Shopping bag.

In 1955, an American ethnomycologist and banker by the name of Robert Gordon Wasson, travelled to Mexico to take part in an ancient shamanic healing ritual – a Velada – with Mazatec curandera María Sabina. He was one of the first Westerners to take part in the ritual, which used psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms as a vehicle for enlightenment (it later transpired that Wasson was funded by MK Ultra). Returning home, he wrote of the “magic mushroom,” coining the term now synonymous with psychedelic mushrooms in the Western world and unwittingly inspiring other Westerners to seek out Sabina and experience the magic for themselves. Blamed for attracting unwanted attention to her community, Sabina was ostracised and her house was burnt down.

Now, decades later, the West is finally harnessing on mass scale the magic that was once considered nothing more than counterculture, a trend driven by growing bodies of research by the likes of Paul Stamets of Netflix’s Fantastic Fungi, which touts the life and planet-saving potential of fungi, and Michael Pollan, whose book How to Change your Mind explores first-hand the psychological benefits of psychedelics, including magic mushrooms.

Categorically speaking, the West is late to the game. That’s why, when holistic nutritionist Tonya Papanikolov tells Semaine, matter-of-factly, that “mushrooms have always been mainstream,” there’s no arguing. In the Global South, mushrooms have been used, both spiritually and medicinally, for thousands of years. Significant fungi varieties, like reishi, were noted in the ancient Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) text, the Shennong Ben Cao Jing, which dates back to 200 AD. In TCM, mushrooms are used to cure ailments like digestive conditions, anxiety and insomnia.