What Are Magic Mushrooms?

Magic mushrooms are fungi that naturally produce psilocybin, a compound that can change perception, mood and thinking for several hours. More than a hundred species are known to contain it, growing on every continent except Antarctica. Most of what Canadians encounter today, including the strains on our dried mushroom shelf, belongs to a single species: Psilocybe cubensis.

This guide is our attempt to give you the whole picture in one place: where these mushrooms come from, what the science currently says, how experienced people approach them, and where the real risks lie. We have tried to be accurate rather than exciting. Where the evidence is early or uncertain, we say so, and we link to the original sources at the end so you can read them for yourself.

A very old relationship

People have used psilocybin mushrooms for a long time. The clearest historical record comes from Mesoamerica, where mushrooms held a sacred place in Indigenous ceremony long before European contact. Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century described Aztec mushroom rites and recorded the Nahuatl name teonanácatl, often translated as "flesh of the gods". Carved stone figures topped with mushroom caps, found in the highlands of Guatemala and southern Mexico, are widely read as evidence of an even older tradition, although their exact meaning is still debated by archaeologists.

Colonial authorities and the church suppressed these practices, but they survived quietly in the mountains of Oaxaca. Among the Mazatec people, healers known as curanderos continued to hold all-night mushroom ceremonies, called veladas, for healing and guidance.

How the West found out

The American banker and amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and his wife, the paediatrician Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, spent decades studying the place of mushrooms in folklore. In 1955 Gordon travelled to Huautla de Jiménez in Oaxaca, where he took part in a velada led by the Mazatec curandera María Sabina. His account, "Seeking the Magic Mushroom", ran in LIFE magazine in 1957 and introduced millions of North American readers to the idea of a mushroom that could open the mind.

The story has an uncomfortable side that deserves to be told alongside it. The publicity brought waves of outsiders to Huautla, and María Sabina, who had shared her ceremony in good faith, later faced hardship and resentment in her own community. Many writers now treat her story as a lesson in how sacred knowledge can be taken without care for the people who kept it. We think that lesson is worth remembering whenever mushrooms are discussed as a product.

From mushroom to molecule

The French mycologist Roger Heim identified and cultivated several of the Mexican species, and samples reached the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at Sandoz in Basel, already famous for synthesizing LSD. In 1958 Hofmann and his colleagues isolated the two active compounds and named them psilocybin and psilocin. Sandoz went on to supply synthetic psilocybin to researchers around the world, and for roughly a decade it was studied in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

That first wave of research ended in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when psychedelics became tangled up with the counterculture and were placed under strict international control. In Canada, psilocybin and psilocin were added to the schedules of what is now the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Serious clinical research went quiet for almost thirty years.

Terence McKenna and the counterculture

No account of mushroom culture is complete without Terence McKenna, the writer and speaker who did more than anyone to popularize Psilocybe cubensis from the 1970s to the 1990s. With his brother Dennis he published a widely read guide to home cultivation, and his talks and books made the mushroom a symbol of personal exploration.

McKenna is remembered for two ideas in particular. The first is the "heroic dose": his oft-repeated suggestion that a person take a large amount, commonly cited as five dried grams, alone in silent darkness, in order to meet the experience on its own terms. The second is the "stoned ape" theory, set out in his 1992 book Food of the Gods, which proposes that early humans eating psilocybin mushrooms may have helped spark the evolution of language and consciousness.

Both ideas need context. The stoned ape theory is a speculative hypothesis, not established science, and most anthropologists and evolutionary biologists do not accept it. The heroic dose is a strong dose that carries real psychological risk, and it is not where anyone should begin. McKenna was a gifted storyteller, and his work is best read as philosophy and provocation rather than as a dosing manual.

