WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 Apple podcast title, The Mystery of the Little 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:05.179 People, Mushrooms, The Deep Dive, Apple podcast 00:00:05.179 --> 00:00:07.700 description. Uncover the bizarre and unsolved 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:09.759 world of hallucinogenic belete mushrooms in this 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:13.119 deep dive. We explore the elusive Lanmaiowa Asiatica. 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:15.759 A psychoactive fungus known to cause Lilliputian 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:18.640 hallucinations, vivid visions of tiny, colorful 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:21.260 people and animals. From historical accounts 00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:24.140 of mushroom madness in Papua New Guinea and ancient 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:27.100 Chinese Taoist texts, to modern -day poisonings 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:29.519 in Yunnan, and a surprising dinner with U .S. 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:32.079 Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, we unpack the 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:34.780 science, culture, and mystery behind these psychedelic 00:00:34.780 --> 00:00:37.649 fungi. Perfect for curious minds eager to learn 00:00:37.649 --> 00:00:40.450 about ethnomycology, undiscovered chemical constituents, 00:00:40.850 --> 00:00:43.210 and the fascinating history of edible boletes. 00:00:43.390 --> 00:00:46.450 SEO keywords. Hallucinogenic Bolete Mushrooms, 00:00:46.549 --> 00:00:49.310 Lanmoa Asiatica, Lilliputian Hallucinations, 00:00:49.609 --> 00:00:53.109 Psychoactive Fungi, Psychedelic Mushrooms, Ethnomycology, 00:00:53.289 --> 00:00:56.170 Yunnan Edible Boletes, Mushroom Madness, Apple 00:00:56.170 --> 00:00:59.700 Podcast Description. Imagine you sit down at 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:01.820 a fantastic, really high -end restaurant for 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:03.399 this sprawling dinner. Sounds pretty good to 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:05.700 me. Right, and you're presented with this incredibly 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:10.180 fragrant, just umami -rich mushroom hot pot. 00:01:10.579 --> 00:01:13.019 It's delicious. It's earthy, perfectly textured. 00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:15.819 You finish your meal, you head home, and you 00:01:15.819 --> 00:01:17.959 go to sleep. Normal night. Exactly, a normal 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:22.329 night. Hours later, you wake up, you wander into 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:24.230 your kitchen, and you look at a dripping water 00:01:24.230 --> 00:01:27.890 faucet. Suddenly, you watch as each individual 00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:31.230 drop of water turns into a tiny insect, hits 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:34.450 the sink, and physically crawls away. Wow. You 00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:36.829 blink, right? You look over at your dining room 00:01:36.829 --> 00:01:40.329 table, and you notice an entire regiment of two 00:01:40.329 --> 00:01:42.829 -centimeter -tall soldiers. Two centimeters? 00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:45.819 Yeah, tiny. Just perfectly detailed, marching 00:01:45.819 --> 00:01:47.920 in strict formation right across your tablecloth. 00:01:47.980 --> 00:01:50.159 It sounds, honestly, it sounds like a scene pulled 00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:52.519 straight out of some surrealist film or, I don't 00:01:52.519 --> 00:01:54.799 know, a strange cartoon. It really does. But 00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:57.700 for a highly specific subset of people, this 00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:01.120 is a very real, thoroughly documented medical 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:03.739 and pharmacological phenomenon. Yeah, it is. 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:07.280 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are exploring 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.400 the bizarre, unsolved, and just highly specific 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:14.020 world of hallucinogenic bolete mushrooms. A truly 00:02:14.020 --> 00:02:17.280 wild topic. It is. We're zeroing in on a group 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:21.199 of fungi that are widely known in China as Xiao 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.580 Ren Ren, which translates directly to the little 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:27.139 people mushrooms. Which is such a fitting name. 00:02:28.699 --> 00:02:31.259 Our source material for today's analysis is this 00:02:31.259 --> 00:02:35.199 incredibly comprehensive, heavily cited Wikipedia 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:38.219 article. Right. It maps out the taxonomy of these 00:02:38.219 --> 00:02:41.719 fungi, the historical and anthropological records 00:02:41.719 --> 00:02:44.560 of their use, and the really cutting -edge chemical 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.759 research currently trying to decode them. And 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:50.060 our mission today is to unpack the rich ethnomycological 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:53.699 history, the cultural culinary practices, and 00:02:53.699 --> 00:02:56.280 this ongoing scientific race to identify the 00:02:56.280 --> 00:03:00.939 entirely unknown active... It's a race that is 00:03:00.939 --> 00:03:03.219 still very much active today. It is. Okay, let's 00:03:03.219 --> 00:03:04.599 untack this, because looking at the clinical 00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:06.719 data, the presentation of these hallucinations 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:08.960 completely breaks the mold of what we expect 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:10.620 from psychoactive feng shui. Oh, completely. 