MwtM Darren Le Baron (Audio Only) v1
Hey, good morning, Darren. How do we go ahead this morning? Medicine with the metals today. You know, we have our guest, Darren LeBron, very, very involved with the psilocybin microdosing, all mushrooms in general space.
And why don’t we go ahead and let him introduce himself this morning. Good morning, Darren, how are you? All right, cool, man. So yeah, I’m Darren LeBron.
I wear many hats, I guess, based upon this invitation to share on your platform. I wear my psychedelic or entheogenic or entomicological, my mycological hat, you know. So basically, what does that mean? I teach and about mushrooms, psychedelics, and the sports.
That’s what I do. How long you been in this space for? How long you been interested in this healing experiences? Oh, interested. Since birth, man, I’ve been a 5, 6, 7 year old, like trying to work this stuff out, trying to work myself out, trying to work out this experience that we’re in, we call earth and life and all the rest of it.
So as a seven year old, I’m very conscious of trying to be Spider Man and activating my powers, understand that we had powers. And, you know, I guess they felt they were dormant inside of me. With that said, I wanted to activate them.
And I guess the key word being healing, I need to heal slash activate myself. So I’ve been doing this for a while, man. And in the public space for over 30 years, been teaching and sharing and introducing people from, you know, different healing modalities and practices to the community that I come from in the UK.
And in addition to that, you know, I’ve been teaching and sharing about psychedelics and mushrooms about 15 years now. I love it. Love it so much.
So let’s just really jump into the basics because that’s what we’re here for. A lot of people really are looking for better ways or, you know, there’s not a lot of trust in Western medicine anymore. I think it’s kind of really faded away.
And a lot of people are looking really for holistical or natural ways to heal. So, you know, let’s really talk about mushrooms. Then we’ll talk about ayahuasca, but let’s really dive into mushrooms a little bit because psilocybin and mushrooms are really, I think, coming to the forefront of how important they are with so many things, you know, and just not like psilocybin in general, but we have our turkey tails, our reishi, our lion’s mane, but in the general concept of things, you know, microdosing and psilocybin, you know, when somebody first enters this space, it becomes a little fearful.
So, you know, we want to get these people, our audience to like recognize that there is a fear and there’s a respect for these medicines, but in the long run, these are so beneficial. So let’s really dive into the fear concept of why people are fearful of these medicines right off the bat. That’s pretty straightforward, man.
That’s just going to be lack of education and misinformation. That’s why most people want to be scared and fearful of, you know, what they don’t know. Once you know something and you’re empowered with religion and education, and you know, you’re no longer naive.
And once you’ve moved out of that place and space, it’s empowering. So, you know, primarily I educate. That’s why I come from an educational background.
I have a background in teaching. I work in schools as an educator, and I really understand how important education is, full stop or period, as you guys say. And, you know, with that said, you know, in the mushroom space, there’s a lack of education and a lot of misinformation.
So what I do is empower people through education, teaching people about what mushrooms actually are, you know, and how important they are. And once you know what they are, how important they are in general, whether you’re into mushrooms, you like mushrooms, you eat mushrooms or not, they play a big part in this organism that we call planet Earth and our experiences. You know, mushrooms are soil creators.
They created the soil. If we know how important soil is and the role that soil plays in this experience, and to know that mushrooms created the soil, they sustain the soil and they regenerate the soil. Well, it’s really important that we understand what mushrooms are, and it’s not something to be scared of and fearful of.
And then moving forward, that we as human beings have got a relationship with fungi that go back to the dawn of time, the earliest people that we know. So I also teach about the history and culture elements to mushrooms, and you find that the earliest people as hunter gatherers and foragers, they’ve been digesting mushrooms since the dawn of time, since the first humans were out there trying to work this thing out and trying to find food and all the rest of it. So those people are some of the people that I’ve learned from and studied from, understanding that they are educated and are, you know, experienced in this space.
You know, I’m in Europe, perfect example being we have like a fungi folk here in the UK. There’s not a lot of people who are privy to this stuff. And we’ve been misinformed as well.
And the places and spaces where you go to get education about this stuff, it’s like, oh, it’s kind of like put on the back shelf on a back burner. So it’s not the forefront of the conversation. But when you go to other places in Europe, you know, like I’ve got people that are from, you know, I’ve got friends from where we’ve done session the other day, Czechoslovakia, I’ve got friends from Prague and other places in Europe where their traditions are more centered around fungi and foraging, and they have a relationship with fungi and have, you know, a culture that means that as children, they’re educated and taught about mushrooms.
So they’re not scared and fearful of mushrooms. So I’m just saying that to say that you go around the world, and you find that there’s places where they’re fungi fold, you know, and there’s fungi files, you know, and, you know, depending on where you’re placed in this place and space, I guess, that will determine how well you’ve been educated about mushrooms or not. Definitely the Western world has not been educated on mushrooms.
We’ve almost kind of been banned from them, even the functional mushrooms, you know, it’s so crazy what they’ve done, you know, everything like, you know, I’ve only been in this space a short time, maybe six years, you’ve been in this space 30 years, but just like the six years that I’ve been in this space, the magnificent benefits and what I’ve seen happen with people. I mean, why aren’t we? Is that the reason we’re not talking about it more? Is that the reason that we’re not adapting these into our life more, because they actually do work? Well, you know, that’s part of it, depending, you know, it really depends who you’re talking to. The reality of it is in certain schools of thought, certain places, certain cultures, this has been a running thread through their tradition, is what they do there, is what they’ve been doing there, they’ve been teaching and sharing this stuff.
I guess if when we say the West, even in the Western world, it’s not just the whole of the Western world, it’s like specific groups, specific communities that have created these taboos and narratives around mushrooms being negative and bad. You know, religion plays a part in that politics plays a part in that business plays a part in that, you know, there’s many players that are around that are preventing the access to this knowledge and information. And whether that’s because they want to control the masses through, you know, indoctrinations, or in control the masses through their pharmaceutical medicines, you know, they all have their different agendas.
