The Mushroom Planet
Original title: El planeta de los hongos
A history about the use of psychedelic mushrooms and LSD, from the Stone Age to Silicon Valley
They appeared (arrived?) here millions of years before us. Hundreds of thousands of species exist, of which we are only aware of a small percentage. Their strategy consists of creating close relationships of coexistence, predation, and cooperation with their ecosystems. They possess an unsettling, disembodied mind that can communicate across great distances; they understand their environment and plan how to occupy it. They are fundamental for flora and fauna: if it weren't for them, our ground wouldn't be fertilized and dead matter wouldn't decompose, meaning the accumulation of waste would be uncontrollable. Without them we wouldn't have alcoholic beverages or penicillin, or hundreds of indispensable medications. And as if this wasn't enough, some of them produce—without anyone understanding why—substances with no apparent function that possess psychedelic properties capable of crossing the rigid blood-brain barrier: which is to say that when they are ingested, they alter our perception and mental function.
El planeta de los hongos is an essay about our history with these organisms. It is believed that before the appearance of Homo sapiens, hominids had visions, mystical experiences, pleasures, terrors, and revelations upon consuming them. If this is the case, mushrooms could be responsible, at least in part, for the expansion of the mind and the development of culture, technology, and religions. From ancient times, humans have used them in the Middle East, Siberia, Europe, Africa, Polynesia, and the Americas. This is an account of their unusual journey, their apparent disappearance and "rediscovery," the cultural explosion they caused in the second half of the 20th century, and the impact of their recent resurgence.
"Naief Yehya proposes: we are the stowaways on a planet that mushrooms have boarded from before we learned how to measure time." —Yuri Herrera
"Prose that is always clear and charismatic—and often hilarious." —Álvaro Enrigue
"In his passionate journey through the universe of sacred plants, Naief Yehya shares the unusual teachings of goblins, ants, shamans, and mycologists. Addiction to mushrooms does not exist. Addiction to this book is inevitable." —Juan Villoro
“This essay collection about mushrooms and the evolution of consciousness is delicious (…) Yehya's work was already in motion because the space it continues to occupy: a curiosity for the unusual in mass culture, expressed in prose that is always clear and charismatic—often hilarious. El planeta de los hongos is no exception” —Álvaro Enrigue, ABC
“El planeta de los hongos. Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos by Naief Yehya chronicles the journey of fungal psychedelia from the Stone Age to Silicon Valley. As a cyber journalist since the early 1990s, the author observed the proliferation of hallucinogens among the engineers, developers, and programmers who created the tech industry: much of what they began to invent, and which shapes the world today, was inspired by fungal psychedelia. In other words, the internet is, in part, the fruit of magic mushrooms.” —Sergio C. Fanjul, Babelia, El País
“From ayahuasca to the fly agaric (which may have been the ancient soma of the Indo-Aryan civilization), or to peyote and psilocybe—their cultural history is perfectly chronicled in Naief Yehya's El planeta de los hongos.” —Alexis Racionero, La Vanguardia
“The narrator, engineer, cultural critic, and pornographographer Naief Yehya explores the links that humans have established with this kingdom throughout centuries in El planeta de los hongos: Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos. From paleolithic tribes who gathered species of psilocybe from reindeer feces to the entrepreneurs that microdose on hallucinogens from the trenches of their office cubicles with the desire to amplify their creative capability, the Mexican author traverses the anthropological story that mushrooms have protagonized. By also delving into their pharmacological effects at the same time, it offers an overview of the relationship of the human brain with reality.” —Ángel Mora, El Español
“A passionate, erudite study with a ‘skeptical and open mind’ that sheds great light and honesty while undertaking such an enigmatic topic.” —Revista Mercurio
“El planeta de los hongos: Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos is a brief but very complete essay about the history of mushrooms—from the beginning of time to the current day—and how they have always been with us and of all of the things they have provided to us. Some as important to our culture and life as penicillin or alcoholic beverages.” —Juanjo Villalba, El Periódico
