By James P. Johnson

On April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross the U.S. from Texas to New England. My streak of witnessing totality of every solar eclipse in the contiguous U.S. for the past 45 years may end.

My claim is true, but hyperbolic. I haven’t been criss-crossing the country catching bunches of total eclipses—it’s just the third one on the mainland in the last 45 years. Since they’re fairly rare, making an effort to see one is worth considering.

My streak is possible simply because the last two passed through the Northwest. As a student at WSU in Pullman in 1979, clouds and heavy rain obscured a total solar eclipse, and the experience was less than profound. I documented it by taking a photo of my roommate standing on our covered deck holding a clock and acting puzzled that it was dark.

It was a long time until the next one. In August 2017, I drove through sparsely populated Eastern Oregon to a lonely junction and turned onto a dusty road that climbed from a sagebrush-covered valley into forested highlands. Nearing a campground I thought would be neglected and little-used, there was a lot of traffic. Vehicles were parked at the side of the road in many places. I arrived at the bustling campground and asked a couple of guys, whose accents made me think they’d come from England, about campsites. They said the last one was taken a week ago. Thinking I could snag a campsite in the middle of the path of totality the day before is a good indicator of extreme naïveté.

I backtracked a few miles, pulled to the roadside and pitched a tent in the woods. The next morning, the mood was jovial. One guy went up and down the road offering free viewing glasses for anyone who’d forgotten theirs. Then the marvel began that induced awe, wonder and deep celestial thoughts.

I monitored the moon as it slowly covered the sun, which took an hour and thirteen minutes. Even with a large portion covered, our sun’s so bright that the landscape still seemed nominally illuminated.

About 20 minutes before totality, brightness finally lessened noticeably. It was such an odd thing; mid-day, sunny weather with a dark tint to it. I imagined a planet somewhere in the universe, so distant from its sun that light intensity is similarly diminished. I’m glad it’s not our normal condition.

Then, the great climax—the last 7-10 seconds when what brightness there is dims rapidly. There’s no comparable experience. The entire lit landscape shut down to total darkness in less than ten seconds. It was freaky, bizarre. It boggled my mind.

Whoops of excitement rang out. The dark disk with a bright halo hung for two minutes and two seconds. Then the sun peeked out and began regaining its celestial supremacy.

The uncovering was anti-climactic, and I left before it was complete. A long, slow-moving line of cars made the journey home a few hours more than normal. I momentarily questioned if the trip had been worth it. Yes, it had been!

Currently, I don’t have plans to travel south or east to experience totality in 2024, so I’ll have to content myself with Spokane’s 38% maximum partial eclipse. Though my streak may end, I’m cheered that the next total eclipse will be nearby again, in western Canada and Montana. There’s a downside though: we’ve got a 20-year wait. It’s in August of 2044. For information on this year’s event, Googling “solar eclipse 2024” brings up a bunch of websites. I’ve found NASA.gov is excellent. //

James P. Johnson is the author of “Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Freshwater Shark Attacks.” He wrote about tomato preservation in Out There last fall.

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Growing up in Spokane, Jeff Meldrum had a childhood fascination with bigfoot that carried on into his adult life. Over the years, however, his interest in the legendary cryptid had largely faded to that of a casual, personal fascination as he pursued a career in anthropology, eventually earning a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and becoming a full professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. That was, until a chance encounter in 1996 with a line of fresh, 15-inch tracks along a remote, muddy road in southeast Washington’s Blue Mountains left him captivated with evidence that the sasquatch myth might just be real.

For the past 26 years, Meldrum’s approach to research into sasquatch has differed from that of many of the bigfoot hunters you can find online pedaling stories of supposed sasquatch sightings. As an academic with a research focus on evolution of hominin bipedalism, he’s uniquely qualified to analyze tracks suspected of belonging to sasquatch, or, as Meldrum prefers to call them, relic hominoids. A testament to his careful, scientific approach to examining tracks in ways that most untrained observers would never be able to unpack, his lab now houses well over 300 footprint casts attributed to relict hominoids around the world, including some he cast himself and others provided by other researchers.