00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:12.560 Like, when you look at the pharmacology of traditional 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:14.520 tryptamines, you know, you expect shifting colors. 00:03:14.740 --> 00:03:17.639 Geometric overlay. Yeah, geometric overlay, an 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:20.979 altered default mode network. But seeing tiny 00:03:20.979 --> 00:03:24.659 soldiers... Drops of water metamorphosing into 00:03:24.659 --> 00:03:27.240 bugs. It's so weird. It is remarkably specific 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:30.219 and weirdly consistent across completely disparate 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:32.360 demographics. What's fascinating here is that 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:35.020 despite that consistency, modern science remains 00:03:35.959 --> 00:03:39.319 Entirely in the dark. Entirely. Unlike the classic 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:42.180 tryptamines like psilocybin or the isoxazoles 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:43.960 like musmol, you know, the stuff found in the 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:46.780 Amanita muscaria, we still have absolutely no 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:49.460 idea what molecular mechanism makes these beliefs 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:52.719 psychoactive. None. Zero. We have centuries of 00:03:52.719 --> 00:03:54.800 epidemiological evidence that they do it, but 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.919 the actual chemistry is a total blank spot in 00:03:57.919 --> 00:03:59.819 our biological knowledge. Which means we are 00:03:59.819 --> 00:04:01.979 looking at a genuine scientific frontier. So 00:04:01.979 --> 00:04:04.710 today we're taking you on a global journey. We're 00:04:04.710 --> 00:04:06.689 going to travel from the high -end culinary scene 00:04:06.689 --> 00:04:09.610 of modern China to the ancient highlands of Papua 00:04:09.610 --> 00:04:11.990 New Guinea. A serious global footprint. Definitely. 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:14.289 And we'll dive into a mystery that continues 00:04:14.289 --> 00:04:16.649 to baffle some of the best analytical chemists 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:18.949 in the world. So let's start at the epicenter 00:04:18.949 --> 00:04:22.290 of this phenomenon, the Yunnan province in southwestern 00:04:22.290 --> 00:04:24.689 China. Right. So Yunnan is internationally recognized 00:04:24.689 --> 00:04:27.930 as a global hotspot for fungal diversity. Yeah. 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:30.259 And foraging for wild mushrooms isn't just a 00:04:30.259 --> 00:04:32.579 hobby there. It's a foundational part of the 00:04:32.579 --> 00:04:35.240 local culture and the regional economy. So these 00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:38.579 aren't some rare hidden thing. Not at all. The 00:04:38.579 --> 00:04:40.920 boletes we are focusing on today, primarily species 00:04:40.920 --> 00:04:45.040 like Landmaua asiatica and Butera boletus rosaflavus. 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.339 They aren't treated as illicit substances. They 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.540 aren't sold in back alleys. Exactly. They are 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:53.600 highly prized, premium culinary ingredients sold 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.319 right out in the open in local markets. The locals 00:04:56.319 --> 00:04:59.480 actually refer to them as jian shou king, which 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:02.420 roughly translates to turning blue when bruised 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.959 or cut. Right, that rapid oxidation. Yeah. If 00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:07.569 you take a knife to the stem. The flesh almost 00:05:07.569 --> 00:05:10.610 instantly oxidizes. It turns this vivid, deep 00:05:10.610 --> 00:05:13.649 blue -green color. And here's the absolute crucial 00:05:13.649 --> 00:05:16.389 detail for anyone encountering these in a kitchen. 00:05:16.589 --> 00:05:18.110 You have to cook them. You have to cook them 00:05:18.110 --> 00:05:20.990 thoroughly. The strict local wisdom dictates 00:05:20.990 --> 00:05:24.350 boiling them for at least 15 to 25 minutes at 00:05:24.350 --> 00:05:27.149 a rolling boil. And that intense thermal processing 00:05:27.149 --> 00:05:31.689 relies on sustained heat to break down and denature 00:05:31.689 --> 00:05:33.829 the psychoactive compounds. It cooks the trip 00:05:33.829 --> 00:05:36.480 right out of them. Exactly. If you adhere to 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:39.060 the culinary rules, you're rewarded with a delicious 00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:42.939 porcini -like dish. But if a chef rushes the 00:05:42.939 --> 00:05:45.240 order or the temperature drops even a little 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:47.920 bit, the active metabolites survive. And the 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:49.560 little people show up. The little people show 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:52.279 up. And the historical precedent for this specific 00:05:52.279 --> 00:05:55.420 interaction goes back incredibly far. How far 00:05:55.420 --> 00:05:58.939 are we talking? Around 300 CE, the Chinese Taoist 00:05:58.939 --> 00:06:01.720 scholar Ge Hong wrote a foundational text called 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:05.209 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. In it, he 00:06:05.209 --> 00:06:07.550 details something he called a flesh spirit mushroom. 00:06:07.930 --> 00:06:11.230 That is an intense name. It is. Gahang was deeply 00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:14.009 focused on alchemy and the pursuit of immortality, 00:06:14.089 --> 00:06:16.310 so his documentation of local flora is incredibly 00:06:16.310 --> 00:06:19.430 detailed. Okay. He explicitly noted that if you 00:06:19.430 --> 00:06:22.569 consume this flesh spirit mushroom raw, you might 00:06:22.569 --> 00:06:24.649 literally see a tiny person riding in a carriage. 