Rabaelthazar

Yeah, I've had a lot of luck this year. Best patch I've ever found and it's only a three minute drive from my house. Thanks is given to the universe.

Holy Mountain and Sonny Jim, Fair points. I guess I've been lucky with my patches that there's enough in the ground to be picky about which ones I photograph. Enjoy Keenter, as long as they do the job... that's what's important.

Sorry to say, but they look pretty crusty, almost as if they're on the verge of decomposing. I'd normally leave specimens like this in the ground to complete their natural life cycle. What sort of area are you looking in? If those guys were findable, you'd hope there'd be some fresher specimens to, um, also leave in the ground, if you know what I mean. <edit- sorry, just saw your location in previous post - edit>

OCD???

from emedicine.medscape.com One of 1,300,000 hits when searching google for alcohol psychosis <edit - just for fun, I googled cannabis psychosis - 324,000 hits, LSD psychosis - 1,900,000 hits, mushroom psychosis - 1,070,000 hits and DMT psychosis - 372,000 hits.... obviously this means nothing in terms of which substance is actually more likely to cause psychosis, but it clearly shows that alcohol is recognized by the general population to be a potential catalyst for psychosis nearly as much as LSD is recognized to be. You're not going to find much support for this new argument of yours, Mutant. edit>

Good job, that's what you've been waiting for!!

Unless I'm mistaken, number #7 of the new lot is the Blue Waffle Mushroom

Hey everyone, thanks for a great day yesterday. Might have been a bit slim pickings, but it was good to meet everyone, Ed, Yawning Man, Satyr, Jabez, Gecko (for the whole 20 minutes or so) and H (sorry, I missed your on-line name <edit> Lampy!! that's right!! <edit>). TB303, good to see you as always. Thanks a lot to Ed and Yawning Man for organizing the event, and thanks Ed for the parting gift. Hope everyone gets home ok. See you guys some other time.

Thanks for the tip, Incognito. Tried it and it was a very pleasant, mellow high, but oh god, ....the drip!!

As much as I do not condone the behavior of your gnome, I do hope he has a great experience. Hope Hutch's "them" had a good 50th birthday present too.

PM'd

I tend to agree that DJing as in mixing records does not count as being a musician, however, a DJ who scratches is a percussionist of sorts, hence falling into the musician category. Having said that, the two (being a DJ) and (being a musician) aren't mutually exclusive. A lot of mix DJs I know also write music or play an instrument. I used to DJ a bit when I was younger, and I loved it, but I never thought of it as creating music, only showing off my fabulous taste and record collection.

A patch close to me that must have started from some mycelium accidentally finding it's way in about three weeks ago (wish I knew where it came from) pushed up its first pin not yesterday but the day before. There's a good chance, I'd say.

More bad publicity!! Why don't we ever get news headlines like: "Man, 26, thinks everything is beautiful after drinking mushroom tea"?

I think you've missed the point of my post, Mutant. My foaf had a lot of experience with psychedelics prior to trying spice but had read no psychedelic literature nor been told about the "beings". Yet, he encountered them. From what I've read of your posts, you seem to imply that people who encounter these "beings" only do so because they've been told that they will. Well, here's someone offering you proof to discount that notion. If you feel my experiences (and the experiences of others on this forum) are worthless to you because you don't know me (them) personally either: a ) send me a pm and ask me the questions you need to be able to integrate my experience to your worldview; or b ) stop asking for people's opinions (may I remind you that you started this poll?) Mutant, before psychedelics I was an atheist, since, I'm agnostic. Still not a believer, but at least open to the possibility. I don't think high dose psychedelic experiences are necessary for everyone. I had a large group of friends who used LSD, mushrooms, mescaline etc... Of that group, only my foaf and one of his friends went on to explore spice and only my foaf really explored the high doses and aya. For him it was the natural peak of his explorations and after his experiences put psychedelic use on the shelf to be brought out only occasionally for healing purposes (oh, ok, and the very occassional recreational use). I have a lot of respect for my friends who didn't venture into the high dose realm and I accept that their experiences are as meaningful to them as mine were to me. If your friend is happy with the doses he is taking, then that's great. At the end of the day, we are all different and I respect your choice to explore psychedelics in your way. As other people have mentioned though, there are certain things that can only be experienced at higher doses. If you don't feel the need to go there, then don't, but be aware that there is a level of psychedelia that you will not be able to speak on as an expert. Peace, I think you're a good guy.