Because of those agendas, that’s why we face these barriers in accessing this type of stuff. But as I said, if you’re from other parts of the world and globe, you know, because in the Western world, Europe is still part of the West, but there’s European cultures and traditions that embrace mushrooms and talk about mushrooms. And if you go to their societies and spaces and places, they embrace this.
If you go, I’ve just come back from a three month travels in Africa, and you realize that there’s traditions and cultures that deal with mushrooms. And the ones that don’t, who have been separated from it, for the most part, they then have, you know, the interception of like missionaries and European forces that have, you know, changed and distorted their narratives, their traditions and cultures, and they’ve been separated from, you know, their relationship with mushrooms. And again, you find that happens all around the world.
So there’s just been different figures, different players that have come in and, you know, moved the pieces around. And yes, there is that element of like, well, these things work, they’ve been working since the dawn of time for different cultures and traditions who have been using it. And if you’ve got, if you’ve invested in a particular product, and mushrooms challenge your product, you may not want mushrooms getting out there and people getting access to this stuff.
So, you know, if you’re dealing with business, you know, I think, I think you nailed it right there. I think, you know, I think they have the ability to work too well sometimes. And I don’t think they really want us fixed.
So let’s talk about what the psilocybin does, like what it actually does to the human brain as we consume psilocybin. Can we jump into that a little bit? Sure. Well, you know, we are getting too techy and scientific with it.
You know, if we’re just talking about, you know, dosing yourself with psilocybin mushrooms, there are protocols, you know, so you don’t just want to jump in and experience this thing without knowing what, you know, what it’s all about. So psilocybin, along with other complementary chemicals that you find in magic mushrooms, like psilocin and so forth, are what we would could say is orally active DMT. You know, these are chemicals that you find throughout nature in different forms, they come from a family of alkaloids.
And when you ingest them at very low dosages within mushrooms, at a basic level, you will get euphoric insights, euphorical feelings, you know, you catch a vibe, a nice feeling or a vibe, you know, and what they can do is heighten one’s senses, you know, so on very low dosages, you know, they heighten your senses, your visual, your oral, you know, you see better, you hear better. And even going back to, you know, the indigenous people, how they use them, they’re utilized like for hunting, it’s like a technology they use that helps them with their hunting. So if you’re a hunter gathering, you’re hunting at nighttime, you know, and like you need to hear further and see further or see sharper, you know, you’re looking for birds in the in the tree at very low dosages.
As I say to folks, it’s it turns on your terminator vision, you know, your night vision, your senses to be able to see and hear things clearly. And that also ties in with I guess why some people utilize mushrooms or psilocybin from a micro dose perspective, when you’re taking sub perceptual levels of the mushrooms or the active ingredient, so that you’re not having hallucinogenic experiences, you’re not having these highly, you know, stimulated experiences. So what that does, it works in the background, it kind of might work in the background of your of your brain kind of thing.
And what science is suggesting is that it helps build with, you know, new neurological pathways and stuff that can help you with memory and, you know, anxiety and depression and so forth, like it just helps to manage and mitigate that type of stuff. And I mean, that’s what can you can the benefits that you can get from psilocybin at low dosages. And then you’ve got different stages, you know, and what some people will say, you know, like recreational doses and therapeutic doses and heroic doses as you move up the scale of ingesting mushrooms.
So from it just heightening your senses, it can also, you know, stimulate, you know, what some would say is, you know, hallucinogenic or psychedelic experiences. And that’s what I understand mushrooms are really about. That’s what it’s really about getting into that place and space to have those experiences.
And that’s when you can get maybe to the root problem or core problem of some of these challenges that we face where we might micro dose and take those lower dosages. So, you know, there’s a spectrum of scale that you can work with. I think they both have their beautiful benefits, for sure.
I think I think diving deeper into the mushroom is so much more beneficial, though. And then you really can keep those neurons firing, wiring with the micro dosing, you know, but, you know, it’s to get those people’s feet a little wet when they’re coming into this space, I think micro dosing and it’s the benefits of micro dosing. The daily benefits are just absolutely amazing.
Love to jump into another topic of my favorite medicine is ayahuasca. You know, ayahuasca really, if I had to tell people or just to navigate them down this road, you know, and I said. You had to take a psychedelic and really wanted to change your life.
It would be ayahuasca, because for me, I can only speak for myself. You know, psilocybin has a way to work on the mind, but medicines like ayahuasca, aboga, wachuma, 5-MeO, bufo, all work on kind of your traumas. You know, for me, they worked on my traumas and then I can really adapt to the psilocybin afterwards.
But for me, ayahuasca was really my first dive into an adventure of the psychedelic space. And I call it an adventure because I feel when we’re in that space, it’s kind of just a fantasy land that opens up portals. You know, and when we open these portals up, we’re just, we’re open to new things because, you know, once we get 30, 40, 50, you know, we’re pretty ingrained in our thinking and our traumas are there and they’re kind of stuck.
And I have, my true belief is these medicines really shake those traumas up and they show you, they show you what they are and it’s for you to work with them. How do you feel about that? Yeah man, you know, one of my popular phrases is getting where you fit in, you know, and that’s like, and do what works for you. Like there are a plethora of human beings, you know, and there’s a plethora of different plant and fungal technologies.
And just like the cordyceps mushrooms aligns with different insects, like there’s one mushroom and there’s one insect and they have this relationship, like there’s different humans and they’ve got, there’s different plants and fungis that enables you to build your relationship. You know, I’ve never partaken in ayahuasca personally. I am familiar with ayahuasca.
I’ve definitely experienced DMT, which we know is the active chemical in the brew itself. So I have that type of relationship. I come from a premise of, you know, understanding and sharing that the quintessential psychedelic and experience comes out of the mushroom.
And why is that? That’s because, as I mentioned, mushrooms are the soil creators and they sustain everything that happens in the soil and plants come out of the soil, you know? So this relationship that we form with the plants, the data information, even the nutrients are provided to them by the mushrooms. Any and everything you seek in a plant, you can find in the mycelium network because that’s the hub, that’s the motherboard, that’s the network that provides everything else, including us, what we need. So I say that to say, I think I shared at the very beginning that mushrooms, psilocybin mushrooms are just orally active DMT.
