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Mycology @mander.xyz remotelove @lemmy.ca

Looking for book and information source recommendations.

Howdy y'all! I am diving extremely deep into mycology and am on a quest to catch up on all modern research on the subject. I recently discovered 21st Century Guidebook to Fungi (Free from the authors!! https://www.davidmoore.org.uk/21st_century_guidebook_to_fungi_platinum/) but I need MORE! I'll list out some conditions and wants to see if that gets me in the right direction.

  • I am looking for fairly advanced books that are college level or higher.

  • Diversity of authors and research is awesome. (Conflicting data between books is also not a problem as this is a "relatively new" field of study.)

  • Detailed information about genetics, breeding, etc.. Information about different methods to breed and cross fungi would be a huge plus. (I am entering this hobby with a minimal understanding of genetics. I do understand that Mendel only scratched the surface on genetics with highly controlled studies about peas and his theories have a metric ton of caveats.)

  • If anyone can recommend a good "bible" for mushroom identification, that would be great. I have one, but it is lacking. Any phone apps I have found are OK, but those are better supported with core knowledge first, me thinks. (Side note: I have been hearing rumors that identification of fungi may be slowly changing. While classification has typically been by fruit characteristics, that might not be the full story.)

  • Aside from a focus on genetics and identification, what books have you found to be super interesting? (How to Change Your Mind or Fantastic Fungi would be examples of something in the "interesting" category and may only be slightly related to mushrooms.)

  • What universities are on the forefront of research of fungi and psychedelics? UC Davis, UC Berkeley and a couple others have been releasing lectures and studies recently that are super interesting. (As a side-topic, I am enamored by the potential of psychedelics. While there is a great deal of spiritual self discovery to be had, I am super interested in the science behind it all.)

Thanks in advance for any information dump you can provide here!

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4 comments

  • Radical Mycology by Peter McCoy.

    I doesn't have much on genetics, and some chapters are dubious. But great book overall

  • All of terrence McKenna's books on mushrooms are interesting and his guide to growing psylocibin mushrooms is a classic.

    I really liked the ted talk Paul stamets did about mushrooms and the immune system featured in FF where the guy talks about his elderly mom beating stage 4 cancer with the potential help of turkey tails.

    I hate to be one of those philosophy bros but make sure you dont mention any spirituality/metaphysics talk within scientific circles especially if just starting out. While the potential science of psychedelics is fantastic, the metaphysical possibilities and questions that arise regarding consciousness when a psychonaut explores the farthest limits current of human cognition are topics that the majority of scientific community distains with an extreme passion.

    Lots and lots and lots of hardcore scientific determinist and just plain old athiest who use science as the complete foundation for their world view and convinence themselves that the the only aspects of reality are the ones that can be experimentally falsified and incorporated into a working physical and logical model. They dont have the balls to take a heroic dose of mushrooms and walk around nature for a day, but they'll sure sneer and judge you hard for voicing any subjective experiences you may have had doing so.

    • McKenna is a hoot. I have listened to a few of his talks and such and he has some unique viewpoints, for sure. I mildly subscribe to his ideas that spores can travel through space. It makes sense in some ways, actually. Now, if mushrooms are actually a higher intelligence of some kind remains to be seen. ;)

      Stamets is great and I listen to his talks when I can. He is not quite as wild as McKenna but he is still worth listening to. While I do believe there is a great deal we can learn about medicinal mushrooms of all types, Stamets tends to hype is company a little too much. (It's all good though. Everyone's gotta survive somehow.)

      FWIW, I believe more people should experiment with heroic dosages. While I am absolutely not religious, I can say that my perspective on the metaphysical has been wildly altered. The closest word I can use for it is spirituality, but it's not quite that deep. It's more of deep curiosity about a singular consciousness similar to what Schrodinger wrote about. (I only discovered that my speculation was actually a thing after I had already had a few very deep experiences.) Regardless, there is something extremely powerful about these experiences that needs to be explored further.

      Still, I am an engineer and I like to approach new subjects as such. There is a ton to learn about what we already know about fungi, but there is also a ton that we simply cannot explain.

      Edit: A healthy view on this subject is that there are some things that can easily be explained with study and theory. At the same time, there are many things that we won't even be able to begin to learn for many generations to come. A balance between those two frames of mind is a good thing.