But it was those first tracks back in 1996 that initially made Meldrum a believer. The footprints were discovered earlier in the day near Walla Walla, Wash., by the late bigfoot tracker Paul Freeman, who had a habit of searching for tracks on roads as soon as snowmelt made them passable. The set of impressive tracks freshly laid down in the soft, late-winter clay soil above town was an ah-ha moment, says Meldrum, who excitedly described to me the abundant evidence he found at the site of the footprints. There were tension cracks and pressure ridges, inflections, splaying of the toes, and evidence that the creature likely looked over its shoulder before breaking out into a run toward the brush, recalls Meldrum.

To him, it all added up to irrefutable evidence that something non-human and quite large had walked and ran barefoot and upright on two legs along that muddy road. “Some of the tracks clearly had skin ridge detail preserved in the clay soil,” explains Meldrum. “I was flabbergasted and was wondering how did he [Freeman] do this? How did he fake these tracks?” Meldrum thoroughly documented the site and created casts of the tracks, the first of hundreds of compelling track casts he would make and collect in the coming decades.

Meldrum is the author of “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science,” which explores the contemporary scientific evidence of sasquatch, as well as two field guides, one focusing on sasquatch and the other covering potential relict hominoid species around the world. He’s also the editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal The Relict Hominoid Inquiry and has shared his findings in numerous popular and professional publications and at live presentations.

Sasquatch Researcher Dr. Meldrum to Speak in Spokane February 25

On Saturday, February 25, 2023 at 3 p.m., Meldrum will be one of several speakers on various outdoor topics at the Spokane Great Outdoors Expo, which is put on by Out There Venture at the Spokane Convention Center. Read more about the event and get tickets. Dr. Meldrum will recount how an encounter with 15-inch tracks in eastern Washington’s Blue Mountains set him on the path in search of an answer to the question — Is there a hominoid species behind the legend of sasquatch?

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In the late 90s, I spent four summers finding the best route to the top of the highest 50 mountains in Eastern Washington. It turned into a hiking guide that has since been published and gone out of print. I didn’t carry anything to deter bears on those hikes, and I still don’t.

My rationale is a complete lack of reported bear attacks in Eastern Washington. After all those miles on remote trails, I can recount nine encounters with black bears while hiking. Every bear fled, frightened. Except one.

Hiking the Thirteenmile Trail south of Republic, Wash., I awoke a bedded down bear just off the trail. He started running toward me, so I yelled and waved my arms. He didn’t respond favorably. I tried shinnying up a tree even though black bears climb trees.

Realizing there was no way I’d get far enough up, I dropped down and gave one last, deep-voiced yell and threatening wave of arms. The bear was undeterred. It quickly closed the gap between us. Standing my ground, the bear slid to a halt, inches away. I could’ve pat him on the head. After a brief pause, he turned and ran away.

Never growling or acting aggressively except to run toward me, I theorized he was groggy after being startled awake. Realizing I was human, he did what bears normally do. I resumed my hike, making noise for a while, then not even worrying about it.

On another one of my hikes in Northeast Washington near Horseshoe Lake, I stopped for a good view while descending a ridge. Seventy feet below me, I noticed a pair of bear cubs. The sow was a bit farther down.

After a few moments watching, I tossed a pine cone which landed below me. The cub ran to mom, whimpering at being startled. The sow, suddenly alert, scanned the landscape thoroughly before relaxing. I was amused something so simple as a pine cone falling to the ground scared the cub. I retreated, made plenty of noise, and resumed hiking down the ridge.

As I expected, the family of bears had disappeared. I was lucky I’d stopped at just the right spot to see them without being seen. Had I walked straight into the bear family, it could’ve been bad news.

Things didn’t turn out so pleasantly for Michael Reasoner, a Forest Service assistant silviculturist. In August 2017, traversing through the thickly wooded Caribou Creek Drainage in North Idaho, he happened upon a black bear cub who ran, whimpering, to mom.