00:06:24.850 --> 00:06:27.569 A tiny person in a carriage from 300 CE. Yeah. 00:06:27.629 --> 00:06:29.569 And he wrote that the experience would grant 00:06:29.569 --> 00:06:32.459 immediate transcendence. So we have this highly 00:06:32.459 --> 00:06:36.759 specific visual hallucination of tiny, detailed 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:39.139 figures documented in the regional literature 00:06:39.139 --> 00:06:42.860 for roughly 1 ,700 years. It's a remarkable piece 00:06:42.860 --> 00:06:45.860 of continuous ethnobotanical history. It really 00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:49.100 is. But the phenomenon is not geographically 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:51.540 isolated to China. Let's shift the map a bit. 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:54.360 Let's do it. Imagine you are in the western highlands 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:57.180 of Papua New Guinea sometime between the 1930s 00:06:57.180 --> 00:06:59.259 and 1950s. Okay, totally different environment. 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:01.850 Completely. Anthropologists and missionaries 00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:03.910 operating in the region began reporting that 00:07:03.910 --> 00:07:06.269 the indigenous Kuma people were consuming local 00:07:06.269 --> 00:07:09.329 bolete mushrooms, specifically a species known 00:07:09.329 --> 00:07:11.930 as Boletus manicus. Right. And these mushrooms 00:07:11.930 --> 00:07:14.209 triggered a temporary state of what observers 00:07:14.209 --> 00:07:18.089 termed madness. The anthropological reports described 00:07:18.089 --> 00:07:20.860 a form of collective mania. The individuals who 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:23.279 consumed the mushrooms would experience Lilliputian 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:26.060 hallucinations. Again, the tiny people. Again, 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.740 the hallmark symptom of seeing tiny people and 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:31.819 animals alongside this really erratic behavior. 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:34.060 And this caught the attention of the broader 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:36.639 scientific community in the 1960s. Because it 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:38.759 sounded like a massive psychedelic discovery. 00:07:39.139 --> 00:07:41.980 Exactly. It drew in the legendary mycologists 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:45.029 Gordon Wasson and Roger Heim. They traveled to 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:47.649 Papua New Guinea, surveyed roughly 400 local 00:07:47.649 --> 00:07:50.189 mushrooms, and eventually narrowed the culprits 00:07:50.189 --> 00:07:53.329 down to six species, driving this localized mushroom 00:07:53.329 --> 00:07:56.449 madness. And remember, they were fresh off their 00:07:56.449 --> 00:07:59.389 groundbreaking work with Maria Sabina in Mexico. 00:07:59.529 --> 00:08:01.670 The psilocybin discovery. Right. So they were 00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:04.560 primed to discover another massive... paradigm 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:07.680 -shifting psychoactive compound. They gathered 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.100 samples of Boletus manicus and sent them directly 00:08:10.100 --> 00:08:12.519 to Albert Hoffman's lab in Switzerland. You'd 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:14.699 expect the team that isolated psilocybin and 00:08:14.699 --> 00:08:17.939 synthesized LSD to find the smoking gun instantly. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.500 You really would. But the mass spectrometry and 00:08:20.500 --> 00:08:23.199 the chromatography results were, well, entirely 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:25.459 anticlimactic. Yeah, Hoffman found only trace 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:28.019 amounts of three unidentified indolic compounds. 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:31.339 Those traces. Just traces. And while indoles 00:08:31.339 --> 00:08:33.460 share structural similarities with serotonin, 00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:35.919 and many classic psychedelics, the quantities 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:38.399 present in the boletes were just minuscule. So 00:08:38.399 --> 00:08:40.899 it didn't make mathematical sense. Right. For 00:08:40.899 --> 00:08:43.179 those trace amounts to trigger the dramatic behavioral 00:08:43.179 --> 00:08:46.440 shifts reported among the Kuma people, the unidentified 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:48.980 compounds would need to possess a binding affinity 00:08:48.980 --> 00:08:52.779 and potency essentially on par with pure LSD. 00:08:52.899 --> 00:08:55.480 Which was a pharmacological leap the scientific 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.700 community at the time simply refused to make. 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:00.179 It was too much for them to accept. Haim even 00:09:00.179 --> 00:09:03.179 attempted to self -experiment. He consumed small 00:09:03.179 --> 00:09:06.059 amounts of the mushroom himself. Brave guy. Yeah, 00:09:06.120 --> 00:09:08.919 but he only noted some unusually vivid dreams, 00:09:09.279 --> 00:09:12.419 nothing resembling the full -blown Lilliputian 00:09:12.419 --> 00:09:14.860 delirium the locals experienced. And because 00:09:14.860 --> 00:09:17.919 they couldn't isolate a definitive, high -concentration 00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:21.340 active chemical, Haim, Wasson, and the anthropologist 00:09:21.340 --> 00:09:24.080 Marie Ray ultimately concluded that the mushroom 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:26.259 madness wasn't pharmacological at all. Wait, 00:09:26.299 --> 00:09:28.490 they just dismissed it. They wrote it off entirely 00:09:28.490 --> 00:09:31.389 as a form of social catharsis. They essentially 00:09:31.389 --> 00:09:33.549 argued that the indigenous population was just 00:09:33.549 --> 00:09:36.370 engaging in a ritualistic theatrical acting out, 00:09:36.450 --> 00:09:39.070 that it was influenced by cultural expectation 00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:43.110 rather than actual chemistry. Wow. It's a classic 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:45.629 frustrating example of mid -century scientific 00:09:45.629 --> 00:09:49.789 hubris. They effectively said, our lab equipment 00:09:49.789 --> 00:09:52.330 didn't flag a massive alkaloid concentration, 00:09:52.870 --> 00:09:56.149 therefore your cultural experience must be psychosomatic. 