The task that we face today is to understand the language of nature. - Paul Stamets
The world of fungi
Do you often think about fungi? I don't mean only mushrooms, but fungi as a whole. You know, yeasts, rusts, smuts, mildews, molds, and many others. If you are in the majority, your answer will be brief and composed of a single word, no. I am part of this broad group of people, although I enjoy eating mushrooms. I also know that some of them have healing properties, some are poisonous, whereas those that have psychedelic effects are used in religious rites, mystical experiences, and most recently (after a hiatus of 50 years) in the treatment of medical diseases. I must confess that I have not been interested in fungi or mycology, a branch of science dedicated to them. But this changed after I heard about the film Fantastic Fungi, which made its debut in cinemas in 2019.
The well-known New York Times published a critique of the film shortly after the screening, and piqued the imagination with the statement, "Louie Schwartzberg’s lightly informative, delightfully kooky documentary offers nothing less than a model for planetary survival." * For my part, I didn't get a chance to watch this film until recently, thanks to Netflix. What to say. The film is a feast for the eyes because of the time-lapse technique that enables the viewer to experience the rapid growth of fungi and mushrooms and enjoy watching other slow processes that would not be interesting without this technique. The celebrated filmmaker perfected the time-lapse technique, but it took him 15 years to finish shooting the film. The film is rich not only visually, but also thematically, and of course narratively. The narration of actress Brie Larson gives a voice to fungi, uttering phrases such as: "When you sense the oneness you are with us," which may refer to the symbiotic nature of these organisms. The film includes interviews with renowned amateur mycologist Paul Stamets, scientist Suzanne Simard, authors Michael Pollan and Eugenia Bone, integrative medicine practitioner Andrew Weil, psychiatrist Charles Grab, doctors from John Hopkins Hospital, and many other experts.
With this film, we enter a world where fungi are responsible for the cleaning up of contaminated land and the restoration of decimated forests. They decompose the dead matter and return it to the life cycle as nutrients for new growth. The film is described as " a time-lapse journey about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth." ** The subtitle of the movie (The Magic Below Us) points us to that magical place. Namely, fungi are mysterious, "timid", in relation to plants, because they grow mostly underground. Even though I was familiar with mycelium, I did not understand the importance and prevalence of this immense network of fungal filaments. The mycelium can stretch for miles and plays a complex role in natural ecosystems.
The film states there is evidence that the first multi-cellular organism in the evolution of life on Earth was a mycelium found in lava layers in South Africa. It is 2.4 billion years old! Fungi predated animals and facilitated plant growth on land. Scientists estimate that there are more than 1,5 million species of fungi, and we only know about one percent of them. It is the astounding neglect this film tries to correct. And succeeds. There is now quite a movement in which one can become involved through the website *** and other media, thanks to modern technology.
Explorers
One of the film's main protagonists is Paul Stamets, a mycologist and entrepreneur who became known after the TED talk, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World. His presence as a guide throughout the film leaves the impression of a guru. He leads us into the personal story of a former lumberjack and stutterer who could not look others in the eye. He has undergone transformation by focusing on the world of fungi and their various uses. In the film, we learn that the psychedelic mushroom cured his stuttering. Consequently, he became an entrepreneur using fungi to help the survival of bees, clean the environment from toxic products, and many other purposes. He even saved his mother’s life with the medicinal mushroom. In a recent interview with Newsweek, he discussed the unexpected new role of fungi. He reported: "In laboratories, you can grow massive amounts of mycelium and use it as a substitute for meat. We also have a grant from NASA right now on astromycology—on growing fungi on asteroids and the idea of creating soils on other planets for human habitation. But moreover, mycelium is about 80-85 percent carbon, and carbon nanowires are very good for storing electricity. And then with solar panels, you could use the structures as giant nano batteries because of all the nanofibers that are in there, and so these can become fuel cells.” ****
Suzanna Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, is also prominently featured in the film because of her research related to the importance of mycelium in forests. Using radioisotopes and following their journey through the underground mycelial network, she confirmed that there is communication between the trees. She points out: "The biggest and oldest trees, the mother trees, have the largest root systems intertwined with the fungi and they, therefore, connect with more trees. We often think of kin selection or kin recognition as animal behavior, but our research is showing that these mother trees also recognize their own kin, the seedling offspring, through these fungi networks and communicate with each other through carbon. Carbon is their universal language. The stronger trees support the weaker ones by regulating the flow of carbon between them. If a mother tree knows there are pests around and her offspring is in danger, she will increase the competitive environment." *****
Other scientists, who do not appear in the film, supplement our knowledge of the fungi kingdom. One of them is Merlin Sheldrake, who is attracted to these astonishingly diverse organisms that eat rocks, build soil, digest pollutants, feed and kill plants, survive in space, produce food, make medicines, manipulate animal behavior and influence the composition of the Earth atmosphere. He writes: "Plants make their food, turning the world around them into nutrients. Animals have to find their food. But fungi essentially get theirs by secreting digestive enzymes into the environment and absorbing everything nearby: a rotten apple, an old trunk, an animal corpse. If you've ever looked closely at a moldy piece of bread, what looks like a layer of flakes are actually millions of miniature tops of mold hyphae, which are hastily decomposing matter." ****** Sheldrake further notes that the tops of the hyphae of the mycelium communicate with each other, making decisions without the control center.
