of good results compared to neighboring farmers doing the traditional synthetic fertilizer / pesticide / tilling / monoculture approach. There are others like him too. ..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23799715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23799715 Others have been mentioning his work here too: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%20gabe%20brown&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... There are a few false positives (wrong term?) in the search results; could try putting his name in quotes in the above Algolia search or use some other option. I will try that myself.
- 6y ago
cmsefton 6y ago
Am currently reading Sheldrake's book, Entangled Life. Highly recommend it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entangled_Life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entangled_Life Came across it because I've always enjoyed mushroom spotting in the nearby forests, and decided to explore them in greater detail. Listened to a great talk by Paul Stamets on Jo Rogan's show https://youtu.be/xJ6Ym719urg https://youtu.be/xJ6Ym719urg Decided to look for a book to read, and Sheldrake's book popped up. So much of it has been fascinating, and it's a very easy read, too. It's incredible how these organisms raise so many questions about life, from panspermia to questions about individuality. Well worth a read!
- Alex3917 6y ago
  > Came across it because I've always enjoyed mushroom spotting in the nearby forests, and decided to explore them in greater detail. Find your local mycology club on NAMA, most of them have free walks that are open to the public every weekend: https://namyco.org/clubs.php https://namyco.org/clubs.php It only takes a year to learn most of the major edible species in your area.
  - cmsefton 6y ago
    Good advice, thank you. Unfortunately I'm in the UK. I know there are some local groups, but most of them seem to not be operating at the moment.
fmakunbound 6y ago
Cool. 1/2 way Stamet's book Mycelium Running which I highly recommend. This dude seems to have the same, highly infectious enthusiasm on the same topic.
justinclift 6y ago
https://archive.vn/jfKxN https://archive.vn/jfKxN
lubujackson 6y ago
I recently watched the documentary "Fantastic Fungi" and it had very interesting part about how myccelium have millions or billions of tiny roots connecting and crisscrossing through the soil all across the country, like a single macro lifeform conglomerating underground. Most interesting was a comment about how we have recently discovered that trees communicate using these myccelium roots, things like signals of distress from lack of water or from nearby fires. I couldn't help but think of these roots as something like neural pathways. It is amazing how much we still have to learn about mushrooms.
- vram22 6y ago
  Re: "macro life form" and "trees communicate", Gabe Brown and/or Elaine Ingham also talk about that. IIRC, Brown (regenerative farmer for ~20 years), quotes Ingham (soil biology scientist - soilfoodweb.com). So do some other regen ag people whose videos I've been watching, e.g. Richard Perkins of Ridgedale Permaculture, Sweden. Recommend his and Brown's YouTube videos for good overviews and even good solid technical details of what regen ag techniques are, and why they work (well, and cheaper than "conventional" ag). Both are regen ag farmers who have been doing it successfully for years.
currymj 6y ago
is there any researcher who is really excited about the profound world-historical importance of fungi, but who has not taken psychedelic mushrooms? it would help me to be less skeptical of the rhetoric.
- mistermann 6y ago
  There's another way to become less skeptical of the rhetoric too: see for yourself. There's no shortage of scientific literature on the safety, so that's a fairly poor excuse to deny obliging your curiosity.
- filoeleven 6y ago
  Christian Schwartz is a mycologist who was recently interviewed on the Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t podcast. He has not taken psychedelic mushrooms, doesn’t know much about those species because it’s not where his interest lies. He also expressed skepticism of the “wood wide web” upon first hearing about it, but as he continued to study all the species interaction, he became just as amazed as the “hippy dippy” types. I don’t think the Radiolab guys or most of the people they interview are big psychedelic users either. Their episode on mushrooms is pretty awe-inspiring too. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from-tree-to-shining-tree https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from-...
  - currymj 6y ago
    thanks for the good faith answer, this is reassuring and interesting. there’s a long history, starting way back with Timothy Leary, of psychedelic drug promoters doing sloppy, dubious science. but there’s also a growing orthodoxy in some circles around psychedelic drugs — any mention of possible long term negative effects really offends people. anyway i am glad to see the botanical aspects are understood and accepted by people who aren’t also evangelists.
    - filoeleven 6y ago
      Happy to share my enthusiasm! I understand the skepticism too, given that we’re into the second wave of psychedelics. All I will say about those is to pay attention to the research being done at John’s Hopkins. It is a reputable institution, and they’re rigorously looking at effects and potential uses without being, to my knowledge, strong advocates based on personal encounters. It’s important to know that the psychoactive fungi are a tiny, tiny fraction of fungal life. The role of fungi in the ecosystem has really only started to be deeply studied over the past decade or two. It’s kind of like microbiome research writ large. We don’t know what we don’t know, and what we are learning is wild stuff. Like, forests only exist because mushrooms farm trees (see the Radiolab episode). And even the more...Experienced...advocates are finding wild stuff in the greater fungal world. Paul Stamets, for example, has gotten contracts with DARPA because he’s finding all kinds of very effective antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial compounds in different species’ mycelia. He may have found a simple cure for colony collapse disorder—the experimental results look good. So don’t ignore their contributions when they get results—just maybe skip their TED talks ;)
ArtDev 6y ago
I am looking forwarding to voting for legalizing psilocybin therapy next month!
a_imho 6y ago
You may read our site as usual with advertisements and tracking (you may revoke your consent at any time). How about not forcing a consent in the first place?
ry454 6y ago
The way I like to think about it is people are like molecules of oxygen: in their natural state they are "free" and perform random Brownian motion. Society is about restricting the number of freedoms to a few, so all molecules can move either forward or backward, and produce work as a result. Psychedelics let people realise once again how much freedom they naturally have.

