---
title: 'Taking the Magic Out of Magic Mushrooms'
date: 17-07-2022
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    'og:url': 'https://danpercival.com/scratchpad/taking-the-magic-out-of-magic-mushrooms'
    'og:type': website
    'og:title': 'Taking the Magic Out of Magic Mushrooms | DANPERCIVAL'
    'og:author': 'Dan Percival''s Blog'
---

![Taking the Magic Out of Magic Mushrooms](magic_mushroom.jpg "Taking the Magic Out of Magic Mushrooms")

[Taking the Magic Out of Magic Mushrooms](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/opinion/hallucinations-psychedelics-depression.html)

By Dana G. Smith

_Dr. Smith is a health and science writer and a former psychology researcher._

_Nick Fernandez was in hell — one filled with fire and skulls and the long-legged elephants from a Salvador Dalí painting. A spirit had guided him there after his funeral; other stops on their journey included Grand Central Terminal, the top of the Empire State Building and the sewers flowing beneath New York City. Their final destination was a cave where Mr. Fernandez encountered his own body, hung up on a clothes hanger. By examining his body in this way, he was able to come to peace with all that it had been through and accept it as his own._

_Mr. Fernandez was tripping on a very large dose of psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms. He took the drug as part of a [clinical trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909164/) at New York University for people dealing with anxiety and depression following a cancer diagnosis._

_That [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31916890/) and [several](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852780/) [others](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3) have found that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin are remarkably good at alleviating symptoms of depression and anxiety — even in many people who do not respond to currently prescribed medications. They need to be taken only a few times (most clinical trials consist of two or three psychedelic sessions) instead of daily for months or years. Some experts say the therapy could be thought of as a surgery that solves a problem with a single procedure instead of a continuing treatment to manage a chronic condition._