Australian Psychedelic Society

Fabulous Fungi

The following slideshow was prepared by Michael Bock and presented at the 2019 Melbourne Mushroom day at Inspiro community hub in Belgrave.

Michael Bock is also featured on the EGA YouTube channel.

Melbourne – Fungimentary and Mushroom Workshops

Tickets

We’re heading to the hills once again to talk all things mushroom!

Winter means mushroom foraging for a growing number of Victorians seeking culinary delights, mycological intrigue or psychedelic venture. But those seeking psychedelic venture have also been the target of authorities for a number of decades.

For Western Australians, a small southern regional town has been the battleground between shroomers, authorities and locals for a number of decades.

Fungimentary: The Magic Mushrooms of Balingup

Is an award winning Australian made documentary, first broadcast on SBS in 1995 looking into this strange stand-off.
We’ve had the film re-mastered and are bringing it to the big screen in Belgrave, in the historic Cinema 1, first built in the 1930’s.

Following the film, we’ll be taking a look at some of the themes that were raised and looking at what has and especially what hasn’t changed since the documentary was made in the mid-90’s.

Fungimentary is on YouTube. Come and watch it on the big screen and take part in our discussion following the movie.

PANEL: Australian Psilocybe Culture in the 21st Century

Outside of the important discussions on the medical potential of psilocybin, we have a scheduled substance that has very little black market for supply. Instead, interested people are required to learn about how to identify it correctly or grow it themselves in order to obtain it.

This has meant that an entire culture has grown around these mushrooms over the past few decades, especially as information has become more accessible online.

This is a very different drug culture with a very different structure to the entire supply chain than cocaine-running submarines, deforestation for safrole production, corrupt intelligence services providing military support for drug distribution and the myriad other multi-million dollar distribution operations that are at the centre of global prohibition efforts and debate.

Though the law treats all these substances the same, psilocybe mushrooms sit somewhere else.

We know they have medical potential, but beyond that, they have a potential which is trivialised by the word ‘recreational’.

Though the places they can take us can be frightening, those altered worlds are also densely fascinating and provide the sort of intellectual fodder that I suspect most people get from more traditional spiritual or religious pursuits.

They are also tools for philosophers and scientists alike, with several philosophers touching on the way the psychedelic experience helps them explore and understand the nature of the mind and what this means for perception.

PANELISTS:

Michael Bock

Longtime researcher of Australasian flora, Michael has presented many varied topics at the EGA conferences and at previous Australian Psychedelic Society events, all based on an aspect of Australasian natural history to bring his research to a wider audience.

Greg Kasarik

Psychedelic activist and mystic. Described by The Age newspaper as, “a drug user who is probably too honest for his own good”, Greg Kasarik is a drug law reform advocate, who is open and honest about his use of Enthogens for spiritual and religious purposes. Since 2010, he has been campaigning for the Victorian Government to provide regulated access to “Transcendent Compounds” for these purposes and as part of this campaign, he has completed a 28 day Hunger Strike and publicly taken LSD four times on the steps of the Victorian parliament house, after having announced his intentions to all members of the Victorian Parliament.

Hear Greg on 3CR’s Enpsychedelia

Jessie Murray

Former DanceWize NSW coordinator and advocate for sensible reforms to our drug laws, Jessie is also an amazing artist and performer. Jessie works tirelessly to support the building of resilient and strong communities that can take care of themselves and overcome many of the problems within themselves.

Dancewize NSW coordinator Jess Murray handing out orange slices to the crowds at Grow Your Own.

(ABC)

Meredith Louise

Meredith is a musician, Registered Music Therapist and psychotherapist with a breadth of experience. As well as her private work, Meredith has experience working in early childhood, community, mental health, gender equity, and the disability sector. She has facilitated Music Therapy groups in adult mental health and with drug and alcohol inpatient therapy groups.

Meredith has a private practice in Guided Imagery and Music therapy, a form of music psychotherapy that developed out of LSD research in the 1960s. She works with a holistic approach to address the needs of her clients and special interests include LGBTQIA+ issues, healing from trauma, relationships and spiritual issues. Meredith also works with Australian Psychedelic Society, facilitating integration workshops for people who have had challenging psychedelic experiences.

Workshop

For those looking for some hands-on experience, we’ll be holding a workshop next door at the Inspiro Communiy Hub (the one with the mushrooms out the front, of course) on mushroom cultivation and identification.
Our experts will guide you through the cultivation process so you can start growing your own culinary mushrooms at home and teach you how to properly identify mushrooms in the wild, so you can find the mushrooms you’re looking for and look after the environment that you’re in too.

We’ll be running two sessions of the workshop, one in the morning and one in the evening. Spaces are limited, so book quick!

Morning Session:
11am – 1pm

Evening Session:
5pm – 7pm

Mushroom Day Activities

We welcome you to spend the day in Belgrave and surrounds, join us for the movie and perhaps a workshop and check out our range of psychedelic stalls. There will be further announcements of activities on the day leading up to the event.

Apply for a stall here:

Tickets

APS & SSDP at Rainbow Serpent Festival

WHEN: 11am – 1pm Monday 29th January

WHERE: The Solar Cinema, Lifestyle Village – Rainbow Serpent Festival

The session will include some short talks from members of APS and SSDP, then will evolve into a psychedelic story telling session.

Bring your tales to share!

Pictured: Psychedelic stories at EGA 2017 Psychedelic Symposium