The modern research revival

Research resumed slowly in the 1990s and gathered pace in the 2000s. A landmark moment came in 2006, when a team led by Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins University published a carefully controlled study in which healthy volunteers received psilocybin in a supportive setting. Many participants rated the session as one of the most personally meaningful experiences of their lives, and those ratings held at follow-up two months later. The same paper also recorded that some volunteers felt significant fear or anxiety during the session, a reminder that even in ideal conditions the experience can be difficult.

Since then, research groups at Johns Hopkins, New York University, Imperial College London and many other institutions have studied psilocybin, given with psychological support, for conditions including depression, anxiety linked to serious illness and substance use. In 2016, companion trials at Johns Hopkins and NYU reported that a single high dose, given with support, was followed by lasting reductions in depression and anxiety in many people with life-threatening cancer. The same year, an Imperial College London team led by Robin Carhart-Harris published a small open-label study in treatment-resistant depression, followed in 2021 by a randomized trial in the New England Journal of Medicine comparing psilocybin with the antidepressant escitalopram. Some of these results are encouraging, but most studies so far have been small, and blinding is difficult when one group can tell it has received a psychedelic. These trials also use screened participants, pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin, trained therapists and medical oversight, which is very different from taking mushrooms at home. We cover the details in our safety guide and microdosing guide.

The writer Michael Pollan brought this research to a wide audience with his 2018 book How to Change Your Mind. Describing the careful preparation that clinical volunteers receive, he told NPR's Fresh Air that the guides "give you a set of flight instructions, as they call them, which is what to do if you get really scared" (NPR). That idea, that preparation is part of the experience and not an afterthought, runs through this whole guide.

How psilocybin works in the body

Psilocybin itself is what pharmacologists call a prodrug. After you swallow it, the body removes a phosphate group, mostly in the stomach, gut and liver, and converts it into psilocin. Psilocin is the compound that actually produces the effects.

Psilocin closely resembles serotonin, one of the brain's main chemical messengers, and it binds to several serotonin receptors. The most important is the 5-HT2A receptor, which is dense in the cerebral cortex. A well-known 1998 study by Franz Vollenweider and colleagues showed that blocking 5-HT2A receptors with another drug, ketanserin, largely prevented the psychological effects of psilocybin in volunteers. That finding is one of the main reasons researchers consider 5-HT2A activation central to the psychedelic experience.

The default mode network

Brain imaging has added another layer. The default mode network is a set of connected brain regions that is most active when we are not focused on the outside world: daydreaming, thinking about ourselves, replaying the past or rehearsing the future. In a 2012 study, Robin Carhart-Harris and colleagues in London used fMRI to scan volunteers on psilocybin and observed decreased activity and connectivity in key hubs of this network.

Michael Pollan describes the default mode network as "the part of the brain, it appears, where we incorporate things that happen to us" into our sense of self (NPR). One popular interpretation is that loosening this network may explain why people report a softened sense of self, fresh perspectives and feelings of connection. It is an elegant idea, but it is still a working model, and brain imaging findings in this field continue to be refined and debated.

What the experience is like

Effects vary widely from person to person and from one occasion to the next. Commonly reported changes include brighter colours and patterns, a deeper response to music, shifts in the sense of time, waves of emotion, unusual trains of thought and, at higher doses, a sense that the boundary between self and surroundings has softened. Physical effects can include nausea, yawning, changes in body temperature, dilated pupils and a raised heart rate and blood pressure.

Not every moment is pleasant. Anxiety, confusion, fear and paranoia are all possible, especially at higher doses or in an uncomfortable setting. These moments usually pass, and many people later describe difficult passages as some of the most valuable parts of the experience. They can also be genuinely distressing, which is why preparation and support matter so much.

Timing

With dried mushrooms on an empty or light stomach, effects usually begin within 20 to 60 minutes, build to a peak over the following hour or two and taper off over four to six hours in total. Tea can come on a little sooner. Chocolate, gummies and capsules can take longer, especially after a meal. Most people feel tired, reflective or simply ordinary the next day. Give yourself the whole day and an unhurried evening.