Once you take off that extra oxygen molecule from the psilocybin, it becomes DMT. And what my teacher, my elders taught me was that at high dose experiences, which most people don’t experience with psilocybin because they’re microdosing and or doing recreational doses, they don’t move into the beyond, they’ve never had those experiences where psilocybin starts to offer what it really has to offer. So I have to definitely give a shout.
What is the beyond? What would you say? What would you say a dose level for the beyond is? Because psilocybin is all different, you know, I mean, you can have a penis, I mean, that’s point six zero. I mean, there’s so many psilocybin contents. So what is a, what is a dose that will take you to that DMT realm? So regardless of what mushrooms we’re talking about, if we just stick with, if we just stick with, you know, the organic, non-hybrids, non-interfered with human beings, just what mushrooms originally were and are, you have what some would coin as the heroic dose, which is coined by Terence McKenna.
And he suggested that five grams is the heroic dose. And five grams is in my humble opinion, or what Terence was saying is what really gets the wheels turning. It starts to get the wheels turning when it comes to the mushroom experience.
But my teacher, Kalindi Iyi, that’s K-I-L-I-N-D-I-I-Y-I, who was an advocate for mushrooms and teaching about the high dose experience for over 40 plus years, taught us in our school of thought that it’s when you get into the 20 gram plus region of dried psilocybin mushrooms, that’s when you really understand what mushrooms are about. Then you realise what their agenda is beyond earth, because as some of us are aware that the spores originated from not this planet, they’re extraterrestrial, they’re alien, you know, and they arrived here and created this environment so that plants and all the rest of it could adapt, where their agenda is beyond our physical experiences of earth. Although the plants can also share those experiences with us, once you move into the mushroom space, what you get to understand is that you have this direct experience and relationship that has been experienced since the dawn of time.
There was no alchemy required, there’s no mixtures, there’s no pots, there’s no fire, none of that needs to be invented or found for us to have these experiences. So the first people to have ever ingested mushrooms, which we would say are pre-humans, you know, going back to the, you know, if we’re dealing with the stone date hypothesis, but you know, all of that information is still stored in the mushrooms. It’s like it’s stored on the hard drive and we’ve still got access to that, as well as how far it goes back while it was percolating through our solar system and beyond.
So what Kalinda used to teach is once you get into the 20 gram region, that’s when you start to move into those eight-hour DMT experiences, you know, that if you’ve ever done, you know, hit that, hit that pipe or hit the bomb with the DMT and you get that 20-minute experience or whatever it may be, you’re in that space for like eight to nine, ten hours. Is it still navigatable? Because, you know, psilocybin is kind of tough, like, to navigate. It’s really, it’s sporadic for myself, you know, I’m only going to speak for myself.
So it’s really, like, unlike a DMT experience or an ayahuasca experience where you could almost navigate, psilocybin kind of gets a little dysfunctional. Does that happen in those huge doses like that? So my personal experience is, again, I’ve not tried ayahuasca, but DMT, I would say my experiences and people that I’ve been around say, like, the opposite. It’s like DMT, when it’s smoked, it’s very fast moving.
It’s very fast paced and it’s like you get blasted out there and, like, things are happening. It’s really hard to grasp your hand on it. And, you know, like, taking a hit of DMT is like going to the fun fair and going on a roller coaster ride.
Whereas with mushrooms, high dose experience, you’re going into the library, man, it just slows things down if you learn how to navigate. And that’s what it is. It’s like any art form, you know, like, if you’re thrown into anything, if I just give you a car, you know, and a set of keys and you’ve never driven a car before, it’s going to be a bumpy road.
It’s going to be a lot of stopping and starting. But once you learn and you learn how to navigate and drive your craft, then things become a lot smoother. And I guess, you know, what we don’t do is start at those high doses.
We’re not like, yo, you just start at 20 grams and you just dive in. There’s, like, a protocol and a process that we go through, like, in putting enough fuel in the tank to get you into those places and spaces and then to being able to manage and navigate while you’re there. It’s an art.
You know, it even feared me to think about 20 grams. You know, I don’t know. I mean, that’s just the concept.
It’s just but now the way you explain it, you know, it’s kind of like, OK, maybe it will be a chance one day. I don’t know what that fear is. I have no clue.
I haven’t I haven’t busted that threshold yet of five grams. So, you know, maybe it’s time for that. And I love how you explain how the ceiling I love how because it is it’s been here forever.
Isn’t it like it’s composites of our dinosaurs, our ancestors. It’s the soil. You are so true.
It’s the soil of everything. And, you know, beyond this, beyond this blue water globe around that spins around, like there is more. I mean, listen, I know there’s more.
You know, there’s more. But to get the Western world or Eastern world or whatever world to understand, there’s more. I think you have to see a different paradigm.
You know, when you see a different paradigm, you know something’s different because, you know, I can’t see this phone and not know this. This is not a phone. So when I’m in a psychedelic experience and I see an ancient being or I see something that is so similar to an alien that they have showed me on TV so many times or not, I have to be able to like I saw that before somewhere.
Right. Because I had to see that somewhere to be able to visualize that, especially in a psychedelic experience that gets so deep when you really get those trifectas of all kinds of colors and visions and people and elves. And for me myself, I just I know there’s more, you know, and the more also led to the unfair death.
You know, the unfair death is almost gone for me. I just don’t fear that anymore. Used to be something I would wake up daily and think about dying.
And I was like, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about death in many, many years. I think it’s kind of like the price.
Well, as you say that, you know, as I understand these technologies, plant and fungal are just that they are, according to the people who they were gifted to originally, when you hear their narratives around what is Iboga, what are mushrooms, what is ayahuasca, they are all technologies that enable you to die before you die. They utilize them to practice dying. They utilize them to go to the ancestral realms to commune with their ancestors and see the unseen.
That’s what it’s for. You know, yes, we can sort out our anxiety, our depression, our PTSD and all of that type of stuff. But keep in mind that I don’t know how many people in the Amazon are running around with PTSD.
I don’t know how many people in the rainforest of Gabon are running around being heroin addicts. That’s not what they’re using it for. It’s all to do with communicating with their ancestors.