171 points by jseliger 6y ago

You can try mycorrhizal fungi[1] in your own garden. I added them to half of tomato plants and these were visibly healthier and did not succumb to fungal rot after wet summer. As if the good fungi defended them from the bad. [1] https://www.symbiom.cz/en/p-3-symbivit https://www.symbiom.cz/en/p-3-symbivit

chanfest22 6y ago

> "under [psychedelic mushroom's] influence I realized that most of my consciousness was unknown to me. It was as if I had spent my life in a garden until then, and now I suddenly discovered that this garden has a gate through which I can enter a strange and wonderful forest, that was largely unknown to me." Crazy that psychedelics are illegal in so many places. There certainly are risks that need to be taken seriously, but their potential seems incredible.

virtualritz 6y ago
> There certainly are risks that need to be taken seriously, but their potential seems incredible. The risk most people among my friends, particularly those who are generally scared of 'drugs' and who never had psychedelic experiences believe in turns out to be an urban myth: https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis-1.16968 https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedeli...
- NeutronStar 6y ago
  You can't deny that a high enough dose can pretty much be psychosis. It's temporary most of the time.
sojournerc 6y ago
I think what is unfortunate is that by being illegal they are driven into being recreational. There's a lot of evidence that ancient peoples knew about and consumed psychedelics, but treated them spiritually. A recent Joe Rogan interview[1] went pretty deep on it. Many have "bad trips" because of the context (and too much too soon), or because the setting involves consuming other things like alcohol and cannabis. Psychedelics should be treated with respect. I prefer to take them with loved ones in a private setting. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAQ7SklDxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAQ7SklDxo
- drewblaisdell 6y ago
  > I think what is unfortunate is that by being illegal they are driven into being recreational. I agree in sentiment, but would replace /recreational/ with /solely recreational and often consumed unsafely/. Recreation is an important part of life and there is nothing shameful about using these substances recreationally.
  - sojournerc 6y ago
    Fair enough. It's probably a poor distinction. It's not like we sit around singing hymns in robes... We certainly have a lot of fun and laughter, and that's a huge part of the experience. To each his own, but for first-timers a more controlled environment might be best. I'm pretty introspective, so I like a environment where I can go deep with that. Too much chaos, or interruption would get in the way for me.

mirko22 6y ago

Paul Stamets has been saying this for years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets I suggest to watch his lectures on youtube, some pretty fascinating stuff.

noizejoy 6y ago

> "under [psychedelic mushroom's] influence I realized that most of my consciousness was unknown to me. It was as if I had spent my life in a garden until then, and now I suddenly discovered that this garden has a gate through which I can enter a strange and wonderful forest, that was largely unknown to me." Arguably some similar mind opening processes might be going on while dreaming. Is it just me, or does it seem that our understanding of the full chemistry of life is still in the very early parts of its evolution?

