🫠 Ask a Guide Anything

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We're the psychedelics newsletter that would like to be thought of as a wise grandpa. (Realistically, we're the crazy aunt.) 🙃

Mushrooms get all the love and attention.

(Shoot, even our mascot is a smiling cubensis.)

But let’s not forget about the phallic towering, mescaline-packed cactus growing in backyards across the country. We’re equal-opportunity plant medicine enjoyers around here, ok?

So for today’s newsletter, we asked our network of licensed psilocybin facilitators: How do mushrooms compare to San Pedro, and when might one be a better fit than the other?

They describe the differences after the jump.

We’re on a mission to help us many people as possible access safe and transformative psychedelic healing.

We’re not dummies. We know cost is a major barrier.

Althea's Pick is a relatively low-cost way to have a full-dose, legal psilocybin experience with a licensed facilitator. (We’re able to drop the cost well below market rate by placing you in a small group with providers in our network.)

We now have dates on the calendar in both Oregon and Colorado through the end of the year. Now’s the time to plan ahead, so you’re not scrambling for the next open spot.

And if you need help with flights, lodging, or logistics, just ask. We got you.

Whether you call it spirit or mechanism, each of these medicines has its own signature. Kate Schroeder tends “to think of mushrooms and San Pedro as two different teachers. They may take you into some of the same territory, but they often have very different ways of getting you there.”

Masha Steiner-Renoir goes a step further in characterizing the two: “I think of mushrooms as the Niños Santos—the ‘Holy Children.’ They can be playful and beautiful, but also unpredictable, direct, and surprisingly challenging teachers. San Pedro feels more like a wise, gentle grandfather: steady, heart-opening, and relational.”

As for ol' grandpa, Monica Ramunda has seen the effects he has on folks: “People may describe a sense of warmth, connection, compassion, and emotional openness, and sometimes that feeling seems to linger for several days afterward.” What a sweetheart.

One of the ways San Pedro shows its gentle side is the come-up. Terry Turner contrasts it with more fast-acting psychedelics: “If a person has a great deal of anxiousness in general or around a journey in particular, the gentle onset of mescaline enables one to process the experience more fully without shutting down due to excess anxiety or fear.”

Just make sure you’re willing to take the ride. Terry discloses the tradeoff: “The downside to all this is that the onset of mescaline can be very slow, up to 2 hours, and the experience lasts considerably longer than psilocybin.” 

Scientific studies put the difference in perspective. According to Monica, “Controlled research on mescaline has found effects lasting around 11 hours on average, compared with about 5 hours for psilocybin.” Hope you’re not planning on being somewhere. (Other than here now, of course.)

Now, don’t over-index on the plant, because there are confounding variables here. (Most of 'em have to do with you.) Kate lists the other factors: “Dose, preparation, nervous system, intention, environment, expectations, and simply who you are that day can profoundly shape an experience.”

Monica agrees: “The fit depends on the person, what they are hoping to explore, how much time they have, their health and medications, and the setting and support available.”

And before you get too excited, Kate brings us back to reality: “Ultimately, the medicine doesn't do the healing for us. It may open a door, loosen something tightly held, or offer a different vantage point. What matters enormously is what we bring to that opening and what we do with it afterward.”

Even though they're technically both “classic psychedelics” (i.e., 5-HT2A agonists), psilocybin and mescaline are very different if you ask us.

For all you mushroom lovers, one thing you should know about mescaline is that it usually doesn’t produce the same sort of otherworldly hallucinations as psilocybin.

Instead, mescaline turns up the resolution and novelty on what is already here. In a word, it makes you present.

Now, if you’re expecting dazzling sacred geometry, that might sound boring or anti-climatic. But Aldous Huxley would beg to differ. In The Doors of Perception, he talks about being absolutely blown away by the leg of chair and the folds in his trousers.

(In case you’re curious, recent brain-imaging research may explain why mescaline makes the ordinary world feel so extraordinary.)

You know what? On closer inspection, our trousers are pretty spectacular, too.

Thanks to Jon S. from Space Coast, FL for submitting this week’s question. 🫠

Reply to this email to shoot your shot. If it’s a juicy one, we may select it for a future issue.

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.