And that’s dealing with death, the afterlife. And once you know that it’s tangible when you experience it, and you know it through experience, then yeah, it’s going to definitely remove certain fears and taboos around it, for sure. Yeah, definitely.
I mean, it’s, it’s a beautiful thing when you can live life like that. And he’s experienced just have you done well, have you done Iboga before? Have you sat with Iboga? I’ve sampled but not been on the initiatory dosage and on the three day immersion. Yeah, because you talk about alcohol a couple times in this conversation.
That’s like seven alkaloids. I’ve sat with Iboga before and you know, really, really powerful experience. You know, I think the day after is way worse than going through the experience itself.
But I don’t think there was anything worse. I still after two years don’t know what that experience told me, or taught me. It did.
It did do one thing for me, it really calmed my nervous system down to a level of that I never expected. But besides that, I just don’t know what that medicine really, really taught me or told me. So you did talk about alkaloids.
And I know that’s a big alkaloid. Can we explain alkaloids a little bit? Yeah, well, that’s not my, you know, I don’t come from a scientific perspective, you know, and like can break it all down. But, you know, when we’re looking at these chemicals, they have a relationship with, you know, certain receptors on chemicals that we produce in the brain, that time of serotonin, melatonin, and they come from this family that enable us to feel relaxed, you know, enable us to dream, you know, and have these altered states of consciousness, or better yet, enhanced states of consciousness.
You know, it’s like what some would say is like, I’ve got a cup here. And you know, it’s kind of half filled at the moment with coconut water. But you know, once I dose up on these alkaloids, it’s would fill up this cup to the point where it may overflow.
And once it’s flowing over, you want your cup run off over, you’re going to move into spaces and places where you might be having what some would say are psychedelic experiences or hallucinations. Or like I would say, it just opens up your eyes to what’s there that you don’t normally see, you know, where you’re at, where I’m at, there’s things floating around in the air, there’s atoms and molecules that I can’t see right now. But once my cups run us over, and I’ve got these alkaloids flowing through my system, it enables one to see these things that are there that one wouldn’t usually see.
So you know, this is the role that they play in, you know, in the brain, so to speak, on a very simple level. Well, you know, you’ve mentioned a couple times this isn’t scientific, and I don’t think people want scientific no more, because I think people want real, how many of you talk and communicate, we’ve seen, you know, a lot of people really want to experience like you said, relieve their PTSD, relieve their depression, relieve their anxiety, you know, but you’re right, they don’t have this in those cultures where they’ve used these medicines forever. They just don’t, they’re just, they’re just not there.
They’re in the Western world, because we’ve created these, we’ve created these because of the environment we live in, you know, we’re, we’re living under concrete jungles, concrete walls, watching the TV every day, just like, our connection to self and our connection to each other is gone. Like, it’s gone. I mean, in the Western world of these, there’s no connection to each other anymore.
And I think that’s a big missing piece, because when we talk about plants, and we talk about mushrooms, and we talk about that, they’re all connectors, you know, they connect, they, they bring things together. They’re, you know, if I’m saying this wrong, or right, but I think most plants, 97% have some form of DMT in them. So it should be a valuable asset to us that we’re not utilizing as much as we should.
And there are so many other mushrooms out there, like, let’s talk a little bit about lion meat and cordyceps and things of that nature. Do you see the benefits of those? And where do they lie in humans right now? Where should we be consuming these mushrooms? Yeah, for sure, man. I think if they’re in your environment, naturally, by default, that’s an indication that you should be eating them.
You know, like wherever you are in the world, you know, if you’ve got bananas that grow in your environment, you’re meant to be eating bananas. If you’ve got mangoes growing, you’re meant to eat mangoes, like the foods that grow in your area are growing for you to have this relationship. And that’s what it’s all about.
And whether it’s psychedelic plants or food, it’s all about building relationships. So that’s why you don’t do things once and just say that’s, that’s what it is like, oh, let me build a relationship with you. And once you start building a relationship with mushrooms and fungi, no matter what one mushroom you start with, all the other ones are going to start appearing.
So if you was like, I want to sort out my PTSD, and I’ve heard I can start microdosing with psilocybin mushroom, somewhere down the line, cordyceps are going to pop up, lion’s mane is going to pop up, they’re going to start popping up. And if they’re in your environment, it’s an indication that you should learn about them and build a relationship with them. So, you know, lions may become very popular.
And it’s one of the mushrooms that I grow and work with students, because I do a lot of work in school, in school. So when I speak with my students, you know, school is all about remembering, it’s not about learning anything. If you’ve got a good memory in school, like you do all right, you don’t have to know anything, you just got to remember things, you know, just repeat what you’ve been told.
And if you can do that, and have a good memory, you can do well in school and their education. So as far as lion’s mane and the role that it plays, just like psilocybin, they go hand in hand where they’ve been shared, and the research suggests that they help grow the brain, you know, just to simplify, they help grow your brain, they help to rebuild your brain, they help to sustain your brain, you know, they build new neurological pathways. Lion’s mane has also been suggested that it can help with, you know, Alzheimer’s and dementia, you know, so if anybody, including myself, rolls around and like, shit, where did I put my keys, where did I put my wallet, you know, like, I swear, I put it in a safe space, but I can’t remember, like, you know, like that, you might need some lion’s mane in your life, you know, and then what you’ll find out is, although they play these clinical roles, there’s like, there’s that we should approach it from a holistic view.
So there’s, you know, there’s nutritional value that it offers, you know, and there’s mental health benefits that it brings to the table, and there’s benefits with the ecosystem that it benefits, it’s like, there’s a plethora of benefits that it brings to the table, but as humans, we’re just like, oh, I see this being a benefit. And most of the benefits that we get from these mushrooms are all to do with challenges that we have in the West, you know, whatever challenges we have is like, and that’s why we see them as like, this is our medicine, this is our cure, but they bring so much more to the table than that. So cordyceps mushrooms, because you’ve mentioned those as well, you know, are really good.