Reasoner believes what he did next caused a dangerous encounter. When he turned to walk away, the 300-plus pound sow galloped after him. She came within 20 feet, growling and huffing aggressively. Reasoner talked to the bear calmly and soothingly.

Eventually retreating, the sow returned, charging again. More talking caused the sow to back off, but then charged a third time, coming within 10 feet of him. He raised his hands and yelled. A loud, aggressive standoff ensued as the bear responded likewise.

The sow eventually backed off before charging a fourth time. Reasoner pulled out his core auger, a forestry tool used to determine the age of trees, and behaved as aggressively as possible while slamming the auger against a tree. Agitated, the bear came within five feet, growling loudly, spit flying from her mouth.

When the sow turned to check on her cub, Reasoner hid behind a large Douglas fir. Shortly after, she returned, searching and sniffing about but didn’t find him. Able to slip away, Reasoner moved quickly until coming to a steep hill. The 20-minute adrenaline-fueled encounter had left him completely drained, and he could barely exert himself, but he had made it away safely.

Reasoner told me he has five to eight encounters with bears each year. The bears, he says, almost always run away. Crossing paths with a sow and cub was a first and his only frightening bear encounter.

It took a couple years before he could begin his daily forest trudges without feeling uneasy. He didn’t have bear spray that day, but now carries it, always. His story gives good reason for me to do likewise.

James P. Johnson’s book “Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Freshwater Shark Attacks,” came out March 2022. He wrote about five things to never do at a lake for the July-August 2022 issue.

Find stories in the OTO archives about bear safety, including “Bear Country Safety Advice” by Crystal Atamian.

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I’ve lots of pleasant memories of time spent at the lake. Unpleasant memories? Not as many, but enough to make a list. Most of these lake-related experiences were the outcome of questionable or perhaps poor judgment, and I don’t recommend anyone following in the footsteps of my folly.

While a college student, a friend and I went to my family’s lake place and had to wait longer than expected for a third friend to show up for water skiing. I suggested we continue anyway, minus the third person that allows for the legally-required spotter whose job it is to hoist an orange flag whenever the skier is down in the water.

Long Lake (aka Lake Spokane) really is a long and spacious body of water that left plenty of room, especially several decades ago, to ski away from other boaters, I reasoned.

I’d always considered uniformed officers and flashing blue lights the domain of land until that day. Seeing them behind us on the water was a surreal and sobering experience for sure. Skiing without an observer must have been a rare violation back then.

When I went to court a few weeks later hoping for a fine reduction, I had to explain to the puzzled judge what the ticket was all about.

On another occasion, a very experienced fisherman friend invited me to opening day at Amber Lake in eastern Washington’s channeled scablands. I had no cause not to trust him when he explained that with a limit of seven fish, our boat of three anglers could bring in 21 in total. Sounded law-abiding to me.

The third member of our group had a very poor day fishing. When we returned to shore with our 21 fish, we were met by a game warden who’d been watching us with binoculars.

Who had a poor rest of the day was quickly reversed. Being clearly in the wrong yet not an intentional poacher, I didn’t bother going to court and mailed the full fine amount.

Once, while slalom skiing on the lake-like reservoir waters of the Snake River, I fell, rolling across the surface after my ski came off.

By freak chance, my foot struck the rogue ski, breaking my fifth metatarsal. I was in a cast for several weeks. Certainly an item for the unpleasant list, but the potential for much worse occurred one beautiful day at Loon Lake.

Alone on a floating dock, I determined it might be fun to dive under it and swim from one side to the other. Once again my foot played a lead role in a lake-based misadventure when it somehow got caught in some chicken wire on the underside of the dock and I got caught underwater.

Inspecting how best to extricate my foot may have been the most rational reaction, but instead I panicked, kicking and thrashing. A knee-jerk, impulsive response is not how I usually operate, but in this case it was. My foot, thankfully, came loose before my lungs gave out and I swam free.