Ok, here's an experience to add to the pile. A friend of a friend of a friend, or whatever, had multiple experiences with other wordly beings during tryptamine experiences, both smoked and made orally active with MAOIs. The experiences seemed in many ways more real to him than his usual perception, the feeling being that he had been able to see through the veil of his usual senses and seen a plane of existence more basic than the one he was used to seeing on a daily basis. He saw the creation of the universe, and the end of the universe and was shown all sorts of amazing secrets by the beings about the way human life is constructed and the purpose it serves. Sound kind of familiar??? Well, get this. This all happened years before he had even heard of Terrence McKenna. He was not at the time part of any forum where he could exchange ideas with peers. He had only one personal friend who had also had also tried tryptamines and then, only smoked. The person from whom he was getting the stuff refused to talk about his own experiences, telling my FOAFOAF to explore things for himself. The outcome of these experiences is that this guy is not 100% convinced in any reality. The only thing he believes 100% is that he doesn't know. Perhaps he'll find out when he dies, perhaps he'll just be a rotting corpse in the ground. Does it matter? Not one bit.... he learned things form his experiences that have made him want to live his life in a more positive way, regardless of what happens at the end. The main gist of this is that he had no pre-conceived ideas going in to his explorations, but came out with experiences very similar to the thousands of other people who've ventured down this path. Take from that what you will. I am hereby changing my name to Rabaelthazar as I've noticed google is linking to my posts and I'd like to try to avoid that.

Everything will turn out cool (good topic, by the way)

Good fun. Nice way to while away fifteen minutes.

Yeah, I've just realized that I'm going to have to invest in a better camera if I'm going to posting requests like this. At the moment I'm just using my iPhone camera and it just doesn't cut it. Wanted to post a picture today of a brand new mushroom pin that's sprouting in my garden but my resolution makes it look like a white dot against woodchips. When the tree I'm asking about in this post flowers, I'll make sure to get up some better quality snaps. Thanks for your help on this one.

Ha ha.. thanks for coming along.

Thanks everybody for the ideas. I've googled each suggestion and Paraserianthes lophantha seems to be the best bet at the moment, but I'll wait and see if the brushes develop. I don't remember them from last year, but my memory's not always reliable. Wiki states (among other things): "(Paraserianthes Lophantha) was first spread beyond southwest Australia by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, who gave packets of P. lophantha seeds to early explorers... It is considered a weed in Australia" Hmmm... if the ID is correct I may have to re-think my idea of giving these away as ornamentals. It really is a beautiful tree, though. Thanks all for the ringside entertainment as well. I'm surprised Mutant hasn't joined in this thread yet. Cheers Ra

Alright, a shit fight! To your respective corners gentlemen, no hitting below the belt. I'll post more pics once the inflorescences (thank you for the new addition to my vocab) mature.

Thanks Occidentalis. I didn't even consider that it could be something other than Acacia. Saw the yellow bits and assumed. We're getting somewhere though, anyone else?

Bumpety bump. Anyone, anyone?? Fry... Fry???

Whoops, sorry, my bad. I've gone back and got some good ideas. Good ideas on this thread too. I think my problem is that this year I'm using a different drying method (child friendly, inside a locked cupboard) and they're taking much longer to dry than in previous years. I think I'll go and fork out for a dehydrator. "tear off the stems and discard. why bother with em" - I love chewing stems, Compost, maybe it's all that maggoty goodness that I'd never been aware of in the past. "Yes, look at them carefully before picking them. Check their gills, etc" - Thanks Tripsis. Hmmm... what would you look for in particular? All specimens looked good at first. Anything that looked damaged or too old stayed in the ground or got thrown back. There was plenty of choice and I stuck with just what I thought to be the primo selection. "Get the infested ones and go throw them in places that look like good sub enviroment, but where you've never seen them grow before." - great idea, Jabez. Thanks everyone else for your input too.