NOTE: I have Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder, Aspergers, hospitalized five times, with three suicide attempts. This will sound ranty because, uhm, I am in a different state of consciousness. I also consider myself a Shaman by heritage, not by choice, my mother's lineage comes from the Sami people.

I hate these articles. Why? Because first, they make money off of my lived experience while I am forced to live in a van on disability. There should be a law that if you write about a group of suffering people a portion of the profit should go to the group you are writing about. But these articles do nothing to help people like me. And please do not tell me they increase sympathy because my situation has only gotten worse over the last 15 years, before getting better on my own accord, and I have read countless of these articles. What would help these other lost shaman is housing to lower our stress so we do not have to keep taking trips into these other consciousnesses that no one cares about. But oh well.

Second, why just talk about depression? Why not mania, or being drunk, on ecstasy, drinking coffee, or being on meth? They all change your consciousness. What world or realm you perceive is based on what genetics, diet, pollution, stress, drugs, etc to which you are exposed. But for some reason everyone loves depression, it is the most romantic and safest of the mood disorders.

Third, the reason mushrooms work is the same reason prozac, lamictal, or lithium work. It changes the neuro-chemistry of the brain. Psilocybin is an extremely potent serotonin 2a (HTR2A) receptor agonist. It has nothing to do with your experience from the trip, that is all just a romanticized notion lefty over from the 60s. The "trip" is just a side effect. These same receptors casue pain disorders and the are researching Psilocybin for pain as well.

When I was younger I tripped without using mushrooms, certainly more when I was manic. Why? Genetics. I know, I have my genetics, it's all there.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19855357/

Fourth, this is not a revelation to anyone who has spent time with the disorder and dabbled in any eastern religion. The consciousness we share is based on a delicate balance of a somewhat similar functioning brains. Even slight deviations of that and our consciousness is split from crowd, even from your closest partner. When I became as serious mediator under the Theravada branch of Buddhism it was very easy for me to trip while meditating. The studies that have been done on mediators found they had an increase amount of the metabolites of serotonin.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4769029/

That is not a coincidence!

Finally, the people who described depression were right on. Our change unconsciousness allows us to see the different worlds that lay outside the realm of the common consciousness. So maybe instead of making us poor and saying we have a disorder, how about return us to our correct place in the social structure as spiritual seers and shaman. Instead of being scared of us or tryingt o fix us, listen to the stories we have to tell about what surrounds all of you but none of you can see. There is plenty to be depressed about that you all do not see becasue of all the coffee and alcohol.

As a shaman, I will tell you, Psilocybin is not the answer for people with depression. The answer for depression would entail changing the entire socio-economic structure. All Psilocybin will do is MAYBE help you see that truth, but usually it is just a vacation from your current consciousness. The answer to depression is welcoming it and listening to it. (Yes, this is hard because our culture does not care if you have a change in consciousness. You will lose you job and become homeless. But do you think it is a coincidence that Buddha, Jesus, and St. Francis all talked about being homeless?)

I no longer take medications to control my changes in consciousness (Well, sometimes klonopin) and I mostly welcome my homelessness. But now I just let these changes happen, they tell me stories of what I need to do, what to fix in my life, and what should be fixed in others lives.

Blessed be the seers.