So all these mushrooms have got a range of different benefits, you know, outside of the key ones that they’re highlighting, but cordyceps is also good for the immune systems, good for energy, loads of people back their coffees, or their Red Bulls, or these caffeine drinks to get, you know, this energy and, you know, cordyceps is really cool for that, you know, I’m saying plays a role in, you know, giving one energy and, you know, even if late at night, you want to get jiggy jiggy with it. And you know, your, your little members and doing what it used to do, you know, cordyceps can step in and give you a hand. So it has all these other benefits, but cordyceps as a whole as a species, they’re also regulators, I refer to them as Warren G and Nate dog, they’re the regulators of the mushroom space, because they help regulate species on planet Earth, in particular insects that are doing too much when there’s a particular insect in the forest, or the jungle that’s overrunning and taking over cordyceps come in to regulate those and take they basically take them out.
They like to hit men. They’re the regulators. So what do you mean by they come in? What do they do? They actually tell me what they do.
So it’s been suggested that they take over the minds of the insects, the insects that interact and interface with these cordyceps mushrooms, end up digesting them, the spores, then take over, you know, on the on the on their on their shell. And as that particular insects rolls around its colony, it also infects other insects with the spores, the spores then eventually turn into mycelium and cocoon take over that from the inside out, they mummify because that’s where ancient Egyptians got their mummification rights from observing it happening in nature, but the mycelium then mummifies the insect itself, the insect then starts to travel to the highest point it can find, whether it’s the tree or a mountain, it starts to travel upwards. So then eventually, it gets to a point where it gets into this cocoon state and a mushroom erupts from its head or from the body itself.
And once the mushroom erupts from the head, it produces the mushroom and releases the spores, it enables the mushrooms to replenish themselves or regenerate themselves, but it also then regulates these particular insects that are overrun in their community. So some people say when they hear that, you know, it’s pretty amazing. It sounds like a few movies and TV series that have come out over the last few years.
And people want to know, you know, is there mushrooms for humans? Is there ones that would regulate humans? Because is there a species on planet Earth that’s doing too much and need some regulating, you know, and I would say there’s definitely one that’s right up there. And who knows what time, the days and times we’re living in, if those mushrooms are not observing us and want to take over. So what about there? That’s really cool about cordyceps.
Let’s go on to reishi. What do you feel about reishi? Reishi’s are also amazing. You know, they’re one of the oldest medicinal recorded mushrooms they are.
You find them pretty much all over the world. I just came from Barbados six months ago, and we discovered, or I won’t say discovered, new to science, at least, you know, reishi mushrooms that you find all over the place and reishi are also good for the immune system in general, blood regulating, so it’s good for diabetes. It’s good for if you’ve got issues with sleeping at night, you know, so you want to relax and get a good night’s sleep.
You might want to get some reishi tea or, you know, a reishi tincture and add it to your teas at night to help you relax and have, you know, a better sleep. You know, and there’s combinations of these, reishi being one of them that are really good for helping women with menopause and if they’ve got issues with their menstruation. So like, again, there’s a long list, an endless list, an infinite list of the role that these different mushrooms play and if you isolate these mushrooms and isolate these chemicals, yeah, we could say this one’s good for this, this one’s good for that, but my approach is just getting them in you.
Like, they should be part and parcel of your way of life. You should be eating these mushrooms, drinking these mushrooms, you know, and the collection of them, the collective, you know, it’s like a collective consciousness of mushrooms and you should be getting that in your system as a of life and then what you have is a preventative measure. You won’t be looking at them as a cure, as a medicine.
It’d be like, oh, these are the mushrooms that grow in my environment, these are the mushrooms I’m meant to eat, drink and utilize and then what you’ll find is that we won’t have half of these issues that we’ve got, that we’re running around with. You know, and it takes a little bit of time to establish this in your body too. I think it’s not like take one lion’s mane and you’re good for a week.
I think you have to build some kind of respect and you have to build a love relationship, right? Yeah, and it’s something that is so important because these are preventable measures, you know. Is there ever, have you found anything that, because we’re really big in this space, we really want to get bigger into the functionals because I think it’s so important for people to understand how invaluable these mushrooms are. I mean, they’ve been here for a purpose like you said earlier, you know, just to get people to, you know, I’m going, I’m jumping all over the place, but just to get people to understand and build a relationship is just the beginning because we don’t know.
A lot of people don’t know. They just don’t know and educating and informing is such a beautiful thing, but you think there’s people that should not do mushrooms? Yeah, well, depending on what mushrooms we’re talking about and like anything there’s, you know, pros and cons, you know, to any and everything. Let’s talk just functionals right now, functionals being non-psychedelic.
Let’s just talk about non-psychedelic mushrooms, the lion’s mane, the cordyceps, you think there’s people that should not take those? Yeah, so perfect example being, you know, like if you have certain digestive problems, if we just to start with, like you might have digestive challenges in life and there’s, you know, mushrooms are coated in chitin, that’s the skeleton, the framework, that’s the same thing that makes up the insects, you know, shell and that can cause unsettling problems in the stomach, you know, can encourage your digestive problems or digestive challenges. So these would be, you know, that’s a, you know, because obviously most people will be ingesting mushrooms, so that would be something to consider. There are mushrooms because of their, you know, the way that they work and being processed through the body can be challenging to the livers and kidneys.
So again, it’s like, and if you have a problem in general in filtering these things out, then you need to be conscious of that. That’s why some people say, oh, I can’t eat mushroom because it messes with my stomach or it gives me, you know, you know, I’ll get certain feelings and it’s like, okay, then maybe if you can eat them, if you’re not allergic to mushrooms, maybe you should head towards shiitake mushrooms because they’re easy, they’re, you know, the bodies, it finds it easier to break those particular mushrooms down. So that’s why knowledge is power.
It’s really important. And the most important knowledge you need to have is knowledge of self. You need to know yourself and be honest about what’s going on with me and my body.
And then once you know what’s going on with you and your body, then you can be like, oh, that’s why I can’t do this. That’s why I can’t drink this or eat that. And then you find out once you’re building a relationship with the mushrooms, oh, which ones are most suitable for these challenges that I might have.
So yeah, it’s like, like anything, you know, like we should, but I know we don’t do it when we go to the stores and we buy the medicine, we don’t really look at the look at the ingredients and look at the small print. We’re just told I eat this and take this and it’s going to work for you. And like, we just believe, but we should be checking the labels and we should be checking out it.
