Black Rainbow

Sorry – I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. I agree, it is possible that Schultes, Wasson and/or the Museum are prejudiced, but I can’t access enough information to form a strong opinion. I have drafted an email for the museum but I’m hoping to read something more concrete published by Schultes regarding his identification before making contact. I’ll let you know if I make any progress!

Cheers Micromegas, I think there are fair criticisms to make of ‘outsider’ research, and I am definitely an advocate of participant inclusive methodologies. I'm not certain if prejudice against psychoactive substances is taking place in the museum, due to the acknowledgement of Turbina corymbosa. Still, the Psilocybe interpretation of Xochipilli is prominent in published literature and it seems like a shortfall for the museum to not engage with this interpretation at all, even if there is disagreement. In Wasson’s (1973) paper, he attributes primary responsibility for botanical identification to Schultes, although he does not cite a publication in which Schultes has identified Psilocybe on Xochipilli. Perhaps Schultes makes this argument in his doctoral dissertation ‘Economic Aspects of the Flora of Northeastern Oaxaca’ (1941) but unfortunately, I have not been able to access this text. I want to know the details of Schultes’ Psilocybe research in order to form my own opinion concerning its identification on the statue. It would be great if someone could connect me with some earlier literature published by Schultes concerning this. On a side note, I went to a grungy pulque bar in Mexico City called 'Peluquería las duelistas', where there was an awesome Xochipilli mural with mushrooms fruiting from his head. So there appears to be some local association of Xochipilli with fungi, at least…

I recently visited the ~16th century Aztec Xochipilli statue at The National Museum of Archaeology in Mexico City. They had a pretty detailed breakdown of the botanical imagery on the statue, with the museum noting the following as present; Asteraceae, Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, Datura, Nicotiana, Philadelphus mexicana, Phillodendrum mexicanum, Plumeria rubra, Polianthes tuberosa, Pseudobombax, Tagetes erecta, Tagetes lucida, Tigridia pavonia and Turbina corymbosa. I was surprised to see no reference to Psilocybe spp. in the exhibit. As I understand it, Schultes is the primary authority on the identification of Psilocybe spp. on the statue. Is this the case? Does anyone know which publication he originally makes this identification in? Is there a perspective critical of Psilocybe spp. identification on the statue?

I was in Vancouver last month. The best Cannabis environment I've ever encountered, it put Amsterdam to shame.

Aw go on, I'll bite!

Emily Blatchford is conducting a study for her Honours year in Psychology at Edith Cowan University. The study aims to investigate the relationship between drugs, social attitudes and personality. Emily is looking for participants living in Australia aged 18 years and over to complete a short, 10-20 minute online questionnaire. Some questions will concern drug use, but participants are not required to have any history of drug use. Your participation in this study may be useful in assisting future researchers with the development of psychological treatments and therapies that improve social cohesion and community relationships. If you wish to participate in this study, please click on the below link which will direct you to the online questionnaire. https://ecuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_08phLWjZKvws9OR Bonus picture of Emily at Vivero Cactus in Ajijic, Jalisco.

I wonder if preference for a low entropy ‘sweet spot’ is a contemporary trend. Maybe society is unbalanced by excessive order, and the psychedelic renaissance is an attempt to reorient ourselves.

Bunnings do seem to stock less Trichs than they have in the past. My best find there has been a TPSM. Hamilton's have stopped supplying Bunnings. If you're in the Western Sydney area I'd reccomend checking Hamilton's out. I got a rooted ~25cm peru crest there for $25!

I have a '2014 240w UV V2.0 Lighthouse Hydro BlackStar LED Grow light Flower 3W L027’ in the cupboard. Would this be sufficient for raising trich seedlings? I've tried this light with few other plants but haven't been impressed with the results.

Often there are people foraging for legal fungi in the same areas. Adding some Lactarius deliciosus and/or Suillus luteus to your basket is a good way of blending in.

I'm no expert, but I think the phyllodes look more like A. longfolia. I've attached some pics of the A. floribunda in my front yard - they have different looking phyllodes to those in your pictures.