00:09:56.860 --> 00:09:59.320 This raises an important question about how Western 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:02.200 scientific paradigms have historically marginalized 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:05.399 indigenous knowledge systems. By dismissing the 00:10:05.399 --> 00:10:07.759 phenomenon as mere theater, they effectively 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:09.759 closed the book on the research for decades. 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:13.460 Just shut it down. Completely. Giorgio Sammarini, 00:10:13.620 --> 00:10:16.159 a contemporary psychedelic researcher, has published 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:19.000 extensive critiques on how premature and damaging 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.059 that dismissal was. And there's a real measurable 00:10:21.059 --> 00:10:24.019 fallout from that, right? There is. When researchers 00:10:24.019 --> 00:10:26.019 finally returned to survey the Kuma villages 00:10:26.019 --> 00:10:28.700 in 2006, they discovered that much of the local 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:30.860 knowledge about these mushrooms had been completely 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:33.950 lost to time. That is heartbreaking. It is. The 00:10:33.950 --> 00:10:36.169 last documented instance of someone in the area 00:10:36.169 --> 00:10:38.409 intentionally consuming them for their hallucinogenic 00:10:38.409 --> 00:10:41.750 properties was way back in the mid -1980s. Because 00:10:41.750 --> 00:10:43.870 Western science closed the book on this in the 00:10:43.870 --> 00:10:47.090 60s, we almost lost the thread entirely. It took 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:49.690 over 50 years for researchers to realize this 00:10:49.690 --> 00:10:52.509 wasn't an isolated cultural quirk. It was a global 00:10:52.509 --> 00:10:55.450 botanical puzzle. A massive one. Which brings 00:10:55.450 --> 00:10:59.159 us to a major breakthrough in 2024. Researcher 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:01.480 Colin Domnauer launched an expedition to the 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:03.519 Cordillera Mountains in the northern Philippines. 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:05.820 Right. And he found that the indigenous populations 00:11:05.820 --> 00:11:09.360 there regularly consume a blue staining bolete 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:12.100 they call seedsdom. And when it's undercooked, 00:11:12.179 --> 00:11:15.279 it irregularly triggers vivid visions of entities 00:11:15.279 --> 00:11:18.720 they call the ancestors, which translates yet 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:21.379 again to little people. So we are looking at 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:25.149 three entirely distinct cultures in China. Papua 00:11:25.149 --> 00:11:27.649 New Guinea, and the Philippines. These populations 00:11:27.649 --> 00:11:29.870 are separated by massive geographical, historical, 00:11:30.090 --> 00:11:32.769 and linguistic barriers. Yet they all report 00:11:32.769 --> 00:11:36.250 the exact same, highly specific visual hallucination 00:11:36.250 --> 00:11:39.470 from related blue -standing blitz. It's undeniable 00:11:39.470 --> 00:11:41.690 at that point. From a pharmacological standpoint, 00:11:42.049 --> 00:11:44.710 that points overwhelmingly toward a shared objective 00:11:44.710 --> 00:11:47.090 chemical trigger. It completely rules out that 00:11:47.090 --> 00:11:49.909 old cultural suggestion theory. So let's look 00:11:49.909 --> 00:11:52.720 at the clinical profile of that trigger. If you 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:56.259 ingest undercooked Lanmalo Asiatica in Yunnan, 00:11:56.419 --> 00:11:58.940 what exactly is happening to your nervous system? 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:02.059 It's intense. Very. The clinical term for the 00:12:02.059 --> 00:12:04.899 primary symptom is Lilliputian hallucinations. 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:08.279 Patients consistently report seeing swarms of 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.500 tiny humans, sometimes brightly colored, sometimes 00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:14.039 wearing elaborate little outfits. But the visions 00:12:14.039 --> 00:12:16.299 aren't strictly humanoid, right? No, they see 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.259 tiny animals too. Rabbits, squirrels, insects, 00:12:19.379 --> 00:12:21.570 all interacting with their environment like it's 00:12:21.570 --> 00:12:23.940 totally normal. In addition to the Lilliputian 00:12:23.940 --> 00:12:26.220 figures, patients frequently experience geometric 00:12:26.220 --> 00:12:29.100 patterning. They get macropsia and micropsia, 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.879 where objects appear wildly distorted in size. 00:12:32.179 --> 00:12:34.179 Alice in Wonderland syndrome, basically. Exactly. 