Is jumping from a boat at full throttle by thrill-seeking high school students poor decision-making? Definitely. Even when we did it years ago.

Lifelong friends Mike and Dave Dixon and I deduced that when jumping from a boat you have full control over how you enter, unlike falling when water skiing. Our reasoning resulted in this activity making both the questionable lake activity and pleasant memories list, depending on the day.

Best/worst technique—the cannonball. Mike once suffered the biggest loss on one of his jumps not from the boat but from the end of the dock—taking flight from the dock with his wallet on him. The murky water made finding it impossible that day.

My father eventually sold the family lake place, and one day he called, asking if I’d stop by the house of the couple who bought it. I lived a few blocks away and walked over. They handed me a worn wallet that had spent 20 years at the lake bottom.

My unpleasant list remained the same, but Mike’s was reduced by one.

James P. Johnson was born, raised, and is a longtime resident of the Inland Northwest. His newest book, “Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Freshwater Shark Attacks,” came out March 2022.

Find more Way Out There column stories in the OTO archives.

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I called my dad who practices Vipassana at a stupa-filled monastery in Bali.  

“What do you think, Dad? Should I go?”  

“Definitely,” he said.   

“Why?”  

“For the same reason people pray, or take drugs, or climb mountains.” 

A month later my friend and I arrived in the snowy mountains outside Merritt, British Columbia, at Dhamma Surabhi Meditation Center. We put off checking in as long as we could, driving around on logging roads until dusk, savoring the last moments of normal life. And then it was time. We relinquished all communication devices, were shown our cot in a small bare room, and began our 10 days of silent meditation—a self-imposed prison for people seeking change in their lives.  

We got five of hours sleep nightly, rising for the first “sitting” from 4 to 6 a.m. Then breakfast, more sitting, and a vegan lunch at 11:30, which is the last meal until the next morning. For the afternoon and evening, we were back to the cushion, muscles on fire, trying to hold ourselves up. During the breaks, no music, reading, writing or vigorous exercise was allowed—just a roped in area outside for walking, thankfully among trees.  

To keep the focus inward, you were not supposed to look in others’ eyes or even gesture. However, there was a sharing of sorts, the communication of orbiting around each other. Personalities were expressed differently in this context than in verbal exchanges. Moving silently and slowly with mostly young athletic men was reminiscent of stoic cowboys in a saloon, vigilant and poised, a potential shoot out in the air. Though here, they were harmless. 

The experience was quite challenging mentally and physically—not to mention unexpected symptoms that arise. At various points, I was sure I had diabetes, cancer, a heart attack, and a couple strokes. Why subject yourself to this pressure cooker of hardship and austerity with only the sounds of chewing, sneezing, coughing, footsteps, and the restroom? 

My friend and I returned home with an enduring agency over impulsive desires and dislikes. We learned meditation can reduce the need for sleep, periods of not talking are enjoyable, and you can go without dinner. We let go of worrying about other people’s impressions and judgments and ours of them. We learned to feel at ease with the pain of discomfort and with self-discipline. 

For most of us, modern life doesn’t afford the same hardships it used to. Instead of toil and pain, we face anxiety, depression, and addiction—the ills of a distracted, disconnected, overly stimulated population. Sometimes the antidote to these maladies is choosing the right hardship, such as Vipassana. Should you venture out for an enlightenment prison experience, seek advice from veterans on how to survive: the pillows to bring, ear plugs, anti-inflammatories, massage tools, etc. Happy inner travels!

More Enlightenment-Seeking Practices 

Shedding worldly comforts to achieve insight is a perennial practice, and there are many options if Vipassana doesn’t appeal.  

