Penis Envy

Penis Envy

Origin:

Penis Envy Mushroom History

Legend has it that Penis Envy originated from an exceptionally large and healthy mushroom found deep in the Amazon Rainforest, by fabled ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants—Terence McKenna.

McKenna, with the help of indigenous guides, is said to have found (and sampled) a “colossal” patch of mushrooms growing deep in the rainforest. At the time (in the early 1970s) magic mushrooms had already been made illegal in most countries by the 1971 UN Psychotropic Substances Act, but mushroom spores were not actually prohibited by the Psychotropic Substances Act (as they contain no psilocybin or psilocin—the active compounds in magic mushrooms). So McKenna simply took several spore prints from this culture and sandwiched the innocuous purple-black prints between two microscopy slides, labeled the slides with a rare Agaricus genus name (an extra precaution), and boarded a flight to the USA. Luckily this smuggling operation went off without a hitch, and soon Terence was back in his home state of Colorado.

He soon began cultivating mushrooms from these prints, using some techniques he had learned in the Amazon, and developing some entirely new techniques (which would be featured in his 1976 book “Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Growers Guide”). In the spirit of sharing that is still to this day prevalent among psychedelic enthusiasts, McKenna also sent several prints from the exceptional Amazonian specimen to many of his ethno-mycologist colleagues.

One of these colleagues was Steven Pollock, a medical doctor who had a passion for psychedelic shrooms, and was 40 years ahead of his time in believing that they were “the most effective medicine” for the treatment of several psychological conditions. Pollock was also the first person to document the existence of Psilocybe Tampanensis (along with several other species). P. Tampanensis is a truffle-like species, best described as halfway between mycelium and mushroom, which is unique because it contains significantly higher mycelial psilocybin/psilocin concentration (as high as 0.6 percent by dry weight—almost comparable to the 0.8 percent average for Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms). Although Pollock is quite unknown, rarely credited for the several innovations that he contributed to human understanding of Psilocybin mushrooms, and was largely forgotten about after his 1981 murder, he can rest vindicated by the fact that the contributions that he risked his freedom and his life to make were not in vain, as both Psilocybe Tampanensis and Penis Envy Cubensis are now cultivated throughout the world, and are recognized as two of the most desirable Psilocybe varieties.