00:12:34.179 --> 00:12:36.940 And the sensation that stationary walls are breathing 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:39.440 or physically shifting. There's a fascinating 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:42.840 medical case documented from 1997 where a young 00:12:42.840 --> 00:12:44.899 woman reported watching her shoelaces physically 00:12:44.899 --> 00:12:47.500 detached from her shoes, transform into butterflies, 00:12:47.899 --> 00:12:50.700 and fly out of the room. That is so wild. The 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:52.220 subjective effects are incredible. It's incredibly 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:54.320 profound, but the pharmacokinetics are what really 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:57.279 stand out to me. The timeline is strange. Very. 00:12:57.419 --> 00:13:00.139 With classic psilocybin mushrooms, you expect 00:13:00.139 --> 00:13:02.779 the onset of effects within maybe 30 to 60 minutes, 00:13:02.860 --> 00:13:04.779 and it resolves entirely in about four to six 00:13:04.779 --> 00:13:07.779 hours. Right. But with these Belites, the onset 00:13:07.779 --> 00:13:10.799 time is drastically delayed. Patients typically 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:12.940 don't experience the first hallucinations until 00:13:12.940 --> 00:13:15.519 six to 24 hours post -ingestion. Which is an 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:19.220 agonizingly long metabolic runway. You've digested 00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:21.159 the meal hours ago. And you've probably gone 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:23.889 to sleep. Exactly. And once the intoxication 00:13:23.889 --> 00:13:26.919 begins, it is incredibly persistent. Symptoms 00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:30.120 routinely last for days. In more severe toxicity 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:33.100 cases, the psychiatric effects have been documented 00:13:33.100 --> 00:13:35.399 lingering for months. Which really highlights 00:13:35.399 --> 00:13:37.960 the severe human impact here. While the idea 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:40.340 of seeing tiny colorful people sounds whimsical 00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:43.879 in a vacuum, a multi -day inescapable hallucination 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:46.580 is a severe medical event. It's a crisis. It 00:13:46.580 --> 00:13:49.240 is. The sources highlight a profoundly tragic 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:52.639 case from 2014. A woman in Union who had recently 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.960 lost her daughter somehow discovered that the 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:57.259 delirium in induced by these mushrooms, allowed 00:13:57.259 --> 00:13:59.840 her to hallucinate visions of her deceased child. 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:03.200 Oh, wow. Yeah. So she intentionally and repeatedly 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.419 consumed the toxic undercooked boletes for eight 00:14:06.419 --> 00:14:09.620 years, subjecting her brain to constant chemical 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:12.279 stress just to experience those specific visions. 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:14.879 It's a sobering demonstration of the psychological 00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:17.759 weight these compounds carry. And from a public 00:14:17.759 --> 00:14:19.879 health perspective, these poisonings represent 00:14:19.879 --> 00:14:22.840 a major logistical burden for regional hospitals. 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.750 I'm sure. Consider the massive epidemiological 00:14:25.750 --> 00:14:29.529 report published in Yunnan back in 1991. It analyzed 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:32.750 300 individual cases of bolete poisoning. With 00:14:32.750 --> 00:14:36.110 a data set of 300 clinical cases, you would think 00:14:36.110 --> 00:14:38.850 doctors could isolate a clear toxological profile 00:14:38.850 --> 00:14:40.950 that the earlier Western researchers missed. 00:14:41.250 --> 00:14:43.509 What did the clinical presentation look like 00:14:43.509 --> 00:14:46.019 at that scale? It was severe. While most patients 00:14:46.019 --> 00:14:48.360 experience the classic Lilliputian hallucinations, 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:51.259 the acute case is presented with severe psychosis 00:14:51.259 --> 00:14:54.379 -like symptoms, intense auditory hallucinations, 00:14:54.379 --> 00:14:56.720 profoundly disorganized thinking, and what the 00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:59.080 attending physicians described as personality 00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:01.700 disintegration. That sounds terrifying. It gets 00:15:01.700 --> 00:15:05.019 worse. Many patients descended into a prolonged 00:15:05.019 --> 00:15:08.220 stupor. When doctors ran electroencephalograms, 00:15:08.220 --> 00:15:12.360 or EEGs, On those stuporous patients, the brainwave 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:15.019 abnormalities strongly resemble the cortical 00:15:15.019 --> 00:15:17.519 changes typically seen in patients administered 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:21.139 massive doses of LSD. How does an emergency room 00:15:21.139 --> 00:15:24.220 manage 300 patients experiencing that level of 00:15:24.220 --> 00:15:26.320 neurological disruption without even knowing 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:29.399 what the target receptor is? Empirically, they 00:15:29.399 --> 00:15:31.460 discovered that administering chlorpromazine 00:15:31.460 --> 00:15:34.320 was highly effective. What's that? It's a first 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.980 -generation antipsychotic medication that acts 00:15:36.980 --> 00:15:40.340 primarily as a dopamine antagonist. It was really 00:15:40.340 --> 00:15:42.720 effective in stabilizing the patients and managing 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:45.139 the acute symptoms. Okay, that's a relief. Yeah, 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:47.539 and the reassuring data point here is that across 00:15:47.539 --> 00:15:50.320 these massive case series, including a more recent 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:53.840 2024 study tracking 81 patients, there were zero 00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:57.080 fatalities. Wow, zero? Zero fatalities. With 00:15:57.080 --> 00:15:59.399 proper supportive care, almost all patients made 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:01.379 a full neurological recovery within one to five 00:16:01.379 --> 00:16:03.679 days. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting, 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:05.759 especially in the context of global diplomacy. 00:16:06.139 --> 00:16:10.120 The Yellen story. Yes. This highly localized, 00:16:10.419 --> 00:16:13.559 incredibly potent mushroom phenomenon recently 00:16:13.559 --> 00:16:16.259 crashed right into the middle of international 00:16:16.259 --> 00:16:19.580 geopolitics. Such a bizarre crossover. In the 00:16:19.580 --> 00:16:22.779 summer of 2023, U .S. Treasury Secretary Janet 00:16:22.779 --> 00:16:25.340 Yellen traveled to Beijing for high stakes diplomatic 00:16:25.340 --> 00:16:28.559 talks. Shortly after arriving, she and her delegation 00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:30.860 dined at a highly regarded Yunnan restaurant 00:16:30.860 --> 00:16:33.860 chain. Right. And she purposefully ordered a 00:16:33.860 --> 00:16:38.149 dish featuring Lanmao Asiatica. The exact hallucinogenic 00:16:38.149 --> 00:16:40.409 beliefs we're analyzing today. It triggered an 00:16:40.409 --> 00:16:43.460 immediate international media frenzy. Yeah. Janet 00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:46.539 Yellen ate magic mushrooms became a massive headline 00:16:46.539 --> 00:16:49.600 across global news outlets. It's a surreal intersection 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:52.539 of macroeconomics and ethnobotany. Yeah. But 00:16:52.539 --> 00:16:54.240 it really highlights the cultural disconnect 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.360 we talked about earlier. The restaurant's culinary 00:16:56.360 --> 00:16:58.399 team knew exactly how to handle the ingredient. 00:16:58.620 --> 00:17:00.879 They subjected the mushrooms to the precise thermal 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.700 processing required, entirely denaturing the 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:05.920 psychoactive metabolite. And the result. Secretary 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:08.779 Yellen experienced a fantastic umami rich meal 00:17:08.779 --> 00:17:12.259 and zero hallucinations. It perfectly encapsulates 00:17:12.259 --> 00:17:14.730 the. dichotomy in how these fungi are perceived. 00:17:15.490 --> 00:17:18.289 When the Western press covered the dinner, the 00:17:18.289 --> 00:17:20.890 narrative was entirely focused on the psychedelic 00:17:20.890 --> 00:17:24.329 novelty, the implicit danger, the whole magic 00:17:24.329 --> 00:17:27.890 mushroom framing. Exactly. Whereas for the millions 00:17:27.890 --> 00:17:30.190 of people living in Yunnan and the indigenous 00:17:30.190 --> 00:17:32.150 groups in the Philippines that Colin Daum now 00:17:32.150 --> 00:17:34.549 are embedded with, the psychoactive potential 00:17:34.549 --> 00:17:37.809 isn't the draw at all. It's actually an annoyance. 00:17:37.910 --> 00:17:40.250 Right. They value the mushroom purely for its 00:17:40.250 --> 00:17:42.329 flavor profile, which is incredibly rich and 00:17:42.329 --> 00:17:45.130 savory. The hallucinogenic properties are viewed 00:17:45.130 --> 00:17:48.210 as a punishing consequence of poor culinary technique, 00:17:48.490 --> 00:17:51.369 not a recreational feature. It functions very 00:17:51.369 --> 00:17:53.450 similarly to the culinary culture surrounding 00:17:53.450 --> 00:17:56.690 fugu, or pufferfish, in Japan. Oh, that's a great 00:17:56.690 --> 00:17:59.269 comparison. The appeal lies entirely in the delicacy 00:17:59.269 --> 00:18:01.990 of the meat. The deadly tetrodotoxin is simply 00:18:01.990 --> 00:18:04.619 a biological obstacle. that a highly trained 00:18:04.619 --> 00:18:07.220 chef must carefully navigate. Which brings us 00:18:07.220 --> 00:18:09.519 to the core scientific void at the center of 00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:12.559 this deep dive. We have a wildly popular culinary 00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:16.460 dish that doubles as a potent multi -day hallucinogen. 00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:19.359 What is the active constituent? The million dollar 00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:22.380 question. What is this specific molecule crossing 00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:24.759 the blood brain barrier and generating these 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.680 Lilliputian visions? The reality is that as of 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:31.380 2025 and 2026, the global scientific community 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:35.420 still doesn't know. We really don't. But we have 00:18:35.420 --> 00:18:38.660 definitively ruled out the usual suspects. Okay. 00:18:38.740 --> 00:18:41.440 What do we know it isn't? Rigorous liquid chromatography 00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:44.019 and mass spectrometry have confirmed it does 00:18:44.019 --> 00:18:47.440 not contain psilocybin or psilocin. So no classic 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:49.700 magic mushrooms. Right. It also does not contain 00:18:49.700 --> 00:18:52.460 muscle or ibotenic acid. Okay. Because of this 00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:55.299 massive blind spot, researchers like Colin Domnauer 00:18:55.299 --> 00:18:58.440 and mycologist Bryn Dentinger, who is widely 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:00.180 considered one of the world's preeminent experts 00:19:00.180 --> 00:19:02.819 on bleak taxonomy, they have dedicated their 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:05.220 current research to isolating the compound. They've 00:19:05.220 --> 00:19:07.900 been running advanced animal assays using chemical 00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:10.880 extracts pulled directly from landmawa Asiatica. 00:19:11.059 --> 00:19:13.759 They started with behavioral studies on a rhesus 00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:16.559 monkey several years ago and have recently scaled 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:19.660 down to testing murine models. Mice, basically. 