wombatmobile 6y ago
What are you referring to when you reference "the full chemistry of life"? I'm not sure of your scope, or focus.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  And yet it's a compelling point in part due to the uncertainty of it's reference

zwkrt 6y ago

I have only taken psychadellic mushrooms on two occasions. But on both of those occasions I found that they clued me into the fact that all the various mental abstractions we have built for ourselves in life and society are not necessarily 'wrong', but definitely questionable. The first time I got the very intense feeling that money, societal roles, and national borders are not real and are in fact only collective delusions. The feeling was so strong and impactful it has shaped the course of my life henceforth. The second time I had an infinite sadness for my middle-manager boss at a tech company because I realized how he must lead a totally unrewarding and incredibly fear-laden life. It doesn't really surprise me that they are illegal.

nefitty 6y ago
I think one of the structural issues with legalizing psychedelics is that Western cultures don’t have support systems to help people integrate or even handle some of these experiences. Case in point, Amsterdam consequently banning magic mushrooms in 2008: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dutch-mushroom-idUSTRE4AR32R20081128 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dutch-mushroom-idUSTRE4AR...
- zwkrt 6y ago
  I don’t know if there is an industrialized society on the planet which can integrate these types of experiences. Capital and spirituality* do not mix; science and spirituality* do not mix. *where “spirituality” is defined as knowing that your values and ethics come from some other place than your faculty for logical reasoning or from economic utility, however you choose to conceptualize that
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I don't think that's necessarily true. Trade and exchange are just emergent properties of human experience. Every society has some form of it. If we could infuse our current economy of capital with "psychedelic values", there's no reason it can't be integrated. Terence McKenna pointed out that capitalism is a novelty-expanding engine. If we can use capitalism as a tool to build better societies, why not? The pipeline of logistics and labor that keeps us alive is amazing, and worth preserving. We just need to introduce a different method of thought.

uberdru 6y ago

Calling Gilles Deleuze, ftw.

rathertrue 6y ago
Please say more?

carapace 6y ago

I had an experience with mycelium that changed my way of looking at the world: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059654 I am coming around to the POV that soil should be thought of as a kind of organism. Check out e.g.: "Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A He talks about fungus starting around 1:20 (80 minutes in) https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A?t=4848 https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A?t=4848 Fungal to bacterial ratios...

sebmellen 6y ago
If you're already on to this, I highly recommend watching "Symphony of the Soil". It's a fantastic movie all about this, I really think it should be required watching in primary education. See: Symphony Of The Soil Official Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU
- carapace 6y ago
  That was great! A little preachy in places but overall very good. Cheers!
vram22 6y ago
I had mentioned Gabe Brown's work here ~3 months ago: "Gabe Brown has been doing regenerative agriculture for over two decades on Brown's Ranch, over 2000 acres, in Bismarck, North Dakota successfully. Food crops plus cover crops plus livestock, all integrated. Lot of good results compared to neighboring farmers doing the traditional synthetic fertilizer / pesticide / tilling / monoculture approach. There are others like him too. ..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23799715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23799715 Others have been mentioning his work here too: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%20gabe%20brown&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... There are a few false positives (wrong term?) in the search results; could try putting his name in quotes in the above Algolia search or use some other option. I will try that myself.
6y ago

cmsefton 6y ago

Am currently reading Sheldrake's book, Entangled Life. Highly recommend it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entangled_Life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entangled_Life Came across it because I've always enjoyed mushroom spotting in the nearby forests, and decided to explore them in greater detail. Listened to a great talk by Paul Stamets on Jo Rogan's show https://youtu.be/xJ6Ym719urg https://youtu.be/xJ6Ym719urg Decided to look for a book to read, and Sheldrake's book popped up. So much of it has been fascinating, and it's a very easy read, too. It's incredible how these organisms raise so many questions about life, from panspermia to questions about individuality. Well worth a read!