How dosing is usually described

There is no standard dose of a mushroom, because psilocybin content varies naturally. Published estimates for dried Psilocybe cubensis average around one percent psilocybin by weight, but individual batches can fall well below or above that. Different strains, growing conditions, drying and storage all play a part. Treat the ranges below as the rough language people use, not as instructions.

Microdose: a very small amount, often described as a tenth of a gram or less of dried mushroom, intended to be barely noticeable. See our microdosing guide.
Low dose: often described as around half a gram to one gram. Effects are usually noticeable but manageable.
Moderate dose: often described as one to two and a half grams. This is where many people have a full experience.
Strong dose: often described as three grams and above. Experiences at this level can be overwhelming, and the risk of a difficult time rises accordingly.

If you are new, begin at the low end of that range, or lower. With any new strain or batch, start smaller than you think you need. Never take more because you do not feel anything yet. Wait at least two hours, and in most cases simply try again on another day.

Ways to take them

Dried mushrooms can be eaten whole, ground into capsules, steeped into tea or taken as prepared products such as chocolate and gummies. Prepared products and capsules have the advantage of measured portions, which makes it much easier to start low and stay consistent. Our shelves for capsules, chocolate, gummies and tea all list how they are portioned on the packaging. Always read the label, because one brand's piece is not another brand's piece.

Strains

Most strains on the market are varieties of Psilocybe cubensis, bred and selected over generations for their appearance and growing habits. Golden Teacher is a classic with a gentle reputation. The Penis Envy family, including Penis Envy and Albino Penis Envy, is known for being stronger. Reputation is useful, but it is not a measurement. Potency varies from batch to batch within any strain, so every new bag deserves a cautious first try.

Set and setting

"Set" is your mindset going in. "Setting" is your physical and social environment. Together they shape the experience at least as much as the dose does. Choose a day when you feel steady and rested, not one when you are anxious, grieving or under pressure. Choose a private, familiar and comfortable space, with soft lighting, water, simple food and music you trust. For anything beyond a low dose, have a sober, trusted friend with you.

It also helps to know why you are doing this. Some people set a simple intention, such as curiosity, rest or reflection. An intention is not a goal to be achieved, just a gentle anchor to return to if the experience feels unfocused.

Integration

Integration is the practice of making sense of an experience afterwards. Researchers and therapists consistently treat it as an important part of the process. That can be as simple as writing down what you noticed, taking a quiet walk, talking with someone you trust, or giving an insight a few weeks to settle before acting on it. Big life decisions are best left until you have had time to reflect with a clear head.

If an experience leaves you unsettled for more than a few days, reach out to a health professional. There are also Canadian counsellors and therapists who offer psychedelic integration support without providing any substance.

Who should not use magic mushrooms

Do not use magic mushrooms if you are under 19, pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have a personal or close family history of psychosis, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Speak with a doctor before considering psilocybin if you have heart disease or high blood pressure, or if you take any prescription medication, especially antidepressants, lithium, antipsychotics or MAOIs. Our safety guide explains these interactions in detail.

The law in Canada

Psilocybin and psilocin are controlled substances under Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Health Canada states that activities such as possession, sale and production are illegal unless authorized. There are limited legal routes: authorized clinical trials, individual exemptions granted by the Minister of Health under section 56 of the Act, and, since January 2022, requests that a health care practitioner can make to the Special Access Program on behalf of a patient with a serious condition. None of these make psilocybin legal for general use.

Some municipalities and police services have treated psilocybin as a low priority, but that does not change federal law. You are responsible for knowing and following the laws where you live.

The bottom line

Magic mushrooms have a long human history, a fascinating pharmacology and a growing body of research behind them. They also deserve respect. Start low, choose your setting with care, avoid risky combinations, give yourself time to reflect afterwards and keep your expectations grounded in what the evidence actually shows.

Sources

This guide is general information, not medical or legal advice.

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