• My dentist attends a non-denominational Christian church that encourages 23 days of fasting, meditation, or prayer. Her current “fast” is from social media.  
• The Wim Hof method, popular among outdoor athletes, which uses breath and cold water to transform the body and mind.  
• Gentler Holotropic Breathing uses similar techniques of controlled hyperventilation.  
• Gentler yet, try flotation tanks.  
• Want extreme? Fly to Germany for a dark retreat where you spend days to weeks alone in a room with no light. Podcaster and “human optimizer” Aubrey Marcus in a recent episode says it’s unparalleled in intensity.  

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“I’m sorry,” he began. “I was driving down the street; now I know that if I don’t take a picture of you, I’ll go home and tell my wife, who I’ve been married to for 34 years, and she will have me F***ING COMMITTED. I almost crashed!”

I stood there, shovel in hand, and chatted a moment, barefoot in my underwear. Such are the things my neighbors endure since I began practicing the Wim Hof Method (WHM) last December.

So who is Wim Hof and what is his method? He’s a pretty way-out-there Dutch dude who paired a breathing exercise with cold exposure to improve strength, vitality, and emotional equilibrium.

Wim himself has set more than 20 world records doing things like climbing Kilimanjaro and (almost) Everest, swimming under oceanic ice, and running Arctic marathons—all in his underwear. 

Just to clarify, all WHM practitioners claim poetic license for the term “underwear” when they are probably just wearing shorts—probably.

Over the last couple years, WHM has become popular among endurance athletes as well as people with autoimmune issues like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and allergies. I’d like to chat with a cyclist working with it, because as yet I’m the only one I know who is. I felt good enough after two weeks that the 711-mile Cross-Washington Mountain Bike Race seemed like a good idea. I took eighth place.

The breath exercise is quick and simple: Take 30-40 deep breaths, then exhale and hold that exhalation as long as you can. You’ll probably get around 45 seconds your first round. I now average a little over three minutes on my third round. Wim can hold his for 10.

When your body is ready to breathe again (it will tell you), take a deep breath, hold again for 10-15 seconds, and then release it. That’s one round. Do three or four rounds, but don’t do it in a place where you might be in danger if you pass out, because you might. Best to do it on the floor or a couch, because that way if you need to fall down, you’re already there.

Cold exposure makes WHM a tough sell, but it begins gently enough with brief cold showers after running hot water for as long as you like. 30 seconds becomes a minute, then three minutes with no hot water, then five.

Somewhere in there you begin two-minute ice baths with your hands and feet and graduate to full body ice baths. And then there’s the endorphin release. How good would you have to feel to wander around in the snow, barefoot in your underwear?

If you’re interested in learning more, run down to Auntie’s Bookstore and get a copy of “What Doesn’t Kill Us” by Scott Carney, a dude who initially set out to debunk Wim Hof as a charlatan. You can also sign up for the WHM Fundamentals Course at wimhofmethod.com or come to a WHM workshop and mid-winter river dunk with Seattle-based WHM instructor Reed Wasser. 

Justin M. Short is a local rider whom you might meet commuting at some obscene hour, tearing up the jumps at Beacon, or grinding gravel in the middle of nowhere.

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The first 10 miles of this trip were quite ordinary; crossing streams, dodging the occasional downed log, the usual grind. But then we came across a person. Normally, this isn’t odd; but considering the snowy trail and that we were 10 miles into our hike, and this guy was in street clothes with no gear, we thought it was a little strange. Nonetheless, we exchanged niceties before continuing on our way. Then things got a little stranger.

We found a knife, or rather a foot-long tactical survival blade, lying in the snow. Rather than try to sleep through the night knowing the weapon was out there, we took it with us and stowed it in my pack to hide it from view. I’ve listened to too many true-crime podcasts to let that one go. 

A little further down the trail, a large, purple, metallic-glazed bong was waiting for us, breaching out of the snow. Next, we found a polaroid camera, with blank polaroid sheets, scattered about. Up to this point, for all we knew, there were some aspiring photographers high on cannabis, missing their Excalibur, wandering around in the snow as a late-spring wintery storm loomed threateningly in the sky. In an interesting twist, a black Jansport school backpack was waiting around the next corner, empty except for a speaker that was cutting in and out of static. That’s when Alex turned to me, looked me in the eyes and said, “That’s some Blair Witch shit right there.” 

