Like an iceberg masking its mass below dark waters, the mushroom unfurls from beneath forest brush, forbidden fruit of the mycelium’s silent labor. “Fantastic Fungi,” at the direction of Louie Shwartzberg, dives beneath that forest floor into the mystery and magic of mushrooms. The hour-and-a-half film combines time-lapse cinematography, eccentric mycologists and mushroom foragers, beautifully telling the story of fungi, which at times intersects with humanity’s story.
Once an introverted and quiet stutterer, Paul Stamets turned from casual mycophile to mycologist, his journey into the fantastical world of fungi beginning with a book about altered states consciousness, burned by a childhood friend’s father. What was meant to deter Stamet was the catalyst for his eventual experience with one of the most famous and ancient medicinal fungi, Psilocybe Cubensis, also known as magic mushrooms.
With no one to guide his experience, Stamet took roughly ten times the normal dose of shrooms, launching him unexpectedly, into a terrifying evening of overwhelming emotions; he experienced sensations of interconnectedness, love, fear and awe.
The following morning, whereas years of speech therapy had proven hopeless, Stamet’s stutter was gone, cured in a single night seemingly through sheer strength of will. Now the once shy man has found a family of fellow mycophiles, fungi foragers and mycologists, and is leading scientific research on the medicinal properties of various species of fungi.
‘Fantastic Fungi’ combines science and conjecture, musing over the “stoned ape theory,” shared by ethnobiologist Terrance McKenna in 1990, a hypothetical explanation for the inexplicable doubling of human brain mass over a relatively short span of evolutionary time. Stamets backed McKenna’s hypothesis at conferences for psychedelic sciences in 2017 and continues to do so in Shwartzberg’s film.
It goes like this: Early humans found and consumed Psilocybe Cubensis growing in piles of animal dung, serendipitously creating potential for new neural pathways, expanding the possibility to learn and adapt. As the theory goes, the act of sharing these psychoactive fungi amongst groups for generations could have, hypothetically, awakened humanity, leading to the creation and advancement of art and language and religion, the things that make us human.
Psychoactive mushroom experiences have been shown to, at least for the span of a few months, cure depression, anxiety, and even bring peace to the minds of the terminally ill as they grapple with the inevitable and ever approaching: death.
There is no way to prove McKenna’s theory, but mycophiles like Stamet are convinced. Far beyond a fun and colorful documentary, “Fantastic Fungi” reaches below the forest floor to the mycelium, heart of the fungi and catalyst for the life and death processes that allow nature to move forward.
The exploration of psychoactive properties and potential therein was the vibrant backdrop for Shwartzberg’s deep dive into the magical world of mushrooms through the colorful community of mycophiles whose lives have been changed by the mysterious fruit, and who continue to change the lives around them through mycological research.
A cinematic masterpiece and an amusing exploration of mycological potential in ecology and medicine, “Fantastic Fungi” is a trip you’ll want to take. Until converted for at-home viewing, you can watch the mystery of mushrooms unfold at the Court Square Theater Jan. 23, at 4:30 p.m.