And we should have that same approach with anything that’s being offered to us. That’s what I personally feel. And if you know yourself and what challenges you might have, then you can find out if it’s conflicting in any shape, form or another.
So it is definitely important to know what you’re, you know, what you’re putting in your body. Isn’t a fungi also a cleanse though? So when it’s going through, like, we’re just, we’re not scientists that we’re just talking from experiences, like, isn’t it more of a cleanse though, when it’s going through that system and your gut’s kind of, oh, I think it’s cleaning some stuff. I mean, that’s at least how I feel.
It’s like, it’s getting some shit out of there. But if you don’t have, you know, stomach cancer, it’s great. But if you have like a real challenging, this is what I’m saying.
Like, it’s like psilocybin mushrooms. If we go there, it’s like, oh yeah, it’s, it can be amazing and great. But if you have underlying, you know, psych, you know, psychotropic medicines that you take and stuff like that, like, yeah, they can interrupt that stuff and be disruptive.
And that’s why you need to know yourself, be honest about what you are, where you’re at. And if it’s like, yo, I have stomach issues. And then you take mushrooms and it’s like triggering your stomach issues, then you might need to explore what that is.
But like you said, if you take mushrooms, like, hey, I feel lighter, it’s lighting in my load. I feel like I’ve got a new spring in my step. And that’s why I said at the very beginning, get in where you fit in.
It’s about being honest and how this stuff is working with you. As I said, I’ve got people around me that when they eat mushrooms, it messes up their stomach. And I guess like they’re the one in the every 200 people who when they digest mushrooms, it messes with their stomach and or it messes with their kidneys.
But you could be that one in 200 that one in 500. So that’s why it’s important just to just do your Googles before you jump in headfirst, you know, sample and check and see and be honest, like, yeah, I’ve done it, I feel amazing, continue doing it. If you do it, and it becomes challenging, then take your foot off the gas and like, try look at another alternative.
Absolutely. So you’re a speaker, you’re a forager, you’re very knowledgeable in this plant medicine space. What other what other natural holistical ways do you really believe in? Well, the easiest and simplest I know, I don’t have to believe I know this mark is getting out in nature.
You know, I’m I come from a horticultural background, and I get young people and people in general that are living in this concrete jungles and get them out in nature. I’m sure you know me because you’re in a beautiful place and space by the looks and sounds of it. You know, if you take your shoes and socks off, and you walk on the ground, and you get in the forest or the jungle, and you’re in and around trees, that in itself is a healing holistic experience.
Science has suggested you know, your feet are so feeling trees is healing within itself. You don’t need to ingest anything. But nature just breathe, just breathe.
You brought a really remarkable memory back to me when you just said that, like, man, I used to love to be in nature. When I was a kid, I used to love the forest preserve, used to love to be out there, smell all that. And you know, we do we get away from that, you know, one thing really gratifying right now is leaving the states or leaving the countries and coming here to where, you know, there’s nature and there’s no media in your face.
And there’s no news. And, you know, we’re just eclipsed with so much, so much negative, negative, negative, that I, you know, our biggest goal is to educate and to get people to understand there’s a better way to live. You know, there’s a better way to wake up every morning, to be angry at everybody to be, you know, everybody wants to win.
You know, what is there to win at the end of the day? What’s there to win? What are we gonna win? Death, you know, it’s kind of crazy. I get emotional about it because it’s so easy. It’s so simple, but yet we make it so hard.
Yeah, man. Yeah, man. You know, when I just came from the Southern Africa, I spent time with the Bushmen, the first people, Adam and Eve, the first humans that we know on planet Earth.
And, you know, and from the outside people, you know, I was over there and people are like, oh, are those guys all right? You know, it looks so primitive that it looks so minimal, you know, like, are they happy? And I just laughed. I’m like, are they happy? Like, these are some of the happiest people that I have met in life because they’ve simplified this experience by reducing all of these external stimulants that we have. And like you mentioned, whether it’s TV that’s filling you up with fear, you know, whether it’s food that is basically high in sugar, high in toxins that is deadly, it’s like you’ve got all of that, that’s not part of their experience.
But more importantly, man, they’re free, Mark. They wake up every day, they go out, hunt and give their food for the day, and they chill. They do what most people do when they say, oh, when I retire, I want to be able to just sit back on a beach in nature.
Like, that’s what I’m working hard for. Like, ain’t just work hard in the morning for a couple of hours and live a lifestyle like that. And I’m sitting back saying, oh, these guys have it figured out, man.
They’re the ones who are like, these are definitely the wild ones. And we’re running around like a dog chasing its tail, trying to chase the dollar, chase the pounds. And, you know, it’s definitely been a detriment to us because that’s what’s caused all these issues that we have.
It’s been very clear that the issues with mental health and you name it, all the different fractions of it is caused by modern society. Modern society causes anxiety, depression, PTSD, modern, not ancient, it’s modern. The ancient people know what they’re doing.
It’s modern society, mobile phones, Wi-Fi and personal hotspots and Bluetooth and all these things that we thought would advance our civilization have actually been more of a detriment that we’ve seen. That’s evident. It’s been a huge detriment to society.
I mean, but how do you escape and where do you stop? I mean, you know, where do you stop? Where are they going to stop? You know, they’re just going to keep, you know, I don’t know. I guess it’s for just human nature and people like us to inform and to educate. And, you know, there is a better way of life.
But I think at the end of the day, it becomes about, like you said, the pound and the money. It becomes where am I going to get that to live that? That was a hard barrier for me to break to. But, you know, I broke it, I think.
And for me that you then lead as an example, each one to each one, folks will be like, you know, Mark’s left. He’s in Costa Rica now, you know what I’m saying? He’s off grid. Like we can just about communicate with him because he ain’t got good Wi-Fi connection and stuff like that.
And it might sound like he’s challenging at the moment. But what it’s actually going to do, Mark, is liberate you, man. When I was off grid and just no phone, it just allowed me to just not think about things that I’m usually concerned about.
