Film Creates a Shift Consciousness

We are all connected, and sometimes we just need to be reminded. And once we tap into that revelation, it becomes clear that we must protect what we love.  

The gift of the mushroom reveals how we are all interconnected. That’s the message of Fantastic Fungi, now available to rent or own on Apple TV.

A Change In Perspective

Filmmaking is one way to bring the shift in consciousness we all need.

“Cinema has been described as an engine of empathy because it allows you to see the world through the eyes of someone else,” said Jason Silva during the “A Shift in Consciousness” panel discussion for Fungi Day. “That’s a metaphysical technology that puts you in the feet of another person. It’s really magical.”

 Fungi Day is an annual opportunity to learn about the history and power of mushrooms.

This virtual panel included Jason Silva, Francoise Bourzat, IN-Q, Jeremy Narby, and Paul Stamets, exploring how mushrooms have been used by indigenous populations both spiritually and medicinally for millennia.

Therapist and author Francoise Bourzat has studied the relationships that indigenous Mexicans have with mushrooms. She notes that “their interfacing with nature is inherently part of their practice with the mushroom. It’s part of their cosmology.”

Modern healthcare practitioners, on the other hand, are just beginning to understand their power.  Jeremy Narby agreed. He’s spent his life studying how different cultures think about ideas like viruses and plant medicine. 

“The logic of viruses and virology and these invisible entities that surround us and then grow in the human body and that can cause harm and that can travel all around the world has been understood by the Shamanic Amazonian people for a long time. But when the first Western observers got there and heard them talk about these things, they just said ‘these people are crazy.’”

Alongside holistic healthcare professionals, scientists and researchers are interested in the role that mushrooms play in agriculture and ecosystems. Without the obvious contributions that crops like corn produce, mushrooms have flown under the radar of mainstream horticulturalists for years. But seekers from all walks of life have always used mushrooms as a way to overcome self and connect with nature.

Jason Silva, futurist and storyteller, observes that “the time is absolutely ripe for experiences that take us out of ourselves.” Mushrooms are especially effective at this because “they allow us to tune away from the broadcast of the ego and instead tune into the broadcast of the whole …  So you have a little more of an unmediated experience of the world and you have less of an identification with self.”

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