Then we came across person-number-two, seemingly talking loudly on a cell phone.  When he saw us, he immediately turned-tail and rapidly hiked away, in the direction we were hiking. His dog bounded behind him, looking concerned and whining. Then wouldn’t you know it, Hansel and Gretel LEFT. MORE. STUFF. A bunch of grapes. A small pocketknife. Some pot. And a cell phone, with a text from a person listed under contacts as “mom,” asking, “Are you alright?” As soon as I picked up the very-cold phone and read that startling text, the battery expired and the phone screen went dark. 

Around the next corner, we encountered a young man, possibly high school-aged, sitting in a stream of glacial-runoff, yelling nonsense, with his dog nervously pacing around him. My immediate reaction, ignited by self-preservation and experiences as a female solo hiker, and lack of experience with people on drugs, was to get the hell out of there and call for help from the safety of far away. But both Alex and Chris knew we needed to help, and calling 911 at the bottom of the road, 7 miles later, would be far too late for these young men. 

We hatched a plan based on our strengths and comfort levels:  the two guys would stay with the person in the stream, attempt to get him out and onto the trail, while Remi and I would hike out until we could reach cell signal and call 911.

I hiked out quickly, skirting around the snow and wondering when I’d run into person-number-three, a murder victim, or possibly another sword. I found cell service about half-a-mile away. I called 911, was put in touch with Search and Rescue (SAR), and was given a new plan: hike back and make sure the person we found didn’t have additional weapons, start hiking towards the trailhead to rendezvous with SAR, and on the way try to text a photo, name, and phone number of our rescuee to SAR, along with coordinates every half-hour as cell service allowed. Easy enough, right?

By the time I returned to my friends, they managed to get the guy onto the trail, but not without some consequences. In the process of extracting him from the stream, Alex was thanked with a punch to the face and a bite from a protective but very worried dog. Rescuing someone who wants to be rescued is one thing. But this guy seemed to be under the influence of something very mind-altering, which made rescuing him a very different experience. 

When I arrived, they were having difficulty aiming the guy in the right direction; he wanted to hike in the direction opposite of the SAR rendezvous and extraction point. He did, however, seem to want to follow me. With temperatures dropping and the stormy weather moving in, it became clear that the only way to get us all moving in the correct direction was for me to hike in front, while one of my friends hiked on the guys’ heels to keep him at a good distance, and the other carried both his own backpacking equipment and the Jansport backpack of contraband. 

I managed to snap a photo to send to our SAR friends, but I couldn’t get a comprehendible answer for a name and only managed to get one-two-three-four-five-six-seven for a phone number. Periodically, the guy would charge ahead and lunge at me, but Alex would grab him, assuaging the situation. One time, though, he wasn’t quick enough, and I was shoved to the ground before our rescuee slipped in the snow and laid face-down, arms by his sides, as if he were giving up. Hoisting him to his feet and encouraging him down the trail, we pressed on.

Two miles of trudging through the snow later, we arrived at the trailhead where officers were waiting for us. The guy we were helping was pretty placid by that point, and wet and hypothermic. The first guy we ran into hiked out 15 minutes later, admitting that both he and his friend were hiking and dropping acid. I was asked if I could get the guys’ dog into the back of one of the trucks. When I tried, the dog slipped its collar and tried to bite me. Remi, who is supposed to protect me or at least be concerned about my wellbeing, was too busy getting head scratches from one of the policemen to care.