"Writing this was no small task, because mushrooms have been on this planet at least as long as humans, and their history is therefore long, but Yehya has overcome the difficulties and offers us a serious essay that lives up to expectations." —Francisco Rodríguez Criado, El Debate
"El planeta de los hongos is an essay, so to speak, made in the 21st Century—cold, analytical, less experiential than those of yesteryear, but generous and even-handed in its vast transmission of knowledge. Naief Yehya doesn't make a fiery counterrevolutionary apology for the use of psychedelic mushrooms, but he doesn't condemn them either. In short, we are talking about a quasi-encyclopedic book—despite being short—that is scientific and serene, and one that reflects from behind the scenes on the libertarian social movements that marked part of the second half of the last century (...) This work will please curious readers, and could be a must-have for mushroom lovers" —Francisco Rodríguez Criado, El Debate
"The Mexican essayist and industrial engineer goes beyond the hype and explores in depth how these incredible organisms have driven religious and existential experiences around the world for thousands of years, while shaping scientific traditions and disciplines: hallucinogenic mushrooms are intertwined with the social, cultural, and technological changes of humanity." —Federico Kukso, SINC Agency
"This work takes a mind-bending, critical, and well-documented tour of the history of mushrooms in our civilization, as well as their unique characteristics that make them entities of prodigious intelligence, as Naief defines them. The book is highly recommended." —Sofía Gómez, Vagabunda Mx Magazine
"A book that fills a gap in Spanish-language literature amid the resurgence of psychedelic culture in the West, primarily in the United States. But this is an essay that goes beyond how psychedelic mushrooms and psychedelia have shaped our culture, but also how they have fueled the cyberdelia that rules the world and our most everyday technology. —El Universal
"Naief Yehya invites us not to lose sight of the fact that, in the midst of this mystery, we live on the planet of mushrooms, where we are strange, dirty visitors, confused by our disconnection from them." —El Universal
"Planet of Mushrooms, a demystifying essay that attempts to clarify why without them, life on the planet would be practically impossible." —Héctor González, Crónica de Xalapa
"Yehya weaves a cultural history of the relationship between mushrooms and humans from different angles: from biological and anthropological to neuroscientific and therapeutic, including politics, technology, religion, and the great philosophical questions." -- Eugenia Coppel, Gatopardo
"In opposition to the fungal world, plagued by psychonauts who proclaim a return to natural states, Yehya draws on all his Latin American postmodern experience to question the link between fungi—those beings whose origin is unknown when it comes to whether they are animal or plant, and which have been present in the world for millions of years—and that other, much more recent invention called the digital world." —Fernando Krapp, La Agenda
A history about the use of psychedelic mushrooms and LSD, from the Stone Age to Silicon Valley
They appeared (arrived?) here millions of years before us. Hundreds of thousands of species exist, of which we are only aware of a small percentage. Their strategy consists of creating close relationships of coexistence, predation, and cooperation with their ecosystems. They possess an unsettling, disembodied mind that can communicate across great distances; they understand their environment and plan how to occupy it. They are fundamental for flora and fauna: if it weren't for them, our ground wouldn't be fertilized and dead matter wouldn't decompose, meaning the accumulation of waste would be uncontrollable. Without them we wouldn't have alcoholic beverages or penicillin, or hundreds of indispensable medications. And as if this wasn't enough, some of them produce—without anyone understanding why—substances with no apparent function that possess psychedelic properties capable of crossing the rigid blood-brain barrier: which is to say that when they are ingested, they alter our perception and mental function.
El planeta de los hongos is an essay about our history with these organisms. It is believed that before the appearance of Homo sapiens, hominids had visions, mystical experiences, pleasures, terrors, and revelations upon consuming them. If this is the case, mushrooms could be responsible, at least in part, for the expansion of the mind and the development of culture, technology, and religions. From ancient times, humans have used them in the Middle East, Siberia, Europe, Africa, Polynesia, and the Americas. This is an account of their unusual journey, their apparent disappearance and "rediscovery," the cultural explosion they caused in the second half of the 20th century, and the impact of their recent resurgence.