I didn’t have to think that my car is parked outside and that I’m going to get a ticket. Because in London, you can’t park nowhere. You get tickets and you go all the time.
And every minute you go into a shop and you’re looking at, you’ve got this added thing going on. I’ve got enough shit I’ve got to deal with in any way, but I just can’t go out and drive my car because I’m going to get a ticket. And once you start realising, I didn’t have to think about any of those things.
None of those things were at the forefront of my consciousness anymore. Like you get to then start taking that inward journey and be like, you know, how do I feel? And what you find out is truly liberating, man. It becomes liberating for, you know.
And then you’re going to be that example. Like, oh, Mark’s like liberated himself and he’s going to actually going to liberate others just through being an example at minimum. So are you, Adiran.
You’re a great example because, you know, you speak with just knowledge, you know, like you said so many times, I’m not a scientist. Neither am I. And I think that’s, you know, I really believe that’s what people want. I really believe they want the real deal.
They want, they want to see like that dude was really fucked up a few years ago. Look at him now. Look at that dude now.
What did he do? Like, you know, they see that evolution and they’re like, okay, maybe I got to do that. Maybe I can do that. It takes them some time.
You know, this whole process has taken me time, you know, I don’t think I could ever, like, I never look back and say, oh, that I wish that didn’t happen. Or I wish this didn’t happen because if none of that happened, I wouldn’t be here doing this today. Sitting with you.
You get it, man. So I’m just grateful for, yeah, I’m just really grateful for like the path I went on to find these plants because 2019, I was terrified of psychedelics. You’re going to send me to psychedelics and I’m going to change something.
That first experience with ayahuasca was like, get me the fuck out of here. You guys are crazy. Three weeks later, something happened that I went back to that same place.
You know, so something snapped and something like showed me something that like Western world medicine didn’t show me. Therapy didn’t show me. Alcohol didn’t show me.
Drugs didn’t show me. It showed me. It’s beautiful.
And it is. And just like you said, man, I echo what you’re sharing because, you know, sometimes we think bad things are happening in our life. You know, we have these challenges, but like it’s really kind of molding and forming you into becoming something because we’ve got to remember that we’re still becoming something.
We’ve not reached the peak as humans and as individuals. We’re forever growing. And, you know, as a mushroom cultivator, you realize this, you know, that mushrooms, fruits, the fruits in body, mushrooms, fruit after a stress, after a trauma, they reproduce themselves.
They grow after there’s been a drought, after there’s been a flood, after there’s been some kind of challenge. That’s when they’re like, yeah, yeah, there’s been a forest fire. Morels are popping up everywhere.
You know what I’m saying? It’s like, you know, like, oh shit, this is traumatic. It’s a fire. But mushrooms, they love it.
And that’s what we’ve got to understand, like just our role in this whole thing of, you know, this experience of Gaia or Mother Earth, call it what you want. We have to go through those challenges. But the goal is that we learn, we have teachers, elders, or a village that supports us so we can mitigate those challenges or they become less impactful.
They become less traumatic, you know, and like you learn from them. And I guess that’s what all the bloody school books that I read were trying to teach us, you know, all the three little pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. And, you know, there was a, you know, and down to the movies that we watch nowadays, the hero and then there’s a villain.
You know, you can’t have a movie of a hero without having a villain. You can’t be a Neo without there being a Mr. Smith. And once you understand this yin-yang relationship of good and bad and the ups and the downs and the ebbs and the flows, then you don’t look at your challenges as like, oh, why this is wrong, this is bad.
It’s like, okay, what am I getting from this? What am I learning from this? What can I take away from this to make shit greater later, you know, to move this forward? And that’s what this experience is all about, man, of humans and life in general. It is because, you know, we all think 16, we learned something, seven, you know, fuck up as much as you can at 16, 17, 20, 30, keep just screwing up because the more you screw up, they’re lessons, lessons, everything’s a lesson. You got to learn it.
Now, if you don’t learn it, you’re going to circle back and they’re going to do it again until you learn it, because that’s evolution. That’s just where we are. That’s just nature because you can’t learn until you learn it.
So it’s always going to be a lesson. You know, I’m 58 now, you know, and I’m like, well, am I done yet? No, I’m never fucking done. I ain’t going to be done until I’m in that, in from burned and buried, you know? So, you know, I just like the older generation ask all the time, you know, you talked about retiring.
Is that done? Like, what are you done? Like, you’re just beginning, you know, it’s a, it’s so sad to see how like we evolved to the society as we work 30, 40 years. And then we say, oh, we’re going to have six years of retirement. Now you’re retired.
You’re sitting there in your home, wondering what you’re going to do. You buried up all this money. And what did you do with your life? Really? What’d you do with your life? You work for a corporate world who, you know, you bought the house, you live the American so-called dream, but is it really a dream? You know, I look at all those elders now and I, you know, like my father and my mother, and I asked him, I said, what would you do? I’ve changed your, what would you do? I’ve changed.
They would have done a lot to change. You know, they tell me so many things now, but they’re so stuck in their ways. So it’s really hard to get them out of that ways.
That’s what’s really interesting to me now. And I’ve noticed it a lot more recently in the last few years, how many more elders, like in the seventies, eighties are coming to psychedelics. I mean, they’re consuming these psychedelic mushrooms and going on the eyes, you’ll ask to experience this.
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t recommend this to all of them, but after they get off these experiences, they’re like, wow, wow. Wow. I missed out on a life, you know? And it’s just beautiful that they’re, that they’re, that they’re given themselves the ability to do this.
Hmm. Well, as you say, share that it makes me think of a documentary that you can find on YouTube. And I can’t remember the exact title because it’s a title and a subtitle, but it’s along the lines of understanding psilocybin and they’re exploring, you know, documenting the trials that they’ve done with those cancer patients in the States and in the UK as well, that were at the last stages of cancer and being told that, Hey, you know, you’ve got three, six, nine months to live and you’re out of here.