The officers gave us a ride to our car at the bottom of the road. When they dropped us off, they said we were responsible for saving the guys’ lives. With the lack of equipment, food and water, and the freezing conditions expected that night, they likely would have died. This story had a happy ending compared to what could have happened.At the time of our adventure, which we fondly refer to as the Acid Mountain Rescue Team, Alex, Chris and I had only known each other for several months. We’ve been on several other (much less dramatic, but still adventurous and fun) backpacking trips in the central Cascades since then. Some things are still the same, like how Remi still carries the beer (that we never got to enjoy on this trip). We hope the young men involved in our story learned a lesson about the outdoors, and we hope we never come across a situation like this again. But if we do, we learned a thing or two about how to be an even more effective Acid Mountain Rescue Team in the future. 

Written by Alix Whitener

Read Tips for Placing Emergency Calls in the Backcountry

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There is, in the mushroom genus Psilocybe, and you are not allowed to have them because their active compound psilocybin is a Schedule One drug. Schedule One drugs are “substances, or chemicals….with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Why would our nation, the self-proclaimed greatest democracy and leader of the free world, misclassify a substance with such remarkable potential to its citizens? 

If you want to find out, read “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan. He takes a characteristically coy approach, clearly laying out the current research and history of psychedelics in an engaging narrative while letting the readers make their own assessment. The book is written to give an objective picture, yet this picture becomes increasingly rosy as Pollen weighs the scientific data and dives into his own experiences. 

“How to Change Your Mind” was published in May of last year, which will likely prove to be a pivotal development in our country. Histrionic? I think not. Within a month of the release, it was a hot topic around town and soon an acquaintance had bought me a copy. Then the American Conservative printed an article “A Christian Approach to Psychedelics” arguing the book and its contents warranted greater discussion as a matter of personal liberty and possible facilitator of one’s connection to god.  

There are three reasons for the fervor. Michael Pollan, a Harvard and Berkeley professor and author of widely read books on food ethics and culture, wrote it. Secondly, the subject, psychedelics, have been a foundational influence in many people’s lives and intrigued or frightened the rest. Third, the timing was perfect. 

If you haven’t noticed, our world is changing fast. And, no, this is not just what we have always said. In the last decade we embraced our LGBTQ community and began legalizing marijuana; the internet brought us how-to instructions on just about anything and also facilitated civil rights revolutions around the world; Burning Man spawned an endless spring of creative and life affirming festivals; finally, you can now pretty much say or wear anything without being ostracized.  We are in a highly accelerated period of increased liberty and expression. There is a subsequent softening outlook on psychedelics. 

Another influence is the long list of famous people who have praised psychedelics or even give them credit for their success. A few examples are Cary Grant, Susan Sarandon, Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, Francis Crick (who discovered DNA), Phil Jackson (legendary basketball coach), John Coltrane, Oliver Sacks, and a seemingly large swath of Silicon Valley.

Are there risks? Yes, as with most transformative endeavors: fasting, backpacking, surgery, falling in love, or starting a business.  However, for perspective, the results from the 2017 Global Drug Survey, which compiles data from volunteer drug and alcohol users, listed eating mushrooms as having only a one in 500 chance of needing emergency medical care. That is 20 times less than meth, seven times less than alcohol, and three times less than marijuana. Of all substances surveyed, mushrooms were statistically the safest to use. Keep in mind that, like any experience, some people don’t enjoy it. 

The next obvious question is whether it should be legal and to what degree. Many mental health scholars are in favor of guided clinical use but not recreational access. Psychedelic advocates feel exploration of consciousness is a basic right. They point out Psilocybe suppression began not with concerns about health and safety but by Spanish Catholic missionaries. In the 1600s they banned and violently suppressed mushroom use by Aztecs because the sacrament threatened the authority of the church. The debate is growing and now entering the realm of legislation.  

The first crack in the ice was a 2006 unanimous Supreme Court ruling, in spite of the Bush Administration’s objections, to allow churches to continue to use plant based psychotropics in worship rituals. In January 2018 a ballot measure to legalize psilocybin was introduced but failed in California. Then, last month, the barrier was breached when Denver voted to decriminalize their use and possession. Next year a similar measure goes up for election in Oregon. Michael Pollan’s book makes public the struggle to change our relationship with psychedelics and also clearly represents the change that is coming. 

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