"Naief Yehya proposes: we are the stowaways on a planet that mushrooms have boarded from before we learned how to measure time." —Yuri Herrera
"Prose that is always clear and charismatic—and often hilarious." —Álvaro Enrigue
"In his passionate journey through the universe of sacred plants, Naief Yehya shares the unusual teachings of goblins, ants, shamans, and mycologists. Addiction to mushrooms does not exist. Addiction to this book is inevitable." —Juan Villoro
“This essay collection about mushrooms and the evolution of consciousness is delicious (…) Yehya's work was already in motion because the space it continues to occupy: a curiosity for the unusual in mass culture, expressed in prose that is always clear and charismatic—often hilarious. El planeta de los hongos is no exception” —Álvaro Enrigue, ABC
“El planeta de los hongos. Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos by Naief Yehya chronicles the journey of fungal psychedelia from the Stone Age to Silicon Valley. As a cyber journalist since the early 1990s, the author observed the proliferation of hallucinogens among the engineers, developers, and programmers who created the tech industry: much of what they began to invent, and which shapes the world today, was inspired by fungal psychedelia. In other words, the internet is, in part, the fruit of magic mushrooms.” —Sergio C. Fanjul, Babelia, El País
“From ayahuasca to the fly agaric (which may have been the ancient soma of the Indo-Aryan civilization), or to peyote and psilocybe—their cultural history is perfectly chronicled in Naief Yehya's El planeta de los hongos.” —Alexis Racionero, La Vanguardia
“The narrator, engineer, cultural critic, and pornographographer Naief Yehya explores the links that humans have established with this kingdom throughout centuries in El planeta de los hongos: Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos. From paleolithic tribes who gathered species of psilocybe from reindeer feces to the entrepreneurs that microdose on hallucinogens from the trenches of their office cubicles with the desire to amplify their creative capability, the Mexican author traverses the anthropological story that mushrooms have protagonized. By also delving into their pharmacological effects at the same time, it offers an overview of the relationship of the human brain with reality.” —Ángel Mora, El Español
“A passionate, erudite study with a ‘skeptical and open mind’ that sheds great light and honesty while undertaking such an enigmatic topic.” —Revista Mercurio
“El planeta de los hongos: Una historia cultural de los hongos psicodélicos is a brief but very complete essay about the history of mushrooms—from the beginning of time to the current day—and how they have always been with us and of all of the things they have provided to us. Some as important to our culture and life as penicillin or alcoholic beverages.” —Juanjo Villalba, El Periódico
"Writing this was no small task, because mushrooms have been on this planet at least as long as humans, and their history is therefore long, but Yehya has overcome the difficulties and offers us a serious essay that lives up to expectations." —Francisco Rodríguez Criado, El Debate
"El planeta de los hongos is an essay, so to speak, made in the 21st Century—cold, analytical, less experiential than those of yesteryear, but generous and even-handed in its vast transmission of knowledge. Naief Yehya doesn't make a fiery counterrevolutionary apology for the use of psychedelic mushrooms, but he doesn't condemn them either. In short, we are talking about a quasi-encyclopedic book—despite being short—that is scientific and serene, and one that reflects from behind the scenes on the libertarian social movements that marked part of the second half of the last century (...) This work will please curious readers, and could be a must-have for mushroom lovers" —Francisco Rodríguez Criado, El Debate
"The Mexican essayist and industrial engineer goes beyond the hype and explores in depth how these incredible organisms have driven religious and existential experiences around the world for thousands of years, while shaping scientific traditions and disciplines: hallucinogenic mushrooms are intertwined with the social, cultural, and technological changes of humanity." —Federico Kukso, SINC Agency
"This work takes a mind-bending, critical, and well-documented tour of the history of mushrooms in our civilization, as well as their unique characteristics that make them entities of prodigious intelligence, as Naief defines them. The book is highly recommended." —Sofía Gómez, Vagabunda Mx Magazine
"A book that fills a gap in Spanish-language literature amid the resurgence of psychedelic culture in the West, primarily in the United States. But this is an essay that goes beyond how psychedelic mushrooms and psychedelia have shaped our culture, but also how they have fueled the cyberdelia that rules the world and our most everyday technology. —El Universal
"Naief Yehya invites us not to lose sight of the fact that, in the midst of this mystery, we live on the planet of mushrooms, where we are strange, dirty visitors, confused by our disconnection from them." —El Universal
"Planet of Mushrooms, a demystifying essay that attempts to clarify why without them, life on the planet would be practically impossible." —Héctor González, Crónica de Xalapa
"Yehya weaves a cultural history of the relationship between mushrooms and humans from different angles: from biological and anthropological to neuroscientific and therapeutic, including politics, technology, religion, and the great philosophical questions." -- Eugenia Coppel, Gatopardo
"In opposition to the fungal world, plagued by psychonauts who proclaim a return to natural states, Yehya draws on all his Latin American postmodern experience to question the link between fungi—those beings whose origin is unknown when it comes to whether they are animal or plant, and which have been present in the world for millions of years—and that other, much more recent invention called the digital world." —Fernando Krapp, La Agenda