00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:22.240 And the behavioral outputs in the lab closely 00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:24.680 mirror the clinical presentations in the human 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.079 hospital data. What do the mice do? When the 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:29.720 mice are administered the Belete extract, their 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:33.119 locomotor activity spikes drastically. They exhibit 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:35.980 intense, erratic hyperactivity. Interesting. 00:19:36.220 --> 00:19:38.599 But that is quickly followed by a prolonged, 00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:42.779 highly uncharacteristic physical stupor that 00:19:42.779 --> 00:19:45.380 can last for up to two days. So the laboratory 00:19:45.380 --> 00:19:48.299 assays prove the extract is biologically active, 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:51.559 but isolating the specific molecule from that 00:19:51.559 --> 00:19:54.339 chemical soup is proving incredibly complex. 00:19:54.640 --> 00:19:57.559 Very complex. One of the initial hypotheses that 00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:00.440 gained traction among geneticists was horizontal 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:03.000 gene transfer. Right, horizontal gene transfer. 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:05.180 It's a fascinating mechanism where organisms 00:20:05.180 --> 00:20:08.000 essentially swap genetic material outside of 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:10.000 traditional reproduction. Like stealing code 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.150 from your neighbor. Exactly. Researchers hypothesize 00:20:13.150 --> 00:20:15.230 that millions of years ago, these boletes might 00:20:15.230 --> 00:20:16.990 have absorbed the biosynthetic gene clusters 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:19.930 responsible for producing hallucinogens directly 00:20:19.930 --> 00:20:22.390 from a neighboring psilocybe mushroom sharing 00:20:22.390 --> 00:20:24.890 the same soil ecosystem. That makes so much sense. 00:20:25.190 --> 00:20:27.289 It's an elegant theory. Genetic absorption happens 00:20:27.289 --> 00:20:29.170 in the fungal kingdom more frequently than you 00:20:29.170 --> 00:20:32.009 might expect. It makes logical sense. If it causes 00:20:32.009 --> 00:20:34.549 hallucinations, maybe it stole the blueprint 00:20:34.549 --> 00:20:36.750 for hallucinations from a known psychedelic. 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:40.190 Exactly. However, a comprehensive genomic analysis 00:20:40.190 --> 00:20:44.650 published in 2023 entirely dismantled that theory. 00:20:44.769 --> 00:20:47.329 Back to square one. Yep. Researchers sequenced 00:20:47.329 --> 00:20:50.089 the genomes of 12 of the 13 accepted species 00:20:50.089 --> 00:20:52.740 of Landmilla. They specifically hunted for the 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:55.619 known gene clusters that synthesize psilocybin 00:20:55.619 --> 00:20:58.380 and ibotenic acid. And the results were completely 00:20:58.380 --> 00:21:00.900 negative. The genetic architecture just isn't 00:21:00.900 --> 00:21:03.839 there. Which means we can entirely rule out the 00:21:03.839 --> 00:21:06.799 stolen gene hypothesis. Yes. Dennis McKenna, 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:09.240 a prominent pharmacognosist and psychedelic researcher, 00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:11.980 proposed an alternative pharmacological model. 00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:13.740 He theorized that the clinical presentation, 00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:16.220 specifically the true hallucinations where the 00:21:16.220 --> 00:21:18.000 user interacts with entities that aren't there, 00:21:18.140 --> 00:21:21.220 coupled with the extended stupor, closely resembles 00:21:21.220 --> 00:21:23.819 an anticholinergic delirium. If we connect this 00:21:23.819 --> 00:21:26.380 to the bigger picture, McKenna's theory is highly 00:21:26.380 --> 00:21:29.609 compelling. How so? When he suggests an anticholinergic 00:21:29.609 --> 00:21:32.190 delirium, he's pointing away from the classic 00:21:32.190 --> 00:21:36.009 serotonin 5 -HT2A pathways we see with tryptamines. 00:21:36.049 --> 00:21:38.670 The usual psychedelic route. Right. Instead, 00:21:38.990 --> 00:21:41.710 he's suggesting the presence of compounds that 00:21:41.710 --> 00:21:45.250 block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, similar 00:21:45.250 --> 00:21:48.089 to the tropane alkaloids found in Datura or deadly 00:21:48.089 --> 00:21:50.230 nightshade. Okay, that is a very different kind 00:21:50.230 --> 00:21:52.750 of trip. Very different. That mechanism induces 00:21:52.750 --> 00:21:55.730 a true waking dream state where the user completely 00:21:55.730 --> 00:21:58.609 loses the ability to distinguish the hallucination 00:21:58.609 --> 00:22:01.890 from baseline reality. But even with McKenna's 00:22:01.890 --> 00:22:04.970 hypothesis, the exact molecule remains elusive. 00:22:04.990 --> 00:22:08.470 The absence of known biosynthetic pathways and 00:22:08.470 --> 00:22:10.690 the failure to match the pharmacological effects 00:22:10.690 --> 00:22:13.690 to any currently cataloged compound leads us 00:22:13.690 --> 00:22:16.329 to a thrilling conclusion. we are almost certainly 00:22:16.329 --> 00:22:19.490 looking at an entirely novel, previously undiscovered 00:22:19.490 --> 00:22:21.990 class of hallucinogenic molecules. That is amazing. 00:22:22.309 --> 00:22:24.289 This isn't just a new species of mushroom. It 00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:26.269 represents a completely new branch of psychoactive 00:22:26.269 --> 00:22:28.970 chemistry hiding in plain sight. And this isn't 00:22:28.970 --> 00:22:31.509 an obscure mystery strictly confined to the high 00:22:31.509 --> 00:22:33.890 altitudes of Asia and the South Pacific. Not 00:22:33.890 --> 00:22:37.390 at all. Closely related landmallow species, specifically 00:22:37.390 --> 00:22:40.710 fungi like landmallow paludorosia and landmallow 00:22:40.710 --> 00:22:43.109 flavoruber, grow wild right across North America. 