Alex3917 6y ago
> Came across it because I've always enjoyed mushroom spotting in the nearby forests, and decided to explore them in greater detail. Find your local mycology club on NAMA, most of them have free walks that are open to the public every weekend: https://namyco.org/clubs.php https://namyco.org/clubs.php It only takes a year to learn most of the major edible species in your area.
- cmsefton 6y ago
  Good advice, thank you. Unfortunately I'm in the UK. I know there are some local groups, but most of them seem to not be operating at the moment.

fmakunbound 6y ago

Cool. 1/2 way Stamet's book Mycelium Running which I highly recommend. This dude seems to have the same, highly infectious enthusiasm on the same topic.

justinclift 6y ago

https://archive.vn/jfKxN https://archive.vn/jfKxN

lubujackson 6y ago

I recently watched the documentary "Fantastic Fungi" and it had very interesting part about how myccelium have millions or billions of tiny roots connecting and crisscrossing through the soil all across the country, like a single macro lifeform conglomerating underground. Most interesting was a comment about how we have recently discovered that trees communicate using these myccelium roots, things like signals of distress from lack of water or from nearby fires. I couldn't help but think of these roots as something like neural pathways. It is amazing how much we still have to learn about mushrooms.

vram22 6y ago
Re: "macro life form" and "trees communicate", Gabe Brown and/or Elaine Ingham also talk about that. IIRC, Brown (regenerative farmer for ~20 years), quotes Ingham (soil biology scientist - soilfoodweb.com). So do some other regen ag people whose videos I've been watching, e.g. Richard Perkins of Ridgedale Permaculture, Sweden. Recommend his and Brown's YouTube videos for good overviews and even good solid technical details of what regen ag techniques are, and why they work (well, and cheaper than "conventional" ag). Both are regen ag farmers who have been doing it successfully for years.

currymj 6y ago

is there any researcher who is really excited about the profound world-historical importance of fungi, but who has not taken psychedelic mushrooms? it would help me to be less skeptical of the rhetoric.

mistermann 6y ago
There's another way to become less skeptical of the rhetoric too: see for yourself. There's no shortage of scientific literature on the safety, so that's a fairly poor excuse to deny obliging your curiosity.
filoeleven 6y ago
Christian Schwartz is a mycologist who was recently interviewed on the Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t podcast. He has not taken psychedelic mushrooms, doesn’t know much about those species because it’s not where his interest lies. He also expressed skepticism of the “wood wide web” upon first hearing about it, but as he continued to study all the species interaction, he became just as amazed as the “hippy dippy” types. I don’t think the Radiolab guys or most of the people they interview are big psychedelic users either. Their episode on mushrooms is pretty awe-inspiring too. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from-tree-to-shining-tree https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from-...
- currymj 6y ago
  thanks for the good faith answer, this is reassuring and interesting. there’s a long history, starting way back with Timothy Leary, of psychedelic drug promoters doing sloppy, dubious science. but there’s also a growing orthodoxy in some circles around psychedelic drugs — any mention of possible long term negative effects really offends people. anyway i am glad to see the botanical aspects are understood and accepted by people who aren’t also evangelists.
  - filoeleven 6y ago
    Happy to share my enthusiasm! I understand the skepticism too, given that we’re into the second wave of psychedelics. All I will say about those is to pay attention to the research being done at John’s Hopkins. It is a reputable institution, and they’re rigorously looking at effects and potential uses without being, to my knowledge, strong advocates based on personal encounters. It’s important to know that the psychoactive fungi are a tiny, tiny fraction of fungal life. The role of fungi in the ecosystem has really only started to be deeply studied over the past decade or two. It’s kind of like microbiome research writ large. We don’t know what we don’t know, and what we are learning is wild stuff. Like, forests only exist because mushrooms farm trees (see the Radiolab episode). And even the more...Experienced...advocates are finding wild stuff in the greater fungal world. Paul Stamets, for example, has gotten contracts with DARPA because he’s finding all kinds of very effective antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial compounds in different species’ mycelia. He may have found a simple cure for colony collapse disorder—the experimental results look good. So don’t ignore their contributions when they get results—just maybe skip their TED talks ;)

ArtDev 6y ago

I am looking forwarding to voting for legalizing psilocybin therapy next month!

a_imho 6y ago

You may read our site as usual with advertisements and tracking (you may revoke your consent at any time). How about not forcing a consent in the first place?

ry454 6y ago

The way I like to think about it is people are like molecules of oxygen: in their natural state they are "free" and perform random Brownian motion. Society is about restricting the number of freedoms to a few, so all molecules can move either forward or backward, and produce work as a result. Psychedelics let people realise once again how much freedom they naturally have.