It was a good event. I'm a bit uncomfortable speaking up in large public discussions, but I did want to comment on the positioning of psychedelics in a prejudicial hierarchy of drugs; I too feel that psychedelics are in a position of increased social support, and I think that when the term psychedelics is used in public discourse it is often less about substances that induce mystical experiences and act on 5-HT receptors, and more about substances that have new found medical applications despite their prohibition. In this sense the term 'psychedelics' is useful for advocating for drug rights, but carries the threat of marginalising other types of drugs that don't have these psychedelic qualities. I think the word 'entheogen' is a more useful term than 'psychedelic' for promoting drug rights for two main reasons; 1) entheogen is term coined by people who use drugs, and 2) the classification of entheogens is more flexible and open than the classification of psychedelics, and I think this inclusivity can help undermine perceptions of a prejudicial hierarchy of drugs. Of course, the popularity of atheism can undermine support for the entheogen term due to its religious/spiritual connotations, but these connotations aren't essential. An entheogen is characterised by its capacity to inspire. That said, associating drugs with religion is a proven political tactic for challenging prohibition...

Yes please!

Hi, We are looking for an Aboriginal writer/researcher to help write a chapter in an upcoming book. The book is about the intersection between race and drug prohibition, and the chapter we are writing is about the intersection of drug criminalisation and Australian Aboriginal culture within research. My co-author for this chapter and I both specialise in Australian drug policy but only have a small amount of experience writing about Aboriginal culture. We are hoping to find a third author to help us write this chapter, and we would really like to include an Aboriginal perspective as much as possible. If you are interested, please get in contact via PM for more detail. A background in a sociology, cultural studies or policy would be helpful, but not essential. This isn’t a paid position, but the work will be published and there is funding available to travel to the UK to work with the editors and other authors for a workshop. Thanks!

I've been doing some research concerning altered states in traditional contexts for a couple of years now. It can be a very hard topic to get people to open up about, especially if you are planning to make the knowledge you find accessible to the public. In Alice Springs you might have some luck learning about uses of Duboisia, Nicotiana and Goodenia species. Discussion about pituri seems to be pretty open in contrast to some other plant preparations, and I have heard of people learning information about pituri in the Alice area.

Did your mycologist contact encourage you to get the same DNA tests for future finds, or will you use the ITS sequencing alone next time?

Looking forward to seeing these guys support Cosmic Psychos

I am interested in shamanism and science but both terms have such diverse political connotations I tend to forego them from my vocabulary because everyone thinks the terms mean something different. Plus, as a young Australian invader without a science degree I don’t have much authority to speak about either topic. Spiritual is a somewhat accessible term, but I don’t want the religious connotations. Psychonaut is alright, but it has some negative association via implications of drugs and psychosis. Gardener and ethnobotanist are terms more preferred by me and many other Corrobboree participants. I feel desire for the same discussion that you want to appear in this thread, and I think ultimately what this requires to take place is an expansion of language. Psychedelic experiences seem to encourage this expansion. Critical perspectives of psychoactive communities upon medicine and science also seem to help. Maybe all abnormal perspectives help with language innovation. Keep speaking to plants. Perhaps they can help with the name of this thread.

Thanks I'll give that a go!

I double boiled a combination of 250ml water, 1½ tsp agar and 1 ½ tsp malt extract in jar with lid slightly ajar until everything dissolved. When the jar was cool I added 2ml of peroxide. Then I poured a few cm of this mixture into each of my plastic containers, before taking small pieces of flesh from inside my pleurotus specimen, placing a piece in each container. Since then, the containers have sat inside a sterilised glove box in a darkened room at a temperature between ~15 and 22 degrees. The container pictured is the only one with any growth.

Sorry about that, I'll get a better image. That was my understanding, too. Is there something that could be inhibiting growth? I'm wondering if the problem was the environment of the dish, the flesh I cloned or my malt extract and agar medium. Any suggestions for how I might get a better understanding of where I went wrong?

First time trying to clone oyster tissue on agar. Does this look right? About four weeks in and the only dish of ~8 with any growth on it.

Hehehe sorry