00:22:43.349 --> 00:22:46.509 Which immediately begs the question. If these 00:22:46.509 --> 00:22:48.569 related species are growing in our local forests, 00:22:48.769 --> 00:22:51.329 why aren't emergency rooms in the U .S. or Europe 00:22:51.329 --> 00:22:54.829 fielding reports of hikers experiencing Lilliputian 00:22:54.829 --> 00:22:57.430 hallucinations? Right. If they're in our backyard, 00:22:57.589 --> 00:23:00.450 why aren't people seeing tiny soldiers? It fundamentally 00:23:00.450 --> 00:23:03.410 comes down to deeply ingrained cultural foraging 00:23:03.410 --> 00:23:06.490 habits. In North America and Europe, there is 00:23:06.490 --> 00:23:10.410 a profound pervasive mycophobia, a cultural fear 00:23:10.410 --> 00:23:13.410 of wild mushrooms. We don't really forage the 00:23:13.410 --> 00:23:15.849 way they do in Yunnan. We don't. And there is 00:23:15.849 --> 00:23:19.029 a very specific, taut stigma against consuming 00:23:19.029 --> 00:23:21.549 any wild mushroom that rapidly changes color, 00:23:21.690 --> 00:23:24.329 especially those that oxidize to a vivid blue 00:23:24.329 --> 00:23:27.069 when bruised. In Western foraging traditions, 00:23:27.410 --> 00:23:29.869 that rapid blue staining is widely taught as 00:23:29.869 --> 00:23:32.650 a universal warning sign for toxicity. So because 00:23:32.650 --> 00:23:35.089 Western foragers are explicitly taught to avoid 00:23:35.089 --> 00:23:37.569 these specific blue -staining boletes, nobody's 00:23:37.569 --> 00:23:40.349 taking them home and undercooking them. Any psychoactive 00:23:40.349 --> 00:23:42.529 properties they might possess have simply flown 00:23:42.529 --> 00:23:46.049 completely under the radar. Precisely. The cultural 00:23:46.049 --> 00:23:50.049 filter is so strong that the data simply doesn't 00:23:50.049 --> 00:23:53.380 exist. They've been missed entirely by Western 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:56.339 recreational foragers and clinical toxicologists 00:23:56.339 --> 00:23:58.779 alike. It really makes you wonder how many times 00:23:58.779 --> 00:24:00.759 you might have stepped right over a completely 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.019 uncatalogued, mind -altering compound on a casual 00:24:04.019 --> 00:24:06.440 weekend hike. Probably more times than you'd 00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:09.440 think. So let's recap the breadth of this incredible 00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:13.099 deep dive. We started with a widely enjoyed premium 00:24:13.099 --> 00:24:16.559 culinary delicacy in Yunnan that requires exact 00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:19.220 thermal processing to prevent a multi -day psychological 00:24:19.220 --> 00:24:22.720 break. We traced the ethnobotanical records back 00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:25.559 to ancient Taoist texts promising transcendence 00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:28.559 via visions of tiny figures and carriages. We 00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.480 analyzed how Western scientific hubris prematurely 00:24:31.480 --> 00:24:33.500 dismissed the mushroom madness of indigenous 00:24:33.500 --> 00:24:36.359 tribes in Papua New Guinea only for those exact 00:24:36.359 --> 00:24:39.039 same highly specific visions to be corroborated 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:41.299 by populations. in the Philippines decades later. 00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:43.900 The pattern is undeniable. It is. And sitting 00:24:43.900 --> 00:24:45.740 at the center of all this data is a completely 00:24:45.740 --> 00:24:48.059 novel pharmacological mystery that continues 00:24:48.059 --> 00:24:49.960 to baffle the world's most advanced analytical 00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:52.799 chemists. Looking at the sheer scope of the sources 00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:54.839 we've unpacked today, I always come back to the 00:24:54.839 --> 00:24:58.160 same thought. What stands out to you? For me... 00:24:58.329 --> 00:25:01.029 It's the profoundly humbling realization that 00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:03.589 despite our advanced genome sequencing, our mass 00:25:03.589 --> 00:25:06.009 spectrometry, and our predictive protein models, 00:25:06.250 --> 00:25:08.690 modern science has barely scratched the surface 00:25:08.690 --> 00:25:11.680 of the natural world. We think we know everything, 00:25:11.819 --> 00:25:14.740 but we don't. Not even close. A completely novel, 00:25:14.940 --> 00:25:17.799 highly potent, mind -altering compound isn't 00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:20.079 buried in ice in Antarctica. It's sitting in 00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:22.480 a popular culinary dish, being served to global 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:24.660 diplomats in major metropolitan restaurants. 00:25:25.019 --> 00:25:27.319 So what does this all mean? I want to leave you 00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:29.460 with a final thought to mull over as you process 00:25:29.460 --> 00:25:32.700 all of this. If a heavily commercialized, widely 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:35.619 popular edible mushroom has successfully hidden 00:25:35.619 --> 00:25:38.259 a radically novel, hallucinogenic compound from 00:25:38.259 --> 00:25:40.289 the world's best scientific mind, for over a 00:25:40.289 --> 00:25:43.849 century? What other everyday foods, native plants, 00:25:43.990 --> 00:25:46.109 or common fungi growing right in our own backyards 00:25:46.109 --> 00:25:48.970 might possess hidden, profound, pharmacological 00:25:48.970 --> 00:25:51.630 properties? That's a fascinating question. Properties 00:25:51.630 --> 00:25:54.390 that are just waiting for the exact right, or 00:25:54.390 --> 00:25:57.690 exactly wrong, preparation to unlock them. The 00:25:57.690 --> 00:25:59.410 next time you're standing at the stove cooking 00:25:59.410 --> 00:26:02.589 dinner, just remember, the line between a delicious, 00:26:02.869 --> 00:26:05.650 savory meal and a multi -day visit from the little 00:26:05.650 --> 00:26:08.069 people might just be a matter of three minutes 00:26:08.069 --> 00:26:08.569 on the burner.