Japanese used to experiment with slime molds. They designed a nutrient maze replicating Tokyo’s subway system. Then they let the slime mold grow. First, it grew randomly, exploratory. After about 24 hours it reorganized itself in the most efficient way possible which the Japanese used to re-create the subway system into a more efficient one. Paul Stamets exclaimed: “This is the demonstration of cellular intelligence.” *******
Healing properties
And now let me focus a little more on the medicinal properties of fungi. They have the capacity to strengthen our immune system and help treat cancer, and inflammation, not to mention their anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. Just think of penicillin and other antibiotics. Then there's a mushroom with the interesting name, lion mane, with the ability to stimulate nerve regeneration, which could be used in treating Alzheimer's disease. Let me mention again the mother of Paul Stamets who has recovered from stage 4 breast cancer after taking a turkey tail mushroom. Apparently, medicinal mushrooms are among the most commonly prescribed anticancer natural products. They have been traditionally used for health promotion and longevity in China and other East Asian countries for centuries. All of us would benefit from eating shiitake, maitake, reishi, and other medicinal mushrooms due to their antitumor and immunostimulant properties.
The film also features psychedelic mushrooms, pointing toward research that suggests they have untapped potential for treating mental disorders and other conditions. In the touching sequence of the film, terminally ill patients recount how psilocybin helped them find peace in the face of death. Researchers from the John Hopkins Hospital, which has been leading the revival of psychedelic drug use since 2000, were featured. They have established the Center for Research on Psychedelics and Consciousness, with a focus on how psychedelics affect behavior, mood, cognition, brain function, and biological markers of health. Clinical trials are underway to determine the effectiveness of psilocybin as a new therapy for opiate addiction, Alzheimer's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa, alcoholism, depression, and others. Even conservative regulators like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have granted psilocybin "breakthrough" therapy designation.
One interesting and controversial topic presented in the film is the so-called stoned ape hypothesis, which tries to unravel the enigma of how the human brain tripled in size two million years ago. The explanation begins with our ancestors, who left the forest because of climate change and came into the savanna in search of food. According to the stoned ape hypothesis, these proto-humans consumed psychedelic mushrooms found in the wild. They experienced a profound effect on the brain by developing new states of consciousness under the influence of psilocybin which is known to activate neurogenesis and create new nerve pathways. It is speculated that a known synesthetic effect of psilocybin impacted the development of language and creative thinking. While this hypothesis is impossible to prove, there is some support for it in neuroscience research studies.
Ecology
The most important and omnipresent message of the film is that of the interconnection of all that exists. Stunning visual elements emphasize this message. "I love what they represent," says director Schwarzberg. "Mycelial nets and mushrooms can heal the planet, they can heal our body. They can even change our consciousness. All ecosystems are interconnected. So the message at the end of the film is that the community survives better than individuals. These are instructions for using nature. This mycelial network is a common underground economy without greed, where ecosystems flourish. It is a blueprint right under our feet, whether it is politics, society, or culture." ***
These words speak to my soul. I have always felt the strongest spiritual sense within nature, in the wilderness. I believe, together with ecopsychologists and environmentalists, that if our sense of self is enlarged to include the natural world, the conduct leading to the destruction of this world will be experienced as self-destruction. The great naturalist E.O. Wilson indicates that we have an innate emotional connection to all living organisms. He calls it biophilia. If you want to witness it, watch children in their first years of interaction with animals and other living organisms. But because our culture is unbalanced in relation to nature, everything changes as they grow, and everything concerning our lives is affected, including our mental health. Some in the mental health community turned to indigenous cultures, whose healing methods for "troubled souls" include trees and rivers, sun and stars. Nature-based therapy is born out of the belief that people are part of the network of life and that our psyches and bodies are not isolated or separated from our surroundings. Ecotherapy is rooted in the idea of interaction and connectivity of all parts of the biosphere network to form a complex synergistic and self-regulatory system. Apparently, organisms that improve the environment for their survival are more successful than those that damage the surroundings. If this is correct fungi have a much better chance to continue to live than we do, because, to use the words of David Abram, "the more-than-human world" is out there. We as a human community need to develop ecological intelligence and cultivate empathy for all life forms and understand how nature sustains life. There is no alternative because science now recognizes that we are born of an ecosystem, that we live in an ecosystem, and that we must support it. The film Fantastic Fungi is in line with this view.
* Catsoulis, Jeannette, New York Times, 11 Oct 2019
***** Fantastic Fungi, by Paul Stamets, Simon & Schuster, 2019
****** Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake, Random House, 2020
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