And you know, that revelation in itself gave them anxiety, depression, and they’re in these, you know, extreme states of, you know, mental health challenges without their physical challenges being addressed. And with that said, they’re like, yo, but as a last result, as a last result, should I say, maybe you should try these psilocybin mushrooms because it’s been suggested that it might help you with, you know, having a better quality death experience. So they’re like, well, what do you mean? It’s like, you know, take the mushrooms and find out because it’s not something that you can explain as you would know, you know, when you’re asked to explain your experiences, it sounds weird and far-fetched, but you see testimony after testimony, after testimony of these cancer patients coming back saying, hold on a minute, hold on a minute.
The family are scared, you know, their family members are scared and like, was everything all right? And they’re like, yo, I’m going to be A-okay. There’s like an after party on the other side waiting for me. You know, I’m more concerned about leaving you guys behind and all this chaos and mess that, you know, we’re in, you know, I’m going to be all right.
And they have a better relationship with their death. But what also comes out of that is, yo, why did I have to wait till I was on my deathbed to have this experience? Do we need to be on our deathbed? Does it need to be at the end when it’s, you know, we’ve gone through all the bullshit to then realize that this was actually our birthright. And in fact, as you know, if you’re dealing with ayahuasca, if you’re dealing with mushrooms, if you’re dealing with iboga, you find out that this is introduced to those communities to, through as a rites of passage from childhood, through puberty, you’re not faced with these challenges that we have in the West and not knowing how to deal with it, you know, until you’re on deathbed saying, oh, you got cancer with six months to live.
Now give it a go. And that’s like highlighting like, yo, why did a lot of people will say the same thing? Why did I leave it? I had many elders in my community say the same thing, like shit, they’ve been in their sixties and seventies doing it for the first time and be like, man, did the system do one over me? You know, it made me think this was bad. This was negative.
I was going to be poisoning myself, you know, like whatever it is that they believed. And you’re like, once you know, you know, but all you can do is be a living, breathing example. Yeah.
So beautiful. You know, and I think we’re getting there. I think we’re slowly evolving to that point because I really feel that people are tired and people want to be like, there’s a lot of us, there’s a lot of being in you and all of us coming out and we’re like, dudes, ladies, gentlemen, we can change.
You know, we can really, really change. So Darren, let’s talk about a little bit before we end here. Let’s talk about where we can find you like some recommendations you have for people.
And, you know, you’ve been a great conversation. I’d love to get you on again. But let’s tell people where we can find you, how we can find you and, you know, some highlights to end this show.
Yeah. Cool. It’s really straightforward, man.
My name is Darren LeBaron. And if you type in DarrenLeBaron.com, you’re going to be able to get to my website. And on the website, you can be able to get to all the social media links and all the rest of it.
I’m on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and all the rest of it. And on my platforms, you’ll find out that I do, you know, talks and workshops all around the world, teaching people primarily about psychedelics in Africa, the untold story. I also teach people how to cultivate mushrooms.
I have a webinar series, two webinar series, one’s a cultivation one. And one is dealing with some of the research that I’ve built into a psychedelics in Africa. So that’s like fundamentally what I stand on.
But, you know, I do a range of other things, man. I’m in and out different communities, working with young people, elders, refugees, you name it, like all the different titles that they’re, you know, they’ve given these different groups and just educating them, empowering them and trying to give them access to this knowledge and information so they can make decisions for themselves out here, man. So if you go to my platform, you can find out all these different activities that are taking place.
But I would definitely say and encourage you to check out my teacher if you’re interested in, you know, mushrooms as a whole, but specifically psilocybin mushrooms and this high dose experience that, you know, I was making reference to his name is Kalindi, K-I-L-I-N-D-I is his first name. And his last name is I-Y-I. Give him a Google as well.
And between myself and him, you’ll find out our tribe. You’ll see there’s a handful of us, even more than a handful of us that are talking this talk and walking this walk. I’ve heard about me.
He’s a pretty, pretty amazing guy. Can I ask you one more question? The skull walking stick back there, is that a walking stick? It’s not a walking stick. Can you see it? Because in my screen, it’s not visible.
Okay. Yeah, the skull walking stick. Just give me a little background on that because it’s cool.
And then I see a skull on your shirt. Are you in those skulls? Yeah, man, because, you know, like I drink from a skull, you know, not a human skull, but a skull cup. And yeah, skulls in Indigenous cultures, for the most part, you know, represent and symbolize a range of different things, but primarily the ancestors.
So I’m very much, you know, an advocate for people connecting with, understanding, learning about their ancestors and the skull symbolizes the ancestors. And this is actually my logo. So you see that the mushrooms are connected to the skull and mushrooms being a technology, a communication device that enables you to communicate with your ancestors.
That’s what I’m all about. So that’s what you, you know, if people are checking me out for the first time, you’re going to hear me talking a lot about that type of stuff about ancestors, the afterlife, mushrooms, and all these different plant technologies that tie in with you, you know, communicating with your ancestors, because that is the fundamentals of what these traditions that I’ve been researching are all talking about. Whether it’s ayahuasca, they refer to it as the vine of the dead, vine of the soul.
It’s all about this kind of unseen realm, this unseen place where your ancestors go to, where you can commune with them. And if you’ve got any problems or challenges in life, that’s where you go to. Although like in the now, we have a range of different ways of communicating with each other from the phone.
And we’ve got these spiritual ways of doing it. People go for tarot readings and clairvoyance and all the rest of it. But the plant technology is what these traditions say that they were dealing with first is where they were inspired to develop these other things.
So the skull represents the ancestors. And that’s like the ET phone home. And it’s your first point of call where you should be calling when you got shit going on in your life that you want to sort out.
Well, you’re a really cool dude, man. I really like you, man. I’m feeling a lot of bossy right now.
So one more time, tell people what you’re about, where they can find you and we’ll end it. Oh, man, Darren O’Barron, Darren O’Barron.com. You can come and find me and learn about psychedelics in Africa and the diaspora, learn how to cultivate mushrooms. I’m here pretty much just teaching and sharing or reminding people that they are mushrooms having a human experience.
One more time. They are mushrooms having a human experience. And for those at the back, need to hear it one more time.
You are a mushroom having a human experience. That’s me, Darren O’Barron signing off, man. Thank you for the opportunity to share on your platform.
Ciao brother. Great conversation. I’m going to be in touch with you after the show.
