http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2154.html

Mushrooms were the topic of Paul Stamets’ stirring speech, which received the loudest, most enthusiastic
applause of the entire conference. The world is covered in a network of mycelium, said Stamets, a small underground web of mushroom “roots”.

“Mycelium is sentient. It is a part of the mindscape of Gaia, an overlying mosaic of neural membranes,”
he said, showing with slides how mycelia looks exactly like the neural network of the human brain. He also showed how mycelia seek and destroy bacteria like E Coli, how they break down diesel and oil, making fungi ideal for cleaning up spills. He pointed to the lowly slime mold, and its eerie ability to navigate a maze in search of food, “choosing the best possible route.” He also suggested that mushrooms may be some kind of Gaian secret agents.

“Mycelium responds to catastrophe,” Stamets said. “As we chop wood and build houses, psilocybe [psychoactive] mushrooms grow in the disturbed areas. The psilocybe mushrooms are following
the activities of humans. It is no coincidence.”

Stamets believes that a part of mushrooms’ secret-agent role is to save the world from human folly by
helping us to evolve more environmentally conscious ways of living. He told how taking magic mushrooms unfolded the mystery of the many uses of fungi to him. He described how he used non-psychoactive fungi to rid his home of termites, a patented process that would replace harmful pesticides
and for which he is now being offered large sums of money. He also explained how he uses mushrooms to rehabilitate forests near watersheds, by creating a mycelial network along logging roads that filters fish-killing silt before it can leak into their marine habitats.

There were many other earth-shattering revelations at the conference, which took eight sessions to complete and lasted three days. Alexander Shulgin, famed entheogenic researcher, author of Phikal and creator of MDMA (ecstasy) and many other empathic psychedelics, presented his latest research on the biochemical content of psychedelic San Pedro cacti, showing us indecipherable chromatographic charts and explaining how picking San Pedro at different times of the day could give you slightly different highs.