CHAPTER TWO

NATURAL HISTORY

Bemushroomed

AT THE END of my first meeting with Roland Griffiths, the session in his
Johns Hopkins office where he engaged me on the topics of his own
mystical experience, my assessment of the odds of an afterlife, and the
potential of psilocybin to change people’s lives, the scientist stood up
from his desk, unfolding his lanky frame, and reached into the pocket of
his trousers to take out a small medallion.
“A little gift for you,” he explained. “But first, you must answer a
question.
“At this moment,” Griffiths began, locking me in firm eye contact, “are
you aware that you are aware?” Perplexed, I thought for a long, self-
conscious moment and then replied in the affirmative. This must have
been the correct answer, because Griffiths handed me the coin. On one
side was a quartet of tall, slender, curving Psilocybe cubensis, one of the
more common species of magic mushroom. On the back was a quotation
from William Blake that, it occurred to me later, neatly aligned the way of
the scientist with that of the mystic: “The true method of knowledge is
experiment.”
It seems that the previous summer Roland Griffiths had gone for the
first time to Burning Man (had I heard of it?), and when he learned that
no money is exchanged in the temporary city, only gifts, he had the
mushroom medallions minted so he would have something suitable to
give away or trade. Now, he gives the coins to volunteers in the research
program as a parting gift. Griffiths had surprised me once again. Or
twice. First, that the scientist had attended the arts-and-psychedelics
festival in the Nevada desert. And, second, that he had seen fit in
choosing his gift